On Silence In The Face of the Death Of 250 Children in Gaza
Actually, not everyone is silent. Some of us are quite vocal (lot of good it does!). But what about the others?
It's simple really.
Human beings are not silent in the face of the death of children.
They are silent in the face of the death of some children .
The same people who can weep over the deaths of kids in Darfur or Bosnia or Hiroshima or Warsaw, can ignore the deaths of kids in Gaza by saying, "well, they were put there by Hamas." Or "it is just too complicated."
But, at bottom, most don't care about these kids because they are Palestinian kids.
As someone who knows Jewish history, this indifference to the death of certain kinds of babies doesn't surprise me.
It is not going to change.
So let's just change what we say about it. Let's stop saying that we care about the killing of kids because we don't. We care about the killing of children when the killing is perpetrated by our enemies. If the killing is perpetrated by us or our friends we can justify it. And we do.
Let's do this.
Out of respect for the dead little ones, let's stop saying we think killing kids is wrong. Let's stop evoking World War II. Or Rwanda. Why lie? We only care about our own.
Just as they only care about theirs.
***
If you do care, send a check here.
And read Jim Zogby here.
You are wrong. Sometimes the silence is because it hurts too much to speak out again and again with no effect against the idiocy and insanity and inhumanity that is Israel's war policy (to say nothing about the other insanities and crimes by other actors in this disaster). Al Franken, newly elected liberal US senator pandering to the Jewish/Israeli war supporters. A diarist at dailyKOS who justifies every action that Israel takes, every crime, every death because (and I am not making this up. I swear): the ELECTION of Hamas was a declaration of war on Israel because they call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
January 12, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
On Silence In The Face of the Killing Of millions Children In Serbia, Afghanistan, Congo and many other places.
Here is a good example. There are only 22 comments to this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/congo-rape-as-a-weapon-of_n_151692.html
Where is you proportional response, liberals? Why do you pay less attention to the death of 100000 children in Congo than to the death of a single child in Gaza?
January 12, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an American, my government, my elected representatives, my tax dollars, and weapons built by my country directly contribute to the slaughter of Palestinians. Our collective responsibility for the crimes of Israel makes it a more prominent issue. Further, our culpability in Israeli crimes against humanity is used as a recruiting and propaganda tool for terrorists who want to (and sometimes do) attack us, so for pragmatic reasons as well this conflict becomes more prominent.
January 13, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
David asks,
Maybe the best answer to your question is another question:
Why does the news media cover the Israeli/Palestinian conflict exponentially more than what is happening in the Congo, thereby causing "less attention" to be paid to the Congo?
And maybe one reason is because they aren't dropping American made bombs etc. in the Congo?
Maybe because those doing the killing in the Congo aren't our "allies"?
January 13, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do we supply the weapons in Congo? Could we stop the killing with a single phone call from our President?
Do we supply billions in aid?
How exactly are we implicated?
It's like this. My brother, who I lived with all my childhood, kills someone. I'm filled with guilt. I didn't do it. But he's my brother. We grew up in the same house.
Another guy I never met in a town far away kills somebody.
Both cases equally terrible. But in only one do I have any sense of responsibility.
January 12, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's like this. My brother, who I lived with all my childhood, kills someone. I'm filled with guilt. I didn't do it. But he's my brother. We grew up in the same house.
Another guy I never met in a town far away kills somebody.
Both cases equally terrible. But in only one do I have any sense of responsibility.
So here you're basically saying that tribalism, which you have elsewhere claimed to abhor, is a good thing?
January 12, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, don't lok for logic in M.J. writing.
January 12, 2009 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not Jewish, and I've had, in addition to Jewish friends, quite a number of Arab and Moslem friends in my life. But I understand exactly what MJ is saying here; one needs no tribal identification with Israel to understand it.
It's undeniable that Jewish people are interwoven into the fabric of this country, far more than Arabs are. Even if MJ were not Jewish himself, I can imagine him saying the same thing because of the way in which our relationship with Israel has been so close over the years. And you missed the other part of his comment, which provides additional context:
We just do not have the sort of relationship with the Congo that historically we have had with Israel - perhaps we should, but we don't. Just where is this aniumus towards MJ coming from, artappraiser?
January 13, 2009 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Could we stop the killing with a single phone call from our President?"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424929369&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullWho is your President? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Only he can stop the killing.
January 12, 2009 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"They are silent in the face of the death of some children. The same people who can weep over the deaths of kids in Darfur or Bosnia or Hiroshima or Warsaw, can ignore the deaths of kids in Gaza by saying, "well, they were put there by Hamas." Or "it is just too complicated."
and some can ignore the deaths of kids in other places in the world by saying:
"Do we supply the weapons in Congo? Could we stop the killing with a single phone call from our President? Do we supply billions in aid? How exactly are we implicated?"
your post could easily read:
Actually, not everyone is silent. Some of us are quite vocal (lot of good it does!). But what about the others? It's simple really. Human beings are not silent in the face of the death of children. They are silent in the face of the death of some children . The same people who can weep over the deaths in Palestine, can ignore the deaths of kids in Congo, Sudan, etc. by saying, "well, do we supply the weapons in Congo? Or " How exactly are we implicated." But, at bottom, most don't care about these kids because they are African kids.
January 13, 2009 6:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your despair and bitterness, MJ, but people often leap up immediately to help children who are not their own and who don't look like their own. It's the normal reaction, in fact.
We have a situation here where the pictures have been defined to devalue the lives of the babies who are shown being killed. Even to create hatred against them.
Do you remember when we all saw the Rodney King tape and were outraged? And then the defense lawyers for the cops on trial attached a narrative on the tape in the courtroom that changed the meaning of what was on the tape for the carefully selected jury?
People are told that Arabs and Muslims are terrorists who breed child terrorists. They'd send plenty of money and cry out in protest if they weren't told that repeatedly.
January 12, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Thanks.
I'm not despairing. I'm fighting. Post by post!!!!
:-)
January 12, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So let's just change what we say about it. Let's stop saying that we care about the killing of kids because we don't."
That's a painful thought. I think it applies to all humans unfortunately.
But discussing it in this context, I do believe it's important for Israelis to at least confront painful ideas like this, because there seems to be a fallacy among many Israelis that they are a hyper-moral people.
I don't believe they're particularly immoral, either. Just that they are people. Israelis need to drop the psychological shield of believing that everything they do is de facto moral, because it is in defense of an historically oppressed people. The scales need to fall.
Every nation has this mental shield (we've seen a record-setting 8 years of self-righteous moralizing in this country), but I think it may be especially acute in Israel due to its history.
When this conflict is over, humanity will have to rebuilt on both sides, just as sure as bricks and mortar.
January 12, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree
January 12, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think tribalism is ultimately immoral in general. Then again, I've also heard the saying, "the more humane you are, the less human you are."
Humans and their identifications are naturally dangerous, I guess.
The traditional Jewish identity of being almost uniquely historically oppressed, which makes the (slim?) majority of Jews tribal and less sensitive to others (who are vaguely seen as would-be oppressors) probably makes backlashes almost inevitable. "Is it good for the Jews" inherently places higher value on bad Jews than good goyim.
As the demographics of Israeli Jews change for the worse (more religious, more tribal, more us vs. the world), the backlashes will only intensify.
Join the world community, Israel! It's better for your soul than cleansing the "Holy Land." In short, it's good for the Jews.
January 12, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
If one deletesbad and good it seems like a possible inference.
But not when those adjectives are applied. Then it does not square with my own experience.
January 13, 2009 1:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I’m not a Jew but I don’t see how the Israelis can be looking forward to a bright future. Their tiny country is surrounded by suicidal maniacs hell bent on their destruction. They’ve got a birthrate less than half that of their sworn enemies. The most horrible engines of death are getting more powerful, available, and far reaching all the time.
If they’re historic victims of persecution as they claim, maybe they should be more introspective and try to find reasons for it. Maybe re-examine their religious dogma. I dunno. But they seem to have the same problems wherever they try to live.
January 15, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I shouldn't have used the word despair, but it broke my hear to think you might think human beings were born that way.
Have you read Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger"? A novella where Satan gives an education to a young boy, who at one point gets caught up in the mob-stoning of an innocent woman, and can't explain to himself why he ended up throwing a stone, too. But Satan knows, and explains:
"I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety- nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise--perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it--and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end.
"Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race--the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions."
I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.
"Still, it is true, lamb," said Satan. "Look at you in war--what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!"
"In war? How?"
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one--on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will-- warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers--as earlier-- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation--pulpit and all-- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
Twain can make you cry as well as laugh but you know -- there's a still a handful of people who care and, as the Buddha said, a few will understand. Carry on.
January 12, 2009 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
THANK YOU. I read TMS in high school. Those quotes are amazing. I'll re-read the book.
January 12, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Congratulations on both of your comments.
Also to MJ for a brave post.
Twain's accurately dark view of human nature was also reflected in The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg. Not that people are bad per se , but that it's never far away.
We can dismiss the image of onlooking Parisian housewives knitting while Marie Antoinette is driven to the gallows because
( and besides the wench is dead) just to finish the quotation.
But it's always present. Shirley Jackson's The lottery describes it in fiction.
But fiction isn't required ,look at the museum postcards of families out for a picnic and a lynching. Getting a two-for. With the kids, like kids anywhere, mugging for the camera in front of the 'Strange Fruit hanging from the Southern Tree'
in the background.
Or the Palestinian women ecstatically celebrating 9/11.Or us celebrating 100,000 japs fried in Hiroshima- I watched that day.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is
**Candide. Music by Lenny Bernstein,
lyrics , probably, by Richard Wilbur.
January 12, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should make clear, I didn't just watch.I too celebrated Hiroshima. And ,sad to say, still think Truman was right to authorize it
January 12, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you realize what you just said here? That's just terrible. History shows us the Japanese were making every effort to surrender when Truman committed that hideous act. Truman's only motivation was to impress the Soviets to improve our post-war political position.
January 15, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I understand your outrage and value your opinion. But I try very hard to be honest not to 'run with the fox and hunt with the hounds'.
Interestingly ,my father in law who had commanded a cruiser in the Pacific, like you disagreed with Truman's decision.
My knowledge of the situation in 1945 is bsed on a few articles by Murray Sayle in the New York Review. There may be better sources. From him,
I'm aware that there was a Japanese peace faction but that even after both bombs were dropped that peace faction had to essentially kidnap Hirohito (with his cooperation) since the war faction was still in sufficient control so that the peace makers feared they would prevent Hirohito from announcing to the nation that he
intended to make peace.
Certainly what we did was horrible. And certainly there was a chance that the Peace faction would have succeeded without the atom bombs. But if the War faction had continued in charge we would have continued our fire bombing probably killing more Japanese than had died in those two cities.
That's behind my thinking.
January 15, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh jeez..."The Lottery." Just the mention of it chills me to the bone and I read it way back in high school. I've been interested in and dismayed by the topic ever since. In fact, one of the first blog posts I made here at TPM was about this darker side of human nature: Another Inconvenient Truth, About Us You responded to my blog...do you remember, flavius?
The paradox, and perhaps the tragegy, is that it is only by seeing ourselves as we really are and acknowledging our dark side along with our exalted side that we can ever hope to overcome it. But we just don't want to see it.January 13, 2009 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't remember but then followed your link and reread your thoughtful post and of course my own comments. It's a deep subject.
January 13, 2009 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
"As someone who knows Jewish history, this indifference to the death of certain kinds of babies doesn't surprise me."
Don't follow what specifically you mean by this. That the Jews suffered from the indifference of others? (It alternatively sounds a little like you're saying Jews have a [particular] propensity for not caring about other children but I don't think you meant that.)
January 12, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, I meant that the world was indifferent to the deaths of 1.5 million Jewish children during the Holocaust. So it's no surprise that the world remains indifferent.
January 12, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the world including M.J. remains indifferent to murdering of Jewish children by Hamas.
January 12, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
David,
this post of yours is ludicrous. You would do better calling in to Conservative talk radio, people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would welcome your type of discourse.
January 13, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I actually ALMOST agree with Rosenberg, at long last. but the saddest thing he doesn't menton: that some of "those people who don't care about children in Gaza" are the Hamas terrorists who are partially responsible--ALONG WITH ISRAEL, OK?--for the children's deaths.
speaking to your point tho MJ: I see a LOT of Jewish people who obviously care deeply about those Palestinian innocents. you do, and so do many of the posters on here. I don't, however, see any Arab people who care about any of the Jewish deaths: in Sderot, in Mumbai, in New York, indeed in Germany in WWII. why is it that we Jews can get outside our tribal allegiances and grieve for the enemy's dead, but it is not reciprocal?
January 12, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because you're winning. It's asking too much of the losers to expect them to also sympathize with those winners who are suffering.Sadly.
That said,even tho you Jews have the easier task of the winners grieving for the losers, please don't think I deprecate that. It may be an easier test but it's one that lots of others fail And I congratulate you on that. And am not surprised.
January 12, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It's asking too much of the losers to expect them to also sympathize with those winners who are suffering.Sadly."
Perhaps not expect them to sympathize, but to glorify, celebrate, revel in and call for the death of anyone and everyone on the other side is a bit much, no? And to publicly declare that the death of their own children is subordinate to their divinely inspired aim is perhaps more abhorrent.
(Which is not to say that the scale of the suffering caused by the Israelis is necessarily acceptable)
January 12, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point.
January 12, 2009 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
January 13, 2009 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
M.J. Thank you for your posts over the past weeks. I am very ignorant about the subjects of your posts but have become more educated as I read what you write. I never planned to comment on your blog, because I didn't want my ignorance to show, but I cannot let the dead children pass. The whole world has not forgotten the dead children in this war and in wars past. I do care about them...all of them. I know I am not the only one.
January 12, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The proposition that anyone who seeks to defend, justify or explain the Israel/Hamas war in Gaza is indifferent to the deaths of children is beneath contempt. One might forgive this as a bit of rhetorical excess, a heartfelt plea, borne of "despair and bitterness," as the commenter above explained. However, having followed this blog the past few weeks, it is one of a piece with the self-aggrandizing bluster and bombast that characterizes the discussion. I've read and participated in reasoned discussions on the subject on other blogs here; it is indeed possible, but requires an ability to at least see, if only to disagree with, another point of view. Some of us grapple with issues, try to make sense of events in their context, find fault, but are not so quick to facile judgments of others' morality. Unfortunately, in MJ-Land, all is black and white. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the point of view, I expect more than vacuous moralizing from someone who expects to, and apparently is, taken seriously as an influential voice on Middle East affairs.
So you know where I'm coming from, I am not a full -throated supporter of what is happening in Gaza. I do know that the Hamas movement has, in its charter, called for the death of jews, has stockpiled weapons that it has used and announced its intention to use to kill jews, has openly boasted of using non-combattants, including children, as human shields, and eagerly exploits their deaths to serve its propaganda effort. I also question the necessity, wisdom, effectiveness, and yes morality of the Israeli war effort, given the appalling carnage inflicted on an immobile populace caught between the warring sides. On balance, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the Israeli side, which I believe does not seek to gratuitously harm civilians. Undoubtedly, this is in part based on my tribal identification, although I also believe in part based upon the application of my moral principles and historical context to the horror we see unfolding.
But make no mistake, I view the deaths of children (and while we're at it, MJ, it's not just children we should be concerned with, is it? What about all innocents?) as horrific, awful, tragic, heartbreaking. I know many Israelis - some who support the war, some who are against - all of whom care deeply about the suffering of the Palestinians. To call them indifferent because they do not agree with your conclusions about who bears responsibility hardly merits a response. Unfortunately, I find it hard to stand silent myself in the face of this self-serving, destructive nonsense.
One more thought, MJ... Just curious. Did you speak out so loudly against the deaths of children during the war in Afghanistan?
January 12, 2009 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I expect more than vacuous moralizing from someone who expects to, and apparently is, taken seriously as an influential voice on Middle East affairs.
Ditto. And I most certainly pray and hope that the Obama adminstration State Dept. feels the same way as well. As the Bush admin goes out, time for their liberal doppelgangers (i.e, M.J. and Karen Hughes, separated at birth?) to stop the "doppleganging" and either change tune towards addressing a grownup audience or to go as well, certainly for those who are the Obama supporters they claim to be.
January 12, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another oldie but not-so-goody who can't keep himself away from me.
Old home week. Where is Davai?
January 13, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am of the opinion that you misinterpret some of your hit count here. It entertaining sometimes to watch your continued practice of nearly every one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_fallacies
But it is also a guilty indulgence, and in the end, very saddening, because the topics you apply them to are so deadly serious, and not a parlor game. And you have been given more than one position of responsibility that allows you to frame the discussions. Careful and well-thought-out words and arguments matter in the world of diplomacy more so than anywhere else. It has not gone over my head that you make more careful and well-thought-out arguments in other venues, and that does make me wonder about your respect for Josh Marshall's operation.
January 13, 2009 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes
January 13, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
With the greatest respect , I disagree.
There are many here: MG,various commentators, you, who see this as a heart rending problem with which they are trying to come to grips.
January 12, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say present company excluded. I was referring to the usual back and forth, insults, name calling, scrum among the usual suspects and MJ. This thread, in fact, is the exception to the rule, thoughtful and sober, more than the original post deserved. And looking at it again, the subject of whether, if one seeks to justify what's going on from Israel's point of view, one must come to terms with the suffering and death of children, is undeniably apt. Proclaiming that anyone who does not share MJ's view is indifferent to the killing of children is offensive (or at the very least, deeply silly).
January 12, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't sweat it AG. It is not the compelling and universal message; it is the bizarre way it is exploited by the messenger. Ironically indeed, under the messenger's compelling definition of indifference, even the forum for which the messenger directs policy has a policy of indifference with respect to the deaths of Palestinian children:
http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/display.cfm?rid=2796
Ponder that.
January 12, 2009 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're back. You promised you'd never deign to post to my entries again. Bummer.
January 13, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I slip once in awhile, as you did when you promised never to post about Israel again (of course you may have deleted that post with all of the others you have deleted). I thought it was appropriate to show the community what the organization you work for has to say about this conflict, so that they could juxtapose that with what you have written and who you have condemned as indifferent in this post. Of course, it boggles my mind that you are so cowardly about standing by what you write at the Cafe. In any event, it is you and not I who claims to have the monopoly on virtue. Why don't you demonstrate some of that virtue by promising your readers that, just like every other regular contributor, you will never again delete a blog entry that you post at the Cafe?
Carry on Mr. Rosenberg.
January 13, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I'm not your teacher anymore. :-(
January 13, 2009 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have never questioned your knowledge and understanding of the Israelil-Palestinian conflict. I read your posts and sometimes I learn from them. I also think you could do so much more if you took your role here as seriously as you take it at IPF. But that's for you to decide and I have become comfortable in my self-imposed exile from your threads. In the end I wish you no ill-will.
January 13, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks.
January 13, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate the comments and I appreciate the post which drew them more than can express. I especially appreciated the Twain quote. I think some of us are quiet because we feel utterly powerless to change anything. Or maybe we don't have the art to express what we feel. I have to borrow the art of Friedrich Reichert set to music by Gustav Mahler:
Except their mother's house may well be desolate, abandoned, destroyed.
There are several versions of Kindertotenlieder #5 available on YouTube. Here's a link to Kathleen Ferrier's version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMsXvuz3Voc
January 12, 2009 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
amike?
(thunk)
January 12, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Homeaux
January 14, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
How would you propose stopping Hamas from using children as human shields? It is a thorny problem. This death toll and the reaction it has generated here for example seems to suit their purposes quite well.
January 12, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Talk to them. Observe a ceasefire. (Both sides should observe ceasefires, not just one. Israel never lifted the blockade although the kassams totally stopped).
January 13, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Talk to them! Do you honestly think that talk will cause Hamas to stop using children as human shields? Well, go ahead and give it a try.
That is one very slim possibility. Perhaps it would be better to work at eliminating the tremendous propaganda value of children used as human shields.
When CNN and others relplay Pallywood video without explaining the propaganda purpose of human shields they give Hamas every incentive to continue to launch missles and store explosives in close proximity to schools.
January 13, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate the comments and I appreciate the post which drew them more than can express. I especially appreciated the Twain quote. I think some of us are quiet because we feel utterly powerless to change anything. Or maybe we don't have the art to express what we feel. I have to borrow the art of Friedrich Reichert set to music by Gustav Mahler:
Except their mother's house may well be desolate, abandoned, destroyed.
There are several versions of Kindertotenlieder #5 available on YouTube. Here's a link to Kathleen Ferrier's version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMsXvuz3Voc
January 12, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I recall coming into our living room, where a vinyl record of Ferrier's Kindertotenlieder was playing. And finding our son, then a year and a half old, lying , perhaps crouching is a better description , with his head down and turned so an ear was directly on the bare floor boards, probably because that amplified the sound.
It's a poignant memory.
January 13, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is so beautiful. And, ignoramus that I am, totally unfamiliar to me.
Thank you.
January 13, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm unfamiliar with the music Kindertotenlieder but from what German I remember I see it must refer to children dying.
During WWII I saw dead children everywhere I fought, France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and I'll tell you, once you've seen the body of a dead child, 3, 6, 10 years old bloodied, mangled, torn apart by ordnance its something you never forget. Now multiply that by a hundred.
I see people here trying to rationalize the death of children, a "tit for tat", "eye for an eye", "well what about Dresden" bullshit and I think its shameful, absolutely horrid.
Energy should be expended in trying to bring it to a halt rather than to justify or excuse it.
January 13, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rosenberg your post was phenomenal. It is a very pleasant feeling to know that there are actually people still out there who can see the hypocrisy in our overall values of "human life".
The process of dehumanization of enemy states is not a new thing. It seems to be the only way in which man can commit atrocities towards non-combatants. Enemies subconsciously demote the group to a "lesser" status in their minds to bring justification for inflicting outlandish damage. We even see small examples of this in the armed forces by the "harmless nicknames" of enemy combatants instilled in every war.
We should really try to shy away from the "tit for tat" outlook when it comes to certain types of war. If a force slaughtered an entire hospital of children, it STILL does not give the victimized group the justification to respond through adolescent murder. What is the logic? To prove you are more retched than that which attacked?
As said in the posts before, we place a ranking system in what lives we as the Western world deem to be of importance. I have yet to see such an intense discussion about the recent ongoing war in the Congo, causing over 6 million deaths. It seems to be that the entire continent's civilian worth must be "low".
The children of the world are the children of humanity... a monstrous act, no matter how justified in one's mind still makes one a monster.
January 13, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you!
January 13, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing which is being ignored in this thread is that the Israeli/Gaza war is not Jews against Arabs, it is the Jewish religion against the Moslem religion.
Religious wars have had the least respect for human rights because "God" is on our side, and the other side is the side of the Devil so anything we do is justified and anything they do is unjustified.
According to both the Bible and the Torah, both Jews and Arabs are descendents of Abraham and are therefore related.
I just wish they would keep their family squabbles from affecting the rest of this world.
January 13, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I'll never understand the mentality of a militant that would deliberately endanger the lives of the non-combatant women and children of his community. On the one hand he's launching rockets that have only one purpose - to kill the maximum amount of civilians. And on the other he hides under the skirts of his women to guarantee they will suffer high losses.
I don't see how anyone can takes sides in this war - both sides have blood on their hands.
January 14, 2009 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink