This Is Not "Defending Itself"

There is a quote from Rabble In Arms by Kenneth Roberts that I have cited many times that goes, “They go to war, these young men, not to die for their country, but to place their precious lives between their home and the forces which would destroy it.” The point is that men, and today women, do not fight for abstractions like patriotism or freedom. Dying is not on their agenda. They fight because their homes have been threatened and they are determined to defeat the threat.

For the Palestinians from the West Bank, and especially from Gaza, this quote no longer applies. The “forces that would destroy their homes” has already done so and they no longer have any homes to defend. They have reached a position of such bleak desperation that the only option they have left is to die as visibly as possible to call the world’s attention to the plight of their people. And dying they are; men, women and children.

“WP” writes a brutal history of the Israeli occupation’s treatment of the Palestinians at Sic Semper Tyrannis and describes the current state of that affair. It is not pretty, and he pulls no punches. He says, for instance, that, “people worldwide will increasingly believe that Israel has become a monster nation with no interest in anything except further extermination of the Palestinian people,” a belief that I reached many months ago.

He describes Gaza as, “now a death camp. The Gazaians are on an involuntary diet, subject to a malicious coriander blockade that deprives their entire society of any hope,” and goes on to say that, “Israel bombs and attacks helpless people with impunity, teased on by fireworks rockets that nearly never kill. Truly, Israel plays the role of the ultimate bully.”

I will undoubtedly be called an Anti-Semite for recommending this piece, something which I am not, but I do recommend it. Read the whole thing. It speaks truth to power; power most horribly and brutally abused.