January 15, 2009
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Monstrous
That is the only word that comes to mind when I think about the current crises in Gaza. Between December 27, 2008 and January 14, 2009, 1013 Palestinians have died, 4,560 have been injured. This is compared to a whopping 13 Israeli dead and 138 wounded. Of the 1013 Palestinians who have died at least 670 were civilians. At least 311 were CHILDREN!
Let you think that the “Rockets” fired into Israel somehow make up for this, think again. In the entire month of December, the number of Israeli killed by Palestinians in Israel was a whole 4. (1 soldier, 3 civilians) That’s right. 4. During the same month, 465 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in Gaza. Think the historical record would show better? Nope. Just between 2005 and 2007, a mere 11 Israeli have died to rockets. During the same period, 1,290 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF in Gaza. 222 of which were children.
Israel claims to be doing all they can to prevent civilian casualties… and yet we hear reports of them firing into Schools housing refugees, into hospitals caring for the injured, shelling media towers that report the information on the ground, and attacking the United Nations buildings setup within Gaza. It’s not like they don’t know these places are there. These attacks are unforgivable. They should be condemned by *everyone* around the world. And yet they go barely commented upon in the US media.
We can bicker for a long time about the history of the Israelis and the Palestinians. Who broke what agreements. Who has the right to the land. Etc. Etc. But we should all agree one one fundamental essential principal. THIS level of violence MUST STOP. It’s Unacceptable. It’s intolerable. This is a matter of basic simple morality. Israel must STOP.
They are calling this the Gaza Massacre throughout the Arab world. Massacre. And if only it were only just killing. Gaza only receives 28% of the Aid supplies the people depend on for basic survival that they got before Hamas was elected. 37% of the workers in Gaza are unemployed. The people there simply have no choice but to fight or wait to die.
There is this groteque sickening notion that absolutely anything can be justified by calling your enemies the dreaded word “Terrorist”. It’s like since Gaza is lead by Hamas we no longer even consider any of the people of Gaza to be human. Their deaths don’t count. We paint them all as guilty as the people who fired the rockets. And that’s just sick. Make no mistake, NONE OF THE 311 CHILDREN WHO WERE KILLED WERE TERRORISTS! Even if Hamas was strapping bombs to their chest and pushing them out there (which they WEREN’T, there’s been no reports that I’ve seen of Hamas using children to fight for them) they still wouldn’t deserve their fate.
This SHOULD be THE news of the day. The world should be protesting. Not just the Arab world. Not just the UN. The ENTIRE WORLD. Obama should make an unequivocal public DEMAND that Israel stop the war backed by the full force of the United States Military and supported by virtually every nation in the world. Instead we have the Palestinian Prime Minister boasting about how he has President Bush wrapped around his little finger and a nation preoccupied with a big stupidly extravagant Inauguration Party most of which don’t even realize that anything is happening in that part of the world or probably wouldn’t care even if you told them. To them, it’s “Just another Middle East Conflict”.
In a world that made sense, Xanga would be litered with blogs condemning or at least DISCUSSING this conflict. But I have seen none. We care a thousand times more about debating trivial changes to the Xanga User Interface or meaningless rants about age-old unaswerable questions about religion than we do about a real life massacre unfolding before our eyes.
I don’t usually ask this, but if you care about this issue at all, please recommend this post. Star this post. Promote this post. Or please by all means study the facts and then write your own post about it. And then let’s all star and recommend those posts too. Let’s Start talking about THIS. Let’s start debating it. This is Important. It really is.
For how can we ever expect to have peace in that part of the world, if we treat their tragedies and their wars as if they aren’t even worth a smidgen of our attention?
Comments (7)
“The News” will never focus on things like this, all the tragedies happening in other countries. I was just thinking about something similar regarding the conflicts in the Niger Delta.
@AlterEgo909 - The thing that’s weird is our media DOES cover some tragedies. God you couldn’t get anybody to shut up about the Georgian conflict. We just seem to be very selective in what we care about.
Well, I have seen a post or two condemning this conflict.
I think people are just afraid to speak out.
@nephyo - Veeeery true.
As sad is this is, We are to some extent the United States of Israel. We along with England helped start this conflict and we are the ones who are supplying the weapons Israel is using. I hope Obama does indeed do something. He’s been wishy washy on the subject but now is the time to take a stand and not let it escalate to a third world war.
I’ve actually been wanting to post about this, but I don’t feel like I know enough about it presently. I’ll do some research this weekend and post about it.
Thanks for posting about this. Thanks a bunch.