Saul Williams sent out an email today that opened as follows:
We have overcome.
Except those of us now in Gaza. Except those of us whom police kill. Except those of us who are suspects. Except those of us whom the church hate. Except those of us damned to taste good. Except those of us held by fate. We are meeting in the capitol. Word is, freedom will not wait.
Visit his website too.
Andrew Sullivan has an interesting post up about Israel’s invasion of Gaza. In it he quotes an article which wrote:
Indeed, he at times seemed to offer this absence of strategy as a virtue, as evidence that the war had been forced upon Israel rather than chosen: “we have no grand political scheme… we were forced to defend ourselves to provide better security, period.”
Interesting how just a few posts ago I worried about what would be the consequences of countries invading one another without clear plans on how to accomplish their goals or get out feasibly. Frankly, this situation in Gaza is getting more worrisome by the day.
Link via The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (January 06, 2009) – Invading Blind .
Word comes today that two Israeli tank shells exploded outside of a UN school in Gaza. See the story here. From that article:
“There’s nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized,” said John Ging, the top UN official in Gaza, blaming the international community for allowing the violence to continue.
“I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this,” he said, speaking at Gaza’s largest hospital. “They are responsible for these deaths.”
As atrocious as this attack is it’s refreshing to see someone stand up to world leaders and call on them to resolve this issue. I can only see Israel stopping this attack on Gaza if it is forced to do so by the U.S., U.K., France, or some other powerful country. Here’s hoping that Ging’s call does not go unanswered and that some country presses Israel to stop this violence.
Juan Cole, President of the Global Americana Institute, has an interesting article/essay (warning, its very long so be committed to reading it) about the conflict raging in the Gaza strip. What his piece does is look at the types of wars that Israel has fought with its Arab neighbors over time. In the opening he writes that:
With regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we have entered the age of micro-wars.
This is an interesting characterization to me for many reasons. Cole’s article made me think (in a somewhat unrelated tangent to this article) about the current conflict.
I agree with the term “micro-war” because it does seem that these wars are significantly different from conventional warfare. While these wars are different in the sense that they don’t necessarily involve the “infantry, artillery, armor and air forces [that] played central roles” in earlier conflicts their seriousness is still conventional. What I’m worried about is that by characterizing these conflicts as “micro-wars” the press (assuming that this term gets spread in mainstream media) may be creating a situation in which the public begins to believe that these are simply small conflicts that aren’t lasting and that if we just give them time they will resolve themselves. I know this is a little different from what Cole means by micro-wars, but this is just how I see the majority of the public interpreting this term.
Furthermore, I have become concerned that in this age countries have begun to think that wars that they engage in will be resolved quickly (i.e. U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). What worries me is what happens if a “micro-war” that doesn’t necessarily have the full commitment of a nation’s military force becomes a much larger conflict that cannot be resolved quickly? We saw in Iraq what can happen when a country undertakes military force without a contingency plan for after the fighting. So long as Israel, and other countries for that matter, enter into these conflicts with plans for getting out and for stabilization then the problems can be mitigated. If they begin to enter into conflicts over religion, territory, etc. without thinking past getting what they want then these “micro-wars” could become “macro-wars” pretty quickly.
If you’re interested in seeing what Israel’s attacks on Gaza (and Hamas’ attacks on Israel) have done to the cities the New York Times has an incredible slide show of 14 pictures. See the link…
It seems as though every year the Western press expends heavy coverage over the latest raid by Israeli troops into Gaza and promptly forgets about those attacks that came before. Here’s an excerpt from a BBC article:
Israel said it was responding to an escalation in rocket attacks from Gaza and would bomb “as long as necessary”.
They were the heaviest Israeli attacks on Gaza for decades. More air raids were launched as night fell.
Staff at the main hospital in Gaza say operating rooms are overflowing, it is running out of medicine, and there are not enough surgeons to cope.
This portion comes right after a quote from Prime Minister Olmert about how “he pledged to avoid a humanitarian crisis.” Seems to me that by bombing a region for multiple days in addition to effectively turning that region into a closed-off island pretty well creates a humanitarian crisis.
Why does the press simply cover these repeated attacks by Israel with sympathy for the Palestinians but not recognize the perpetual aggression of Israel? If the press and the public were to have memories longer than a few months they would realize that this is a familiar course of events. Israel cordons off the Gaza Strip which then causes the Palestinians to retaliate. Israel then uses this retaliation as justification for increasing violent attacks against Gaza. I would like to see countries (all, not just Israel) held responsible for the history of their actions and to not simply treat each outbreak of violence as a separate incident. With this it would be easier to see a trend of increasing violence and hold countries responsible for the use of military force.
Link via BBC NEWS | Middle East | Massive Israeli air raids on Gaza.