Eight Israelis have died in a string of stabbings, shootings and the stoning of a car, while 29 Palestinians -- including 12 identified by Israel as attackers -- have been killed.
And as a result
It's not a new story, just a newer version of an old story. But as I read it, I can't help but wonder how it might seem if the roles were reversed and Palestinians deployed hundreds of troops to quell the implicit and explicit violence perpetrated by Israel in its barely-concealed apartheid policies.JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli military began deployinghundreds of troops in Israeli cities Wednesday to assist police forces in countering a wave of deadly Palestinian shooting and stabbing attacks that have created panic across the country.
But of course the Palestinians do not seem to have recourse to the vast array of armaments Israel can and does bring to bear. Palestinian minions are shown throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails or are accused of brutal knife attacks. An occasional ill-aimed rocket seems to be their top-drawer military weapon.
"Don't bring a knife to a gun fight" and yet Palestinians do bring a knife despite the body armor and automatic weapons and tracked vehicles and gimlet-eyed rocketry. What injustice do the Palestinians imagine (or in truth) need to redress at such a cost? Does Israel seek to address such questions or do they prefer to wipe out what offends their "right to exist?"
The life-for-a-life attitude always seems to tilt three-to-one in favor of the better armed Israel which likewise has a more united propaganda front. The western press writes blithely from the Israeli point of view. Israel is fond of pointing to the Arab states with a policy of obliterating Israel and yet is curiously silent on its own mandate to eradicate its own version of 'infidels.'
Oh well ... I can't pretend to know better. But the arrogant imbalance is all a bit like the observation about pornography: "I may not know what it is, but I know it when I see it."
And to think that the arena of Arabs and Jews was once a place where Muslims and Jews got along without outbreaks of militaristic fervor on either side. Who upended that situation?
It seems to have started in 1948 when the israeli's declared the british held reservation to be their new state. A bit of jordan and a bit of syria, and of course states are all about borders. Take land from another nation and you've usually got a war on your hands.
ReplyDeleteBut it seems to have gotten worse when the israeli's started bulldozing towns and orchards to build settlements. That makes it more personal, more emotional. So gaza's from a refugee camp to an underfunded prison now, along with the west bank. They just haven't got all the walls up yet.
My doctor the jewish liberal says those people all deserve one another. There's a long history of living together there, and of warring with one another. That's true of anywhere of course, and makes it just human. So i guess we deserve one another.