Despite my delirious happiness at the inauguration of President Obama (oh hell yes), I spent the majority of my winter break reading The New York Times and mouthing “What the fuck?” to myself over and over again while reading about the gradually escalating armed conflict in the Gaza Strip. It wasn’t just because of Israel this time; on this particular occasion, everything about the situation made me angry. And I do mean everything.
On one hand, we had Israel. Now, I’ve never been a big fan of what Israel claims is “self-defense” because to me, “self-defense” always winds up looking like “reactionary, oppressive tactics that do no good in the long or short term and only add to the vicious cycle of misery and death that plague the Holy Land.” But then, it’s so easy to confuse those two. At least, it must be, because Israel seems to do it so often.
Let me say this one more time: Terrorism doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are reasons that Israel has more enemies than the Klan at this point, and many of them just revolve around the fact that the country has made some pretty dick moves in the past. But the way to convince a 10-year-old with a rocket launcher not to kill any of your countrymen rarely involves shooting his brother. Just saying.
On the other hand, of course, there’s Hamas. And there’s nothing I can say about Hamas, because it’s a terrorist group and terrorist groups are absolutely the dumbest groups that have ever been formed. Their leaders’ entire ideas revolve around shooting people until everyone else agrees with them. Shit, if winning an argument were that cut-and-dried, conservative publications would have twice as many readers.
Basically, both Israel and Hamas are practicing the same terrible “logic” that perpetuates pointless death. The only difference between the two at this point seems to be how many people they kill and why they kill them.
But the really hilarious people are the dumbest of all: the apologists. Doesn’t matter what side they’re on, they’re dumb and funny to watch. It’s like seeing clowns do stunts: watch Blimpy the Wonder Dunce jump through five flaming hoops while trying to explain why bulldozing settlements on the West Bank is integral to Israel’s survival! And if that put you on the edge of your seat, wait ’til you see his old pal Blanky put his head in a tiger’s mouth and convince the audience that randomly firing explosives in the general direction of your enemy is more effective than diplomacy and social responsibility. Bring the kids! They’ll love it, especially when Blimpy and Blanky do a magic trick and stick their heads firmly up their asses. That always gets a standing ovation.
The TV news talking heads didn’t help much either; a week after Israel invaded a country with goddamned tanks (Tanks!), they were back to talking about whether the average American could expect relief from the federal government under President Obama’s new economic plan. The question on my mind was still: “Can a Palestinian boy expect to get shot in the throat any time soon?” But clearly I do not have my finger on the pulse of the American viewing public.
This is what it all boils down to: There is no “right side” to be on right now. Being “right” in this situation would involve promoting peace throughout the region and justice for the people of both Israel and Palestine. But apparently, that’s just not a feasible option, or some genius surely would have thought of it by now.
Oh well. Back to blowing stuff up, I guess. It’s fun for the whole family.