Around noon today, the Israeli air force attacked Gaza. Current reports estimate a minimum of 155 Palestinian casualties. We are now also informed of Palestinian rockets being aimed at towns in the south of Israel in retaliation. In fact, these rockets have reached towns long beyond the 20 km range, which was adhered to prior to the current Israeli attack.
Tonight I will be protesting again. I will join other angry, ashamed Israelis at 7:30 pm at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque in a protest march. Others will be attending vigils in Haifa.
One might argue that protesting amidst such a broad consensus in Israel for escalating the conflict is futile. It may not be extremely efficient, but ignoring the atrocities would be tantamount to aiding and abetting the war crimes carried out by mainstream Israel.
It makes you wonder what force you would have if everyone who is sympathetic to the cause but has declared such acts "futile" actually joined in (or do you believe that even they are small in number?). Even after an apparently futile protest, it's impossible to know what positive impacts you've had, some of which may only contribute to something which materializes far in the future. Pessimism feeds oppression as much as the other way around...
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for showing the world that Israel has more than one voice (often forgotten for some reason). I'm curious though, I read in the papers that protests were equating the deaths in Gaza to genocide. Isn't that a bit over-the-top? I'm only asking because you're there, not insinuating that this is what you think. This attack has really poured fuel on just about everyone's fire.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard "genocide" being used in this regard, but "massacre" in both Arabic and Hebrew was. I even carried a sign in Arabic saying "stop the massacres in Gaza" last night. I think that the killing of over 200 people in less than 3 hours constitutes a massacre.
ReplyDeleteThanks again Uri.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand I can see some good in that most of the dead are HAMAS, but really...I'm not happy about any of them dying. It seems like a fruitless operation given that HAMAS will be reinvigorated and is basically off-the-hook in Gaza for creating a functional government.
This is Chris from Austin by the way. I'm not sure if that is made clear through the site.
I just saw a report from Gaza on Al-Jazeera, and in the background was a sign that read "Stop the Genocide in Ghazza [sic]".
ReplyDeleteWhile it may not be a genocide from an outsider's perspective, I can see how people in the line of fire, where every street has homes bombed, mosques destroyed and people of all ages killed, may view the situation as being of that magnitude, or rather feel it as such.