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The Israel Gaza Spiral; Who Lets This Happen?
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Original Message
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It is useless to continue to engage in the finger pointing blame game. We must rise above that and ask, "Who lets this happen?"
There's a tragedy unfolding in Gaza-- not Israel, Gaza.
But first, I need to tell you a short story. Friday, I attended a showing of an exhibit that documented how Asian American students at a Philadelphia High School were attacked, beat up and brutalized, without the school administrators-- Principal or superintendent of the school system doing anything. The students ended up boycotting the school and the Asian community came together to protest... and to get the Department of Justice involved. The students carried signs "It's not question of who beat whom. It's a matter of who let it happen." (read about it here, in the article We Cannot Keep Silent.)
That question, "Who let it happen?" is brilliant. It rises above the who-hit-who blame game and asks the more important question-- who could have stopped things? Who could have ended the bad situation?
That brings me back to the situation between Israel and Gaza.
On the one side, you have the Israelis, with Iron Dome, the IDF, and one of the most powerful armies in the world, and Benjamin Netanyahu running for office.
On the other side you have the people of Gaza and Hamas, which calls for the destruction of Israel and a few thousand rockets, probably supplied by Iran, maybe delivered through Lebanon's Hezbollah.
And we have a history of each side doing what they seem stuck in an endless cycle doing-- Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, usually hitting dirt or walls, and m issiles fired by Israelis almost always killing someone-- including innocent women and children and civilians.
There's a new twist this time-- social media warfare. Israel's IDF posts hundreds of photos on Flickr, of broken glass and damaged property caused by missiles from Gaza and uses facebook and Twitter to sell their side of the story. You don't see much posted by Gazans. They're hiding in basements from missiles fired by F16s.
Israel sees 500 primitive missiles impotently fired by people in Gaza-- probably Hamas, but who knows, really, who's doing it? So Israel responds with tank incursions, jets and helicopters and probably drones, engaging in assassinations.
Now Israel has USA president Obama as an example and excuse. Obama does it in Pakistan. He's done it a lot. Israelis are much more effective. As one "peace activist" points out on Facebook-- they engage in "IDF kick-ass." I reply, that they engage in IDF-women-and-children-kickass."
So, a fusillade of Gazan missiles that almost all hit nothing, results in a collection of Israeli attacks that kill dozens or scores of Gazans. In operation "Cast Lead," the Gaza casualties exceeded 1200-- most of them innocent civilians.
Apologists for Israel point to some single missile that caused harm.
Hamas spokesmen speak of Israel attacks.
Each side says the other started it.....
To continue reading here is the link.
[link to www.opednews.com]
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