The Children of Gaza and the Security of Israel

I am still devastated by what took place in Gaza. 440 children or more died in Gaza, as the latest statistics tell us. I am not sure about the number of children who will never recover from their injuries or will be disabled for life. Of the disabled, many will live with amputated limbs.  Think of the impossible burdens their families, most of them poor, will have to carry for years to come. Limbless in Gaza. I do not know about you but I am bearing witness still. On the eve of the war, my prophetic soul knew about the horror that was to be. As an artist, I  knew that I was going to be tested by fire. And when hell opened its gaping gates I went through, in my mind's eye, in order to pass to the other side. I thought, may be naively, that I shall kneel by the dying children and hush them into sleep and peace

 

. Israel screams that they were killed by Hamas and Hamas says it was the brutal invasion of Israel which sent them to their graves. Israel also says, in the way of justification, about the bombing of the UNRWA school which killed about 40 people, that the children of Hamas were sheltering in the school! 

 

 It was man's inhumanity to man that killed them. the utter futility and barbarism of a war launched to crush and teach obedience. The bankruptcy of all our shameful human Endeavour gapes at us. In the games of power and dominance and the desire to have all, the blind egoism of the victor and the self centeredness of a people who want to live in peace, prosperity and comfort, deafening their ears and hardening their hearts, in their attempt to block out the rights, the plight and the absolute despair of the people they sinned against, they  who stand all around them, gazing with infinite sorrow at the land that was theirs. Deprivation, hunger and need stare them in the eye but they see nothing except that their protective psychological and mental armour is being compromised. It is a fight for survival that only accept one solution, the demise of the Palestinians in various ways, all acceptable, all justified.  What about live and let live. What about, they are like us, they breathe, they feel, they dream.  What about the notions of mercy, compassion, justice, equality and fair play. Those children need not have died such horrific deaths were it not that Israel's  bigotry, its falsification of history and facts, in addition to the  complicity of the world powers, were the main weapons that spelled death to them and destruction to their city.

 

As hard as I try, I do not seem to begin to understand what is meant by Israel's security. In the name of Israel's security, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are herded into reservations. Like the Red Indians of old, the Gazans are denied their sources of food and subjected to hunger. What is this security that kills, crushes and ruthlessly treads on the rights of those who do not belong to the chosen ? What mystifies me more is that the theme of the security of Israel has become a sort of litany that America and the West never tire of repeating. It so happens that the security of Israel, among other things. is just a euphemism for the mutual interests that bind Israel and the big powers in the clutches of a grip that, for better or worse, does not relent. Thus the security of Israel has become a monstrous concept that stands for the worst of Israel's creeds as well as the worst of the US and the West's disintegrating imperial practices. The security of Israel is a pathetic remnant of a vanishing tradition of domination. It is not only obsolete but obscene. No where in the world is there a country that holds another in bondage for what seems an eternity with the sanction of the main civilized and free countries of the world, but in Israel. Can't anybody put me out of my misery and explain it to me? Moreover,can anybody tell me as well why the subjugated occupied party should accept this travesty nicely and not spoil the fun by objecting to it? All reasoning, all logic, all ethics and all justice fail when it comes to the security of Israel.