Israel's Moral Bankruptcy Plays a Reprise in Gaza

Gaza: The Gates of Wrath and Sorrow Swing Open Once Again

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

How about this child, then? Is he dead enough for you?



The gates of wrath and sorrow open wide again in Gaza, clanging on their rusty, bloodstained hinges.

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A report, via Facebook, from Gaza:

From Dr. Mona Al-Farra in Gaza City, an urgent message on Facebook: Dear Friends, Gaza is under extensive Israeli military attack ,in less than 2 hours , 14 military attacks against different targets in different parts of Gaza Strip , 6 were killed including 2 young girls age 4 and 7, 11 were injured, the hospitals are already lacking essential emergency medications, and citizens were called for blood donation, we do not have power , iam using UBS ,the first stage of this operation has been accomplished , we expect more escalation. your solidarity means a lot at this difficult times, pass the word, this aggression, should stop now.

(UPDATE 1 BELOW)
(UPDATE 2 BELOW)
(UPDATE 3 BELOW)
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The 20th paragraph -- the 20th paragraph -- of the New York Times story on the attack notes, very obliquely, that the recent rocket firing was in response to "deadly Israeli airstrikes":

"Since then Hamas has mostly adhered to an informal, if shaky, cease-fire and at times tried to enforce the smaller militant groups to stick to it. But in recent months, under pressure from some of the Gaza population for not avenging deadly Israeli airstrikes, it has claimed responsibility for participating in the firing of rockets. Last week, it also claimed credit for detonating a tunnel packed with explosives along the Israel-Gaza border while Israeli soldiers were working nearby."

But elsewhere in the story, and everywhere in the media, the attack is clearly presented as righteous retaliation for unprovoked attacks: not as collective punishment on a captive people for themselves retaliating against airstrikes against them.

(UPDATE 1: In the latest online version of the constantly updated NYT story, the mention of the rocket attacks as retaliation for "deadly Israeli airstrikes" is now in the 32nd paragraph. Most of the new material is taken up with the Peace Laureate's firm support for Israel's right to "self-defense" -- a right which obviously does not extend to the Palestinians at any time, in any form. Like "good injuns," they're supposed to lay down and die on the cracked, caged earth of the reservation.)

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In responding to the current attack, Arthur Silber also points to this this deeper look (from the 2009 slaughter in Gaza) at the template behind these spasms of atrocity -- a template much used not only by the "light unto the nations" but also "the shining city on the hill":

"For a very long time, the United States government has specialized in the pattern pursued by Israel. The vastly more powerful nation wishes to act on a certain policy -- almost always territorial expansion, for purposes of access to resources, or to force itself into new markets, or to pursue the evil notion that economic and ideological success depend on brutality and conquest -- but a specifically moral justification for its planned actions does not lie easily to hand.

"So the powerful nation embarks on a course designed to make life intolerable for the country and/or those people that stand in its way. The more powerful nation is confident that, given sufficient time and sufficient provocation, the weaker country and people will finally do something that the actual aggressor can seize on as a pretext for the policy upon which it had already decided. In this way, what then unfolds becomes the victim's fault."

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And so it goes, and on it goes: the curse of violence, hatred, estrangement, fear. Madness snaking in and out of the only place where the universe is: in the electrics of our brains. So many sharp and painful endings to the world and all that's in it.

CULPRIT BLUES by Chris Floyd


UPDATE 2: I was remiss in failing to give the name of the dead child in the picture above. His name is Omar Misharawi. He is the son of Jihad Misharawi -- a journalist for the BBC's Arabic news service. Misharawi's house was hit by the pinpoint, carefully targeted, hi-tech, only-kill-the-bad-guys missiles being hurled into the heavily packed residential areas of Gaza by the Israeli military.

Below is a picture of what Omar looked like before he became "collateral damage." Strange; he looks almost like an actual, fully-fledged human being, doesn't he? Almost like one of us, like one of our children. Good thing he's just a "savage," right? One of them. For as our own Nobel Laureate has shown us, their lives have no value, no meaning. They're just so much "bug splat" on a screen.



UPDATE 3: Another great triumph for Western values was also reported today (Thursday): the first confirmed death of a child due to the draconian sanctions imposed on Iran by the Peace Laureate -- who celebrated his electoral triumph last week by tightening even further his ongoing strangulation of Iran.

 The Guardian reports:

A teenage Iranian boy suffering from haemophilia has died due to a shortage of medicine in the country. It is the first civilian death said to be directly linked to the impact that western economic sanctions are having on the Islamic republic.

Manouchehr Esmaili-Liousi was a 15-year-old from a nomadic tribe based in the mountains near the city of Dezful, in Iran's south-western province of Khuzestan. He died in hospital after his family failed to find the vital medicine he desperately needed for his disease, Iran's state news agencies reported on Wednesday …

Although sanctions are not directly targeting Iranian pharmacies and medical sectors, measures imposed on Iranian banks and trade restrictions have made life extremely difficult for patients across the country, who are facing difficulties in finding medicines made outside Iran. …

According to Ghavidel, 75% of the medicines for the treatment of haemophilia are made in the US and the EU, making Iranian patients heavily dependent on their imports. He said haemophilia medicines available in Iranian markets had been reduced to a third of former supply levels….

Earlier this month, the New York Times published a detailed report on how sanctions were taking an unexpected toll on medical imports, including medicines such as Herceptin, which is made in the US. Among other medicines said to be scarce in Iranian pharmacies is the tetanus vaccine.

Baby milk is another imported product affected. Iran produces its own powdered milk, which is abundant in the market, but cannot produce certain diet milk types or those suitable for children with allergies. These are imported from outside. There have been instances of children hospitalised as a result of the milk shortages, but no reports of deaths as yet.

One down, 499,000 to go before Obama matches the good ole Big Dawg in the noble -- and Nobel -- pursuit of mass murder by sanctions. But no doubt he and his secretary of state -- the Big Dawg's own wife! -- will, like the Big Dawg's own secretary of state, believe the murders "are worth it."