Suffering in Gaza

If war were a simple numbers game, then some of it's more profound complexities might not be such a problem; who struck first and who killed more would be the primary questions we would be compelled to answer.

But those are questions which can be answered largely in fact. The hardest question which faces us in understanding the "rights" and "wrongs" of war -- with such hairs never easily split -- is in regard to the facts of history itself, and nowhere more so than as pertains to the intractable Gordian knot of Israel and the Middle East.

Pushed to its moral extreme, the idea of justice in warfare, such as it is, insists that one side may lay claim to more ethically murdering its enemies. And as absurd as that may sound to the more highly developed faculties of our reasonable humanity, the imperatives of survival often encompass such oxymoronic terrain as its being predicated on neighbors killing neighbors, brothers killing brothers and even fathers killing sons.

So when we look to history for answers in such matters it can do little for us by way of discerning what is True with Irrevocable Clarity, because at it's bare bones, there is no more history for any individual, group, or nation beyond the point of survival.

And with survival paramount to history, and history, but for choosing selectively from it, a cacophonous melange of competing interests for wealth and land -- for survival -- how easily can we ever address what is truly just in a way that can be unanimously agreed on?

Well. that's a tough one. Probably not easily at all. Ever.

So as I am not prepared to address that adequately, nor questions pertaining to the existence of good and evil, nor whether there is any kind of quantifiable, objective, most-true vision of reality in the ultimately numbered days of mankind to be had, here is a link to one side's proposal of clarity -- albeit biased in the extreme -- re Israel's aggressive response to Hamas.

Bias, at least, in full disclosure.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/804034/jewish/How-Do-I-Explain-Israels-Actions.htm

N.B. If anyone has or can find a clear and rational elucidation of how those who support the destruction of Israel through terrorist means justify that belief, I would appreciate seeing it posted or linked.

israel-gaza tension

a great op-ed piece in the new york times reminds us of the constant threat forcing the hand of the Israeli government in launching what would be more accurately called a counter-offensive:

To the south, Israel faces the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip and whose charter promises to destroy Israel and bring every inch of Palestine under Islamic rule and law. Hamas today has an army of thousands. It also has a large arsenal of rockets — home-made Qassams and Russian-made, Iranian-financed Katyushas and Grads smuggled, with the Egyptians largely turning a blind eye, through tunnels from Sinai. Last June, Israel and Hamas agreed to a six-month truce. This unsteady calm was periodically violated by armed factions in Gaza that lobbed rockets into Israel’s border settlements. Israel responded by periodically suspending shipments of supplies into Gaza. In November and early December, Hamas stepped up the rocket attacks and then, unilaterally, formally announced the end of the truce.

There's nothing nice about civilian casualties, but Israeli sovereignty is infringed upon from all sides, and even within (the portion of the article about the growing Arab minority within Israel is telling). There are plenty of instances in which Zionism seems overwrought, overblown, or unnecessary, but this is absolutely not one of them.