Gaza

I have much to say, but perhaps these cartoons say it better. A couple of them were recommended by Glenne Greenwald in his excellent piece. Others were published some time ago, but remain relevant.

Greenwald:

But pretending that the US - and the Obama administration - bear no responsibility for what is taking place is sheer self-delusion, total fiction. It has long been the case that the central enabling fact in Israeli lawlessness and aggression is blind US support, and that continues, more than ever, to be the case under the presidency of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The US is not some neutral, uninvolved party. Whatever side of this conflict you want to defend - or if you're one of those people who love to announce that you just wish the whole thing would go away - it's still necessary to take responsibility for the key role played by the American government and this administration in enabling everything that is taking place.

According to Haaretz, Israel's Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, said this about Israel's attacks on Gaza: "The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages." Let me know if any of the US Sunday talk shows mention that tomorrow during their discussions of this "operation".

Gilad Sharon, the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has an Op-Ed in today's Jerusalem Post in which, among other things, he writes [emphasis added]:

"We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren't surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

"There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing."

Obama has said that "Israel has a right to defend itself." So Yishai and Sharon speak of a defense?

Who has the greater right to mount a defense: The occupied or the occupier? I would argue that an occupying power -- and I'm not just speaking of Israel here; I speak generally -- has no rights whatsoever. What "rights" did Napoleon possess in Russia, beyond the right to walk home in the snow? What right did America have to invade Iraq? By what right did the Germans conquer Poland?

By what right has Israel turned Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison?

The oppressed always have a right to fight back. The oppressors may commit acts of violence, but I will never concede their right to violence.