Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Here we go again

In response to the murder of three Israeli teens last week, Israel launched a major attack that will almost certainly cause the death of numerous teens in Gaza, as well as younger children too. As Booman points out, there don't seem to be any clear goals other than murdering a whole lot of people in Gaza so that Bibi can say that he did something to retaliate for the murdered Israelis And never mind that the murders occurred in the West Bank, not Gaza. Netanyahu wants to punish the people he doesn't like, not anyone who is likely to be actually responsible for the murders.

If the whole thing would be absurd if it wasn't so gruesome. Consider the fact that the IDF just bombed the private homes of four Hamas officials. You know, where their families were likely to be too. Can you imagine the freakout that would happen if Hamas attacked the private homes of Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader? I'm not saying that the Israeli government and Hamas are the same. But I am saying that Israel gets a free pass in this conflict that allows it to cause much more human misery without the moral judgment that other sides get saddled with.

Hamas and other Palestinian militants will, no doubt, launch a bunch of missile attacks against Israel as this conflict continues. And, no doubt, Hamas will be blamed for every attack, no matter who actually launches. And, no doubt, whenever this ends Hamas will still exist and will still be in control of Gaza. And, no doubt, Israelis will be wounded and die, just as Palestinians will be wounded and die. And, no doubt, Palestinian casualties will be roughly ten times the number of Israeli casualties, but while the Palestinian deaths will barely be reported, Israeli deaths will be used to show the barbarity of the Palestinian side.

Why do I have so little doubt about my predictions? Because we have been here before and that is what always happens.