I had a rough week this week. On Monday my son had a fever for 24 hours and we had to wrestle panadol into him a couple of times - and then give him a marshmallow. On Tuesday my human resources manager sucked particularly hard at her job. I did an extra hour or two of paperwork. Today, my train was cancelled. I wasted away on a crowded city platform for half an hour (So, really bad right?). You know who else had a rough week – everyone who lives in the Gaza strip - the subject of Israel’s latest military excursion, Operation Protective Edge.
The Gaza Strip, which shares borders with Egypt, Israel and
the Mediterranean (an area of only 360 km2 … about the same as The
Shire), is home to an estimated 1.8 million Palestinians. Mired in poverty, the
average yearly income of this region
is something like US$3500 per person. Crammed together in shanty towns at a population
density 1.5 times higher than downtown Shanghai, unemployment is between 30 and
40% and prospects for any other life are non-existent. For survival, the Gazans
rely heavily on foreign aid and directly on Israel for electricity and the movement
of people and goods in and out of the strip. Oh yeah, and they just got their
asses invaded by Israel (again) – with tanks, ground troops, air strikes, the
whole shebang. This is already starting to make my week sound better right…
For brevity, let me oversimplify a complex and sordid
backstory: 1) following democratic
elections in 2006, the Palestinians elected Hamas – internationally renowned
missile launching and suicide bombing organisation, funded by such luminaries
as Saudi Arabia and Iran; 2) obviously this was frowned upon by Israel and the
West, accentuated by Hamas reprisals within Gaza directed towards Palestinians
previously associated with Fatah; 3) Israel perform airstrikes and a ground
invasion in early 2008, killing 110; 4) In response to thousands of Hamas
rockets, Israel invade again in December 2008, killing up to 1400 (~900 were
civilians) Palestinians and decimating their infrastructure (hospitals,
greenhouses, roads, schools etc); 5) in 2010, Israel’s control of airspace and
the sea led them to blockade Gaza in collective punishment for ongoing Hamas
rocket attacks. Now, regional scholars and historians will have to forgive such
a brush stroke re-telling – but you get the idea… Hamas launch rockets into
Israel, who then invade the shit out of them.
My problem with this, as should be obvious, is that this is
not a war - it’s a massacre. Hamas have rockets, arguably homemade, and inarguably
ineffective now that Israel has its ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence system. Though
the number of rocket attacks sounds impressive, Israeli casualties are few and
rare – Hamas is pissing on a bushfire. In response, the tin shacks and recently
rebuilt infrastructure is decimated by bulldozers, tanks, apache helicopters,
airstrikes and ground troops – disproportionately affecting civilians, and
children. For their part, the most vocal in the international area – and
especially the US – unequivocally support Israel and their ‘right to defend
themselves’. From the safety of my white, middle class, non-apache helicopter
life – I find this grotesque and paralysing in its sadness.
To be clear this article is neither pro-Hamas nor
anti-Semitic, or is it meant to assign blame for what is a decades old
conflict. Above all, it is an appeal for a shred of empathy – a defining
emotion which has seemingly disappeared from our politics. If I was an
unemployed Palestinian, travelling through checkpoints all day, I would
conceivably support Hamas. If my brother was taken and tortured by security
forces I could see myself firing a rocket at my oppressors. If my son was
killed by a misguided airstrike, I couldn’t rule out travelling by underground
tunnel to Israel to blow myself up. Helpless people do desperate things,
leading them to collective and disproportionate punishment – a position certainly
deserving of our empathy if nothing else.
