The kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, 18-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit, has led to one of those Israeli reactions that makes Fox News cheer. They took our boy; we blasted them. And will until we get him back.
The problem is that the poor people being bombed in Gaza almost certainly do not have Shalit. But they are ideal to be punished for this kidnapping, if only to signal Hamas that Israel means business.
Which is just the problem. Israel seems to know nothing of proportionality. James Wolcott directs us toVirginia Tilley's piece:
"...on Wednesday, Israeli war planes repeatedly bombed and utterly demolished Gaza's only power plant. About 700,000 of Gaza's 1.3 million people now have no electricity, and word is that power cannot be restored for six months."
"It is not the immediate human conditions created by this strike that are monumental. Those conditions are, of course, bad enough. No lights, no refrigerators, no fans through the suffocating Gaza summer heat. No going outside for air, due to ongoing bombing and Israel's impending military assault. In the hot darkness, massive explosions shake the cities, close and far, while repeated sonic booms are doubtless wreaking the havoc they have wrought before: smashing windows, sending children screaming into the arms of terrified adults, old people collapsing with heart failure, pregnant women collapsing with spontaneous abortions. Mass terror, despair, desperate hoarding of food and water. And no radios, television, cell phones, or laptops (for the few who have them), and so no way to get news of how long this nightmare might go on."
"But this time, the situation is worse than that. As food in the refrigerators spoils, the only remaining food is grains. Most people cook with gas, but with the borders sealed, soon there will be no gas. When family-kitchen propane tanks run out, there will be no cooking. No cooked lentils or beans, no humus, no bread--the staples of Palestinian foods, the only food for the poor. (And there is no firewood or coal in dry, overcrowded Gaza.)"
"And yet, even all this misery is overshadowed by a grimmer fact: no water. Gaza's public water supply is pumped by electricity. The taps, too, are dry. No sewage system. And again, word is that the electricity is out for at least six months."
"The Gaza aquifer is already contaminated with sea water and sewage, due to over-pumping (partly by those now-abandoned Israeli settlements) and the grossly inadequate sewage system. To be drinkable, well water is purified through machinery run by electricity. Otherwise, the brackish water must at least be boiled before it can be consumed, but this requires electricity or gas. And people will soon have neither."
"Drinking unpurified water means sickness, even cholera. If cholera breaks out, it will spread like wildfire in a population so densely packed and lacking fuel or water for sanitation. And the hospitals and clinics aren't functioning, either, because there is no electricity."
On Sunday, Israel allowed supplies into Gaza. Not enough, and not to the point--what are these people supposed to do about electricity and water next week? How will they sleep with sonic booms blasting overhead all night?
I understand that Israel is a sacred cause among many of my fellow Jews. And I know that some of them excuse atrocities like this on the theory that "They want to kill us all." Well, if a million or so people didn't want to kill Israelis before, they surely do now. This is progress?
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