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09 Mar 2009 06:13 pm

Gaza

Some have not forgotten:

It’s worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets. It killed upward of 1,300 people, many of them women and children; caused damage estimated at $1.9 billion; and destroyed thousands of Gaza homes. It continues a radicalizing blockade on 1.5 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land.

At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel’s actions.

And yet this assault on top of a blockade, carried out with an "iron fist" as the US was in transition from one president to another was backed by a resolution carried by unanimous consent in the Senate, and with only 5 votes against in the House. American public opinion, as Glenn Greenwald noted, was evenly divided, and Democrats sided more with the Palestinians enduring a blitz with some white phosphorus thrown into the mix. Is there any plausible explanation for this discrepancy apart from the Walt-Mearsheimer one?

(Photo: a child victim of Israel's Gaza bombardment, by Abid Kateb/Getty.)

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