Posts Tagged ‘Gaza’
Pillar of Lies
Yes, this image isn’t completely fair. Still, it’s not that far off. Only a tiny handful of people are killed and injured by rockets fired from Gaza. Vastly more people are killed and injured by IDF violence in the occupied territories. That’s because Israel has a vast array of modern weaponry at its disposal, they are one of the world’s great military powers. The Gazans have hand weapons and home made rockets and mortars. So that’s the first lie that is perpetuated by the media, that this is is some sort of conflict between equals. No, they aren’t equal in any sense of the word. This goes hand-in-hand with the lie that Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied territories are neighbours, and this is some sort of squabble between two regions, and that Israel is “defending its borders.” No, Israel is not “defending its borders,” since the occupied territories lie within Israel’s borders. That’s why they are called the occupied territories, Israel invaded and occupied them in 1967, and since no one wanted them back, they are stuck with them. Israel created the current situation with the Palestinians in the occupied territories, they aren’t some hapless victim.
There are lots of lies in this situation. Israel was based on lies, known as propaganda in the modern parlance. The very first lie set the tone for what was to follow. This was the story that the 700,000 Palestinians who fled what is now Israel in 1948 did so because the Arab governments told them to flee. Even Israeli historians now admit this was a fabrication from beginning to end, Arab governments did no such thing. (Why the f**k would they, no nation wants refuges flooding into its country.) The Palestinians fled because there was a war going on, which people always do when there’s a war. Israel then not only refused to allow them to return, they stole their homes and businesses, and deny to this day that a terrible crime was committed. In fact it’s illegal to commemorate the Nabka, the 1948 Palestinian exodus, in Israel. When one flees their legal residence during a war, one does not magically give up one’s residency. That’s one of the things so infuriating about the “the Arab governments told them to flee” lie, even if was true, so what? It wouldn’t magically change the law, the Palestinians that fled what became Israel were legal residents, and held legal title to their homes and property.
It went downhill from there. One common lie is that “there is no such thing as a the Palestinian people.” There are many permutations to this, basically boiling down the the racist attitude that the Palestinians are Arabs so they should go live in Arab countries. Again, the beauty of this lie is that even it it’s true, there never was a nation called Palestine, so what? The Palestinians living in Palestine were legal residents of the land, because they aren’t mentioned in the Old Testament doesn’t magically make it OK to steal their homes and property. A codicil to this lie is the “no partner for peace” lie. This is the idea that for one reason or another, none of the Palestinian leaders are “fit” to negotiate with. Israel not only chooses its own leaders, why, they are so superior, they can chose what leaders are appropriate for the benighted Palestinians! And of course none of the Palestinian leaders ever lives up to Israel’s standards, convenient, nu? It’s Israel that refuses to negotiate in good faith, not the Palestinians.
Notice a theme here? Racism. Both of these lies are much easier to believe if one thinks that Muslims/Arabs are somehow less than fully civilized, or even less than fully human. This comes out clearly in lie three, the big lie, the one repeated so often that much of western humanity believes it implicitly. And this lie is simple: “Jews are peaceful, Palestinians are violent.” I hardly even know what to say about this. Anyone who believes it is a racist for starters. Humans are violent, and there aren’t really any exceptions. Israel especially isn’t an exception, in fact they are one of the most violent militaristic nations on Earth, the violence they have perpetrated is at least the equal of the violence perpetrated by Palestinians. And in terms of people killed and wounded, Israel is the hands down winner, killing far more Palestinians than vice versa. And as of today, are Israelis striving for peace with the Palestinians in Gaza? Some few are, but many are braying for blood. Of course the western media and Netanyahu’s apologists love to portray images of Muslims espousing violence, while images of Israelis braying for blood will never sully the airwaves. Jesus wept.
Lastly, the coup de grace, the capstone lie that glues the rest all together. Once one understands that the Palestinians are an illegitimate, uncivilized, violent people, the natural conclusion is obvious. The Palestinians deserve what is happening to them, Israel has no choice but to use violence to defend itself. If the Palestinians would only behave themselves, Israel wouldn’t have to resort to such measures. Siege mentality, biblical insanity, racism, all of the above, whatever one wants to call it … Netanyahu and his supporters have blinded themselves into thinking that violence is their only option. Unless one grants that Netanyahu was motivated by simple domestic politics, a desire to drum up support before upcoming elections. Racism or killing babies for votes, take your choice. If that is the case, I think Netanyahu may have made the biggest miscalculation in Israeli history. Since the last time Israel waged war on its occupied territories the Arab Spring has occurred, as well as an explosion of social media in the Middle East. He is making millions of new enemies for Israel across the Muslim world, this is not the road to peace.
I have a friend in Egypt. She’s an engineer, an educated and good person, someone anyone would be proud to have as a friend. And yes, a supporter of democracy and secular values in her nation. IE she is not some jihadist wing-nut who spends her time calling for the destruction of Israel. This is what she posted on Facebook about the current Gaza violence:
“May your skies forever rain with rockets … may you never sleep in peace … my you never have a worry-free smile … may you never live in peace … may you never be safe as long as you live on Palestinian lands … go back to where you came from … to where they kicked you out and burned you alive … “
And note she was careful to say that this sentiment is directed at the baby killers in the IDF, not all Jews or Israelis. To put it mildly, Operation Pillar of Defence, is not going over well with Israel’s neighbors. That’s because it is a genocidal cowardly attack on a helpless population, a population Israel has kept imprisoned in stateless limbo since 1967. That Americans fall for Netanyahu’s siege mentality and disproportionate brutality is a sad reflection of how our western media simply regurgitates Israeli propaganda as if it were fact. If a population of Jews or Christians were being treated the way Israel treats the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Americans and the mainstream press would be foaming at the mouth with the injustice of it all. Yes, hypocrisy has become America’s core value.
Merry Christmas indeed.
(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. This won’t be my last post on Netanyahu’s insanity, and if it goes on, they will get even less diplomatic than this post.)
Gaza Madness
I want to write a post about the current situation in Gaza about as much as I want a root canal. Sigh. That means I must write one. It’s both a painful and a touchy subject personally. Worse, much much worse, globally this could easily lead to a wider war. It’s not like everything is hunky dory in the Middle East right now, this is going to inflame hatred further throughout the region. That’s never a good thing.
So, what’s going on? Well, it’s pretty simple. There’s been a lot of cross border incidents in the past year, including rocket attacks by various factions in Gaza. Israel assassinated a Hamas leader, Ahmed Jabari, on November 14th. Some rockets were fired out of Gaza in retaliation. And Israel escalated into launching large scale attacks and is threatening a ground invasion. In other words, Netanyahu chose to start and escalate this now, it’s not debatable. In fact the Hamas leader that was killed was in the process of trying to negotiate a permanent cease fire with Israel. Good thing they blew him away, eh? That’ll teach those Palestinians to try and work out a lasting peace with Israel. And of course England and the USA have fallen all over themselves supporting Israel. Western press coverage is simperingly pro-Israel. A blog dedicated to that is in the works.
Background: Israel has the military advantage by orders of magnitude. Israel wields one of the world’s greatest militaries. Gaza isn’t even on the charts. This is not a contest between equals, or anything even remotely close to it. Gaza is legally Israeli occupied territory. Israel captured it from Egypt in 1967. They pulled their troops out a few years ago, and imposed a crushing blockade on the territory. Hamas is the effective government of Gaza, though there are militants not under their control. Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas. The blockade has eased since the Egyptian revolution, Egypt has relaxed the blockade along their border with Gaza.
Why did Netanyahu attack? Damned if I know. He’s certainly a bellicose fellow. Some speculate he is doing it to get votes in an upcoming election. There’s speculation that he is trying to scuttle negotiations with Iran. There have been many rockets fired from Gaza in the past year by various factions, but no one in Israel has been killed. The timing of Netanyahu’s attack is very suspicious. If Netanyahu thinks waging war on Gaza will stop rocket attacks, why didn’t it work last time? Why launch the attack when Hamas wanted to talk permanent cease fire?
As of my writing this, Netanyahu is launching more attacks. I think it’s crazy. Weakening Hamas will just strengthen more radical Palestinian factions. And since this will likely strengthen Hamas, wtf? The attack gives hard liners in Egypt more traction, not to mention in Syria. The attack is also triggering anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment throughout the world, I don’t see how that is in Israel’s interests. And somehow I doubt Obama appreciates another layer of added complication to the Middle East situation. Lastly, the US’s enemies around the globe will be looking at this to see if they can exploit it in any way. Yeah, the USA needed that.
In other words, Netanyahu is risking terrible regional or even global consequences in order to strengthen his hand in elections. That strikes me as criminally insane. Yet some Americans are cheering him on. That’s just ordinary insane. There are Palestinians and Israelis working for peace, the Netanyahu government isn’t among them, and in fact is doing its best to perpetuate the violence.
The bottom line, the one so many in the west refuse to understand, is that Israel has held all the cards since 1967. (Since 1948 actually.) Yet instead of annexing the occupied territories, or letting them declare independence, Israel has kept them in stateless limbo for decades while slowly stealing their land bit by bit. Not to mention constantly and routinely using military force in the occupied territories, both a threat and an actuality that dwarfs the threat of Hamas rockets in Israel. Israel reaps what it sows, and it has been sowing war for decades.
My heart goes out to all the innocent people in the region, they as always are the victims. God help us all if this war spreads.
(The above image was taken from a Gazan web site, it claims to show some of the current violence. I’m claiming it as Fair Use, and since I am critical of Netanyahu’s current attack, hopefully the copyright holder wouldn’t object. And if it turns out the picture isn’t what it claims, well, the blarney is flowing thick and fast from almost every faction in this ugly mess. Just turn on the mainstream news or look at Wikipedia.)
The Summer of 2010 … let the Nightmares Begin
Yes, summer 2010 is here, or will be shortly depending on exactly where on the globe one is. At the very least the summer solstice, the longest day of the year is here, so in an astronomical sense the year is half over. And in fine old Doug’s Darkworld tradition, I thought I would review some of the bad things that might very well blow up in our faces this summer. Summer is always a traditional time for war, and this summer is no exception. And starting wars are especially something that governments like to do if they are losing their grip on a situation or desperately want to divert attention away from something.
And this summer, there’s at least three or four somethings that are slowly but surely undermining the west, especially the USA’s grip on power. The first of course is the economy. Despite all the fabulous efforts to massage the situation and make things look good, the recovery looks more like a twitching corpse than any sort of recovery. Doctor Obama: “See, he’s fine, he just moved!” Nurse Concerned Citizen: “Um, I think that was just a post-mortem spasm Doctor.” Doctor Obama: “Nonsense, he’ll be up and around in no time! And you’re fired!” OK, got carried away with myself there. In any event with bank failures run at double last years already alarming pace, not to mention national economy failures in Europe, there’s only so much longer that the western economy can be kept inflated with borrow and spend tactics (conveniently renamed “stimulus recovery packages.”) And there’s be nothing like a war to ram through “emergency measures” that could do for our taxes what the Patriot Act did for our constitutional rights.
In another completely media massaged and underrated economic catastrophe, the Gulf Oil Leak is just that … an environmental and economic Chernobyl in the making. Anyone notice how as the leak becomes “old news” and thus no longer front page news, the evidence about the amount of oil that is leaking keeps rising? Yes, as the leak worsens, or more accurately it becomes harder to conceal what a disaster this is, press coverage is falling off? Very clever, but it doesn’t change the ugly fact that this is a monstrous event that is going to hurt millions of people at the bottom of the economic ladder very hard. And may very well effect the health of millions of people as well, crude oil is toxic, and huge numbers of people are already exposed … and just think what a hurricane might do. Again, nothing like a war to put news of what could easily become the largest environmental catastrophe and mass poisoning in history on the back pages.
There’s a couple other back burner things that are putting the pressure on so to speak too. The war in Afghanistan is not going well, that’s becoming harder and harder to hide. The fact that the USA fired one of their biggest rockets in their propaganda arsenal to further justify the war shows how desperate it is. The Soviets discovered decades ago that Afghanistan has vast untapped mineral wealth, this was not some amazing new discovery as it was presented as. And only in the small print did anyone mention that the corruption, war, and utter lack of infrastructure in Afghanistan make it unlikely that any of this wealth will be accessible in the near further. And almost nowhere did anyone mention that doesn’t this wealth belong to the people of Afghanistan and how the hell is it that the west somehow is entitled to exploit it? And Israel has a few minor propaganda problems of its own to deal with, it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain the fiction that the current government of Israel wants peace, and somehow the people in their occupied territorials are the problem. I recommend this article for understanding how the current Israeli regime fears the political normalization that peace with the Palestinians would bring.
And why do I bring up Israel anyhow? Well, a fleet of US and Israeli warships has just moved through the Suez Canal. Apparently headed for the Persian Gulf, since it seems unlikely that the USA would be sending an aircraft carrier to fight Somalian pirates. And the USA if anything has ratcheted up its propaganda war against the Iranian regime and done all it can to forestall any sort of diplomatic solution to the “problem.” I say “problem” in quotes since as a signatory to the NPT Iran is allowed to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, it’s the USA that keeps insisting that somehow Iran can’t be allowed to do what so many other nations in the world are doing. There’s also some other “peace flotillas” heading for Gaza, which has to be alarming the Israel regime. I say “peace flotillas” in quotes because some of these are being sent by people with an inimical interest in the whole affair. There are those in Iran and elsewhere who want the USA and Israel to get involved in yet another land war in the Middle East … not of course because they are evil Muslims or they hate our freedoms, but because they think they can win.
So am I predicting more war in the Middle East this summer? Maybe, the signs don’t look good. It’s looked grim for years though, and more than anyone I know that predicting the future is a fool’s game, the future has a nasty way of surprising everyone. Still, when one has a situation where militaristic nations seem to be hell bent on war, and they have good “motives” for doing so, it’s time to take cover. In any event I just wanted to get this niggling worry out of my system so I can get back to blogging about Romans, cosmology, space exploration, history, and other fun stuff. And as a chance to remind everyone that war is bad, people die, they never turn out the way people predict, and if we don’t stop this “murdering in the name of freedom” madness it’s going to be the death of us all eventually. Or at the very least the death of the American Empire, which might be a good thing, but I’m not sure I want to be there when it happens.
(The above image was taken during World War One and is thus Public Domain under US copyright law. It’s an image of German war dead at the Battle of Verdun. one of the bloodiest battle in history. The French “won” the battle since the Germans didn’t achieve their goal, and it only cost them a mere 163,000 dead. The Germans lost 143,000 dead but failed to capture Verdun or inflict disproportionate losses on the French. Of course such losses could never occur again, we’re too smart now. The 500,000 American dead and wounded in our recent wars don’t count since of course most of them were only “slightly” wounded, what’s a little brain damage or hearing loss to our brave boys and girls anyhow? It’s worth it to make Afghanistan the Saudi Arabia of Lithium, right?)
So, what has Israel accomplished in Gaza with Operation Cast Lead?
Things seem to have calmed down in Israel’s latest attempt to accomplish whatever it was trying to accomplish by attacking Gaza. Hamas is still around, they are more popular than ever, and they’re still shooting rockets. So, um, what was all this destruction about? Is Israel safer now? More respected? More feared? What a mess, my heart goes out to all those whose lives were ruined by this. Since the pro-Israel commenters (here and in the media) seemed to concentrate entirely on justifications for Israel’s actions, while ignoring almost anything resembling an actual analysis of what Israel was trying to accomplish, let look at the possibilities:
Was Israel trying to conquer Gaza? Well, no. You can’t conquer what’s already yours. Gaza has been Israeli occupied territory since 1967, legally and factually. Granted Israel disputes the World Court ruling that the Israeli occupied territories are Israeli occupied territories, but since Israel routinely ignores any UN decisions or any other international decisions it doesn’t like, it’s safe to say the facts match the ruling.
Was Israel trying to kill Arabs? Well, yes and no. They weren’t trying to slaughter Arabs en masse since they could have killed tens of thousands if they wanted to. So comparisons to the Nazis and the holocaust are over the top at this point. Still, they did kill over a thousand, wounded thousands, and traumatized everyone in Gaza. Maybe mass death wasn’t Israel’s goal, but this was hardly a humanitarian intervention.
Stopping the rockets? This was Israel’s stated goal. Um, it wasn’t accomplished. Hamas and Fatah kept on firing rockets to the bitter end, and still have rockets they can fire. In fact it’s a little unclear how Israel planned to accomplish this goal. Aside from killing or driving all the Palestinians out of Gaza, the only way to accomplish this would be a massive military presence permanently occupying Gaza. It wouldn’t completely stop the rockets, it would be very expensive, and would result in their troops being attacked on a regular basis.
Preventing Hamas from re-arming? There’s even less of a chance of that being accomplished by military means. Rounding up the people in Gaza and putting them in concentration camps might do the trick, hell, that would stop the rocket fire even. They don’t seem to be bent on doing that though, it would be very expensive for one, and it would make comparisons to the Nazis perfectly reasonable.
Destroying Hamas? No chance for the reasons listed above, this is simply something that cannot be accomplished without killing almost everyone in Gaza.
So what the hell was Israel’s Operation Cast Lead all about? Since none of the stated goals was achievable by military force, something else is going on here. And the obvious first possibility is that the people who planned this war are more or less clueless. Israel’s strategy of military action has often led to some pretty dismal results, like the creation of Hezbollah for example. In fact countries that get as militarized as Israel often lose their way when it comes to strategic thinking, everyone in Israel is ex-military and they have the most militarized society on Earth…so military solutions are applied to problems whether or not they are appropriate. It’s certainly a possibility, even granting that the attack was “justified” somehow, it still appears stupid and counterproductive to me.
Lastly we come to darker possibilities. Was the attack on Gaza part of a long term agenda to cow the Palestinians into passively accepting their situation, renouncing violence, and giving up their claims? Or even part of a strategy of forcing the Palestinians to abandon their homes and flee the occupied territories? There’s certainly voices in Israel calling for the later, so it can’t be ruled out as part of the equation. As for the former, history is replete with people convinced that they can force another people to accept what they would never accept for their own if the situation was reversed. Maybe evil motives weren’t consciously part of most Israelis thinking, but I don’t recall many Israelis claiming they were fighting for a peaceful two-state resolution to the problem with the Palestinians.
Which is the crux of the whole problem, is Palestine going to be one state or two? Annexing the occupied territories and giving the Palestinians Israel citizenship doesn’t seem very likely. It would destroy Israel’s identity as a “Jewish” state. Hell, some Israelis are trying to disenfranchise the tiny Arab minority that still lives in Israel, it’s not like they will welcome millions more. And if it’s to be a two state solution, Israel could have created that any time they wanted in the past 50 years, so it doesn’t seem like it’s very likely any time soon.
So here we are, another failed war by Israel as far as I can tell. Hamas is more popular than ever, and their limited military capability seems basically unchanged. Heck, they are holding victory rallies. Palestinian factions are more united, Fatah and Hamas seem to have patched up their differences. Israel is more condemned than ever in the world court of opinion. If anything Israel is less feared, they couldn’t crush Hebollah and now they have failed to crush Hamas. Other than making life more miserable for millions of Palestinians while simultaneously strengthening their will to resist, nothing has changed. This isn’t an Israeli victory, unless a world where Israel hides behind its wall while nothing but ruins, poverty, hopelessness and devastation lie outside the wall is the goal. And if that’s the goal, not only is it evil, it’s remarkably stupid and shortsighted.
Israel needs its neighbours, its neighbours don’t need Israel, at least not an Israel determined to wreak destruction on its neighbours and occupied territories at the drop of a hat. Ultimately Israel is on a road to it’s own destruction, a road it is apparently still choosing…eyes wide shut.
(The above image of a Hamas victory rally amid the ruins is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, it’s central to illustrating the post, and it’s use here in no way hinders the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image. Credit: AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus. Those do not appear to be white flags they are waving. For a long term analysis of Israel and its wars, I reiterate and recommend this link: The myth of Israel’s strategic genius.)
Gaza Remembered
Well, honestly, I have been pretty unimpressed by the arguments people have presented justifying Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip. And the more I look into the history of the region and the history of the current “war,” the more unimpressed I am. Most if not all of them seem to be predicated on the idea that Muslims/Arabs are somehow less than human. The “Muslim/Arab=Terrorist/Sub-human” line has been repeated by so many voices over the last few decades that for all practical purposes many in the west and Israel think it’s a statement of fact.
And once one has that as a base to work from, it’s really easy to convince people of all sorts of other nonsense. It makes it easy to blame all the violence on the Muslims/Arabs…and to ignore or even justify Israel’s appalling history of violence. It makes it easy to convince people of things like “they use their own children as human shields.” I mean, to actually believe that human beings would do something like that as a standard practise with widespread support of their friends and families defies all logic, Israelis and Americans who support Israel’s wars would never believe such claims if they were made about Israelis or Americans…but since they already know that Muslims/Arabs are sub-humans who don’t value human life…it’s easy to believe it about them. See how slick and insidious this is? For the record, both sides have a well documented history of using human shields to achieve their ends at times. Welcome to modern war, except of course war has always been this way.
Moving right along, let’s look at how this current round of “fighting” started. On June 19 last year Hamas and Israel signed a cease-fire. Hamas was to stop its rocket attacks and refrain from attacks in Israel, Israel was to relieve the crippling blockade of supplies going into Gaza and refrain from attacks in Gaza. Guess what happened? For four months the rocket attacks essentially stopped, dropping from hundreds a month to a handful a month. And the few that were launched were fired by splinter groups, not Hamas. This is more than a 98% reduction in attacks, combined with the fact that Hamas loudly encouraged Palestinians not to attack Israel, it sure sounds like a good faith effort to stop the rocket attacks. I mean, if the goal was to stop the rocket attacks, seems like a 98% reduction is a good start, nu?
So Israel lifted the blockade? No. They allowed the supplies going into Gaza to increase from 50 tons a day to 70 tons a day. Sounds generous until one knows that prior to the Israeli blockade of Gaza 500-600 tons of supplies a day flowed in. This was, at best, a token gesture on Israel’s part, and very quickly put Hamas under tremendous pressure to resume the attacks. Israel also continued a propaganda war against Hamas and accused them of violating the cease fire in other ways, all without providing any evidence. And Israel launched attacks in the West Bank, while not technically a violation of the cease fire, it clearly wasn’t helping the situation.
Then the fun begins. On November 4 2008, while the world was watching a certain election in a certain important western nation…Israel launched a military attack inside of Gaza, killing six Hamas militants under the claim that Israel was intercepting weapons being smuggled into Gaza. Gee ,what an incredible coincidence that this took place on a day guaranteed not to be noticed in the western media? Hamas announced that this premeditated attack and the failure of Israel to lift the blockade meant that Israel was in substantial violation of the cease-fire agreement…and the rocket attacks resumed. Even then as the violence escalated Hamas offered to resume the cease-fire under the original terms, but Israel rejected all offers until on December 19 Hamas formally said they would no longer abide by the cease-fire. And on December 27th Israel launched their now bloody ongoing operation in Gaza. An operation that was in the planning and preparation stages long before the cease-fire was even signed mind you.
I’m sorry, but a 98% reduction in attacks through diplomacy puts the lie to any claim that this military operation is about “stopping the attacks.” And the facts and the time line put to lie the claim that it was Hamas that started this round of fighting, or that Israel had “no other options.” If a 98% reduction in rockets wasn’t a really good start to a diplomatically achieved peace, I don’t know what is. It’s a safe bet that invading Gaza isn’t going to acheive better results.
What a bloody mess. I’d say I don’t know how it’s going to end, except I’d be lying. This is Israel’s seventh try at achieving peace and security by waging war on a neighbour or in the occupied territories since 1973, the last time Israel was actually attacked and forced into war. Of the previous six operations, only two even partially achieved their stated objectives, and all of them decreased Israel’s security in tangible ways. The Israeli invasions of Lebanon radicalized the Muslim population of Lebanon and directly inspired the creation of Hezbollah for God’s sake. If that alone isn’t proof that the idea of achieving peace through war is really stupid, I don’t know what is. And I can safely say that this seventh attempt to acheive peace and security for Israel by waging war on non-Israelis will not make Israel any more secure, and will make Israel less secure in unpredictable and unpleasant ways.
The blitzkrieg, or “shock and awe” as its current proponents call it, ceased to work in about 1942. With few exceptions it has achieved nothing since then, and it’s never succeeded in pacifying an occupied population. In fact in some ways this has played into Hamas’s hands, they now have every incentive to fight to the last man, what have they got to lose? Whether the Israelis kills their women and children through starvation or war, the result is the same. They might as well go out fighting, as would almost anyone in the same circumstances.
(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Credit: Raising Yousuf. Another view of Gaza, and another of my endless efforts to remind people, including myself, to try looking at things from different perspectives.)
Doug's Darkworld 