Israeli jets continued to pound Hamas targets in Gaza and Hamas militants launched more rockets into Israel today, as the number of people killed in the past day in Gaza rose to at least 275. Israeli ground troops and tanks were deployed around Gaza.
Blood and tears. Blood and tears. It seems that whatever happens to, or is written about the Middle East is a variation on the same theme- blood and tears. People consumed by hatred and lacking any regard for others attack innocent civilians. In response, one of the most power and reactionary military machines in the world hits back, sometimes getting their intended targets but more often than not killing scores of innocent civilians- women, children, and the sick and infirm unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of doing the hard work of trying to figure out how to live together, both sides seem intractably engaged in trying to wipe the other from the face of the Earth. Hamas fires scores of rockets into Israel, Israel retaliates furiously, Hamas erupts in peal of righteous indignation that Israel dared to respond in kind. And so it goes, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Only when the power of love overcomes the love of power will we have any hope of evolving as a species. i wish I could remember where I hear that, because it perfectly captures the endless cycle of death, destruction, recrimination, and suffering that's part and parcel of life in the Middle East. For the past sixty years, it's been variations on the same theme. The reality is that both sides have buckets of blood on their hands, and yet they refuse to see that, as valid and righteous as their position is, there's another firmly entrenched point of view diametrically opposed to their own. With so much anger, hatred, and recrimination in the air, and with zealots on both sides opposed to any sort of cooperation and compromise, how many more thousands of innocents must die for nothing?
In a argument like this where suffering and death are the coin of the realm, anyone with the wherewithal to stand up and scream "ENOUGH!" immediately becomes an assassination target. The only questions are where, when, and how. Once again, hatred and the urge to destroy and subjugate the enemy rules the day...and madness will continue to be the only thing both sides have in common.
