I Saw it in Palestine

Gaza: The Feast Day of the Slaughter of the Innocents, 2008

I've been struck dumb by the attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, completely unable to string two words together. I hope to write a few letters and make a few calls to Israeli and American officials tomorrow (probably while I sit in an airport going through the same holiday travel hell as everyone else), but in the meantime my friend Amy has some thoughts about the situation:

After watching the news in horror the last two days, I finally have found some words. Not too many, but a few.

This is reportedly the largest action on the part of Israel against the Palestinians since the 1967 war. There is some question of who, exactly, broke the cease-fire. But regardless, the toll is, as always, unbalanced. Over three hundred dead- three hundred- and maybe as many as 1,000 injured; there is no way of knowing how critical the injured are, or how many of them will die of their wounds.

Amira Hass, bless her soul, writes 'Gaza strike is not against Hamas, it's against all Palestinians'.

Today is the Feast Day in Western churches known as the Slaughter of the Innocents.

I am aware that not everyone in Gaza is innocent. But most of them are. Is it just to kill 300 in order to get a handful you were aiming for? Is it just to herd one and a half million people into a section of land, not let them leave, and then bombard them with missile strikes?

My values say it is not.

This is wrong. Very, very wrong.

Edit: Ali Abunimah gives us yet another stunning article.