So, we now have a news item that’s going to be on the front pages for the foreseeable future, and before someone launches a thread with any of the usual predictable shitpost contents on this issue, I thought I’d make at least some attempt to steer any discourse on this matter into more reasonable channels. Though the level of emotion attached to the issue will almost certainly negate my efforts at some point.
I am, of course, referring to the recent flareup in Gaza.
Most observers are, sadly, resigned to this turning seriously nasty, even more so than it already has. Hamas decided that the way forward was to engage in butchering people, and the current Israeli government isn’t minded to look upon that activity with anything other than a searing desire to enact a terrible revenge. I’m already seeing adverts to this effect popping up on FB, and they’re even starting to interfere with two games I play sometimes that require spells of video watching to progress.
Neither side in this conflict appears willing even to contemplate the notion, that continued desire for revenge is merely going to perpetuate the already multi-generational hatred that seethes away in the region. While the long-forgotten root cause of violence in the region can yet again be traced back to religion, for many of the present generation, that’s been eclipsed by personal hatred for some time.
Three to four years of news footage, featuring IDF soldiers beating and maiming Palestinian children in Gaza (including, of all things, kneecapping incidents), reveals starkly why much personal hatred for Israelis exists among the Gazans. The requisite brutality was no doubt encouraged by Netanyahu, who, like so many right wing demagogues, regards the iron fist as the solution to any administrative problem. That this would eventually push the recipients of said treatment to boiling point obviously never occurred to him.
Trouble is, now that boiling point has been reached, and in a singularly unpleasant manner.
Hamas, of course, will (or at least, should have) destroyed any chance of support for their cause from outside through their latest actions, other than, of course, from their current sponsors. Who, incongruously, are apparently Iranian. How an ostensibly Sunni organisation came to acquire Shia backers, when the two sects have a long history of internecine hatred of their own, is one of those mysteries that will remain unsolvable for all time. Not least because there’s already a Shia player in the region, in the form of Hezbollah, who have been long recipients of Iranian largesse, though the low impact thereof in Gaza might explain the temporary funnelling of finance and resources to Hamas.
Unfortunately, far from learning the requisite lesson, the Israeli government seems determined to turn up the iron fist to Spinal Tap 11. Presumably on the basis that it won’t lose support from vocal (and politically influential) external lobbies, and might even secure itself extra arms into the bargain. Plus, of course, doing so will facilitate the scratching of the revenge itch.
This is not going to end well. Those with the relevant long memories will be thinking of, say, Sabra and Chatila in 1982, an odious episode where the command chain decided to let a quasi-fascist faction be their proxy executioner in Lebanon. Hatreds are still simmering over that one 40 years on. If anything, the current command chain seems hell-bent upon ensuring that this mess will continue well into the 22nd century and beyond.
Even tapping lightly on this hornet’s nest is to be avoided by sensible people, but various hotheads have chosen to give said hornet’s nest a solid kicking with size 12 titanium toecapped boots. The only question that remains at the moment, is whether the hornets in question will be velutina or mandarinia.
. I think most Neo-Christians are viewing this as the start of their ideas of various Armageddon and Jesus’ return scenarios.