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Israel collects import taxes for Gaza and stopped passing it on. Gaza doesn’t pay for electricity and other things from Israel. Gaza is still ahead of this game.
But if you want to tell people only one side, go for it! You have a lot of company.
Come on guys. They don’t need this to incite their people.
We are looking at Hamas who is supported by Iran. Do you really need to spend time thinking about why the rioting? Why is the obvious so opaque to intelligent journalists?
I’ve given up hand-wringing over the plight of the Palestinians, both in real life and as portrayed in the media. In real life, Palestinian leaders put their own people in harm’s way all the time without the people ever balking. In the media, every Israeli action is an overreaction. And why should anyone care about the European reaction to anything involving the Israelis? (Or the president’s withdrawal from the Iran deal?) To rank their concerns as morally merited is laughable (unless, of course, one will agree to anything in the name of “free” health care and college). I also am dubious that one overreaction by English authorities was single-handedly responsible for an additional decade or whatever of terror by the IRA. But if true, does that not essentially outlaw a two-way fight? Is it not a form of masochism? American analysts are very lucky to be able to size up the pros and cons of another nation’s actions in the midst of urban warfare while sitting far enough away to not be traumatized by the violence yet claiming to be close enough to the action to understand its impact.
The situation reminds me of a scene from Biloxi Blues in which Eugene Jerome (the Neil Simon character played by Matthew Broderick) is lectured by his buddy and boot camp punching bag Arnold Epstein after an incident in which the despised Epstein is discovered to have taken the fall for another soldier. All the while, passive Jerome remains silent.
Epstein: Why is it we come from the same background, but I can’t understand you?
You’re a witness.
You’re always standing around watching what’s happening.
You know, scribbling in your book what other people do.
You have to get in the middle of it.
You have to take sides.
Make a contribution to the fight.
Jerome: What fight?
Epstein: Any fight.
The one you believe in.
Until you do, you’ll never be a writer, Eugene.