"Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?"
This is the aspect of all this that confuses me the most. Yes, those women haunt me. The videos I saw, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the video of Shani Louk's body being paraded and spat on by milita…
"Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?"
This is the aspect of all this that confuses me the most. Yes, those women haunt me. The videos I saw, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the video of Shani Louk's body being paraded and spat on by militants makes me feel physically sick every time I think of it.
But the videos and stories of women and children in Gaza with their limbs blown off, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the story of a woman who was buried under rubble while giving birth, the rescuers found the heads of her twins emerging from her birth canal, her sixteen-month old daughter, the only survivor, paralysed, those stories haunt me too.
Those women and children are also women and children. Why is a failure to condemn their deaths any less of a betrayal?
Hamas have been reporting the numbers of every conflict since around 2006. Those numbers have always been independently verified to be accurate. But heck, even if we halve them, if a mere 12,000 civilians have been killed in 100 days, most of them women and children, I just don't understand how this provokes so much less horror and outrage in some than the 1200 civilians killed in Israel.
The only explanation I can think of is the aforementioned videos. A video of a terrorist raping or attacking a single terrified woman has more visceral impact than seeing a rocket hit an apartment building. For me too. Regardless of how many women and children were inside that building. And Israel, for all their flaws, haven't raped Palestinians in this conflict (it's worth pointing out the this wasn't true during the Nakba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1TAOibLss)). But I don't know, I just can't understand how this continues to hold true as the number rise.
And yes, first of all I think many people would demand that the U.S. didn't turn Vancouver into a parking lot. But there are also very significant differences between your scenario and the scenario in Gaza. First, the people in Vancouver could leave. And were free to leave at any point before the attacks. Second, the U.S. isn't horribly mistreating the people living in Vancouver. It isn't stealing their land, it isn't holding them under blockade, it isn't standing idly by as American civilians kill them. If they were, I think people would view the situation very differently.
I think anybody with a brain and a heart is upset by this. But to see this situation clearly, we have to do better than letting our hatred for what Hamas did justify the obliteration of the innocent people unfortunate enough to live in the same region.
"Ah - I’m likely way too upset to make sense of this. Yet the women brutalized raped and murdered haunt me. Do they haunt you?"
This is the aspect of all this that confuses me the most. Yes, those women haunt me. The videos I saw, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the video of Shani Louk's body being paraded and spat on by militants makes me feel physically sick every time I think of it.
But the videos and stories of women and children in Gaza with their limbs blown off, especially, but certainly not exclusively, the story of a woman who was buried under rubble while giving birth, the rescuers found the heads of her twins emerging from her birth canal, her sixteen-month old daughter, the only survivor, paralysed, those stories haunt me too.
Those women and children are also women and children. Why is a failure to condemn their deaths any less of a betrayal?
Hamas have been reporting the numbers of every conflict since around 2006. Those numbers have always been independently verified to be accurate. But heck, even if we halve them, if a mere 12,000 civilians have been killed in 100 days, most of them women and children, I just don't understand how this provokes so much less horror and outrage in some than the 1200 civilians killed in Israel.
The only explanation I can think of is the aforementioned videos. A video of a terrorist raping or attacking a single terrified woman has more visceral impact than seeing a rocket hit an apartment building. For me too. Regardless of how many women and children were inside that building. And Israel, for all their flaws, haven't raped Palestinians in this conflict (it's worth pointing out the this wasn't true during the Nakba (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1TAOibLss)). But I don't know, I just can't understand how this continues to hold true as the number rise.
And yes, first of all I think many people would demand that the U.S. didn't turn Vancouver into a parking lot. But there are also very significant differences between your scenario and the scenario in Gaza. First, the people in Vancouver could leave. And were free to leave at any point before the attacks. Second, the U.S. isn't horribly mistreating the people living in Vancouver. It isn't stealing their land, it isn't holding them under blockade, it isn't standing idly by as American civilians kill them. If they were, I think people would view the situation very differently.
I think anybody with a brain and a heart is upset by this. But to see this situation clearly, we have to do better than letting our hatred for what Hamas did justify the obliteration of the innocent people unfortunate enough to live in the same region.