I was going to write this morning about the Packers loss to the Lions tonight, but then I woke up this morning and read this morning the summary of Amnesty International’s accusation of genocide by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza. Here is the key paragraph from the write-up:
The report documents how Israel deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza intended to lead, over time, to their destruction. These conditions were imposed through three simultaneous patterns that repeatedly compounded the effect of each other’s devastating impacts: damage to and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure and other objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population; the repeated use of sweeping, arbitrary and confusing mass “evacuation” orders to forcibly displace almost all of Gaza’s population; and the denial and obstruction of the delivery of essential services, humanitarian assistance and other life-saving supplies into and within Gaza.
I really think this is the defining moral issue of our time. What happened to Israel on October 7th was terrible, and obviously they had a right to respond. But, they fell right into the trap Gaza laid for them, overreacting and turning world opinion against them. Israel had wide moral latitude post-October 7th, and very quickly overran than ground. It’s hard to look at pictures of Gaza dn read stories of innocent men, women, and children there, and not feel like Israel could have – should have – handled this differently.
Further, in the moral accounting of this situation in the future, I think the United States, and President Joe Biden, will come in for harsh, and rightful, criticism of their role. We’ve enabled Israeli atrocities. The blood of thousands of innocent Palestinians is also on our hands.
Justin DaMetz 