Matthew Yglesias » Gazans are Mostly Children

Nov 3rd, 2009 at 11:08 am

Gazans are Mostly Children

In the Gaza thread you hear sentiments like “Sadly, the Gazans seem to keep choosing self destruction” or, sarcastically, “I know! Let’s vote for the group (Hamas) that supports more armed resistance!”

It’s worth noting that Hamas was, in fact, supported by only a minority of Palestinian voters. That said, I think another issue here that’s rarely noted in these discussions is that the median age in the Gaza Strip is 17.4 years. This is, in other words, primarily a population of children we’re talking about. They didn’t vote for anyone. But you can bet they’re not going to grow up with a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings about Israel.

Comments
79

79 Responses to “Gazans are Mostly Children”

SomeCallMeTim Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
But you can bet they’re not going to grow up with a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings about Israel.

So don’t let them grow up.
LaFollette Progressive Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Remember kids, even though you live in a giant prison that’s subject to sporadic bombings, this isn’t “collective punishment.” Because a plurality of the adults in your neighborhood voted for the more radical party in an election several years ago, you deserve this, personally.
Marshall Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
This doesn’t matter to Peretz and his friends. They’ve already come out in favor of targeting Lebanese milk factories and the like, in order to make sure the next generation from which Israel’s enemies will be drawing are malnourished as children and consequently less threatening.

Obviously these people don’t give a shit, but it’s worth saying: that’s a war crime.
Bob Roddis Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:18 am
Mr. Y:

Thank you for reporting on this subject.
SS Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:27 am
I’ll second the thanks to Matt for reporting on this – it takes a certain amount of courage to call Israel out given the nature of the discourse surrounding Israel in the US.

Let me put it this way, if instead of Israel, we were talking about (for example) Russia, and the way Russia treated its east Asian minorities, or if we were talking about Turkey and the way the Cypriots are treated in Turkish Cyprus, would we have this level of double speak? The way Israel treats the Palestinians is unconscionable.
Mark Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
@2 – My life in the US is a hell of a lot worse because somebody else voted for GWB. Getting bombed and shot at while I try to make due on less than a dollar a day because somebody else voted for GWB would be unspeakable.
JM Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:35 am
The way Israel treats the Palestinians is unconscionable.

But they were offered a state back in 1947, so blah blah blah blah.
jamie Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Yes, more humanitarian aid should be allowed to go to Gaza. Collective punishment is bad.
At the same time, I don’t really see MY or other progressives suggesting viable solutions to the rocket attacks. If I have just missed these, please let me know.
SS Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 am
@8:

The rocket attacks are a nuisance, when you get right down to it. They’ve killed something like ten people in eight years – more Israelis have drowned themselves in toilets when passed out drunk in that timeframe. Citing the rocket attacks as a reason for the blockade (which started happening after the blockade) is effectively a declaration of malice.
wilfred Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
BILL MOYERS: What did you see with your own eyes when you went there?RICHARD GOLDSTONE: Well, I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers. I saw chicken farms, for egg production, completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of chickens killed. I met with families who lost their loved ones in homes in which they were seeking shelter from the Israeli ground forces. I had to have the very emotional and difficult interviews with fathers whose little daughters were killed, whose family were killed. One family, over 21 members, killed by Israeli mortars. So, it was a very difficult investigation, which will give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

IOKIYAJ.
JM Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:46 am
At the same time …

No, not at the same time. There is no comparison between terrorists launching feeble, homemade rockets in the general direction of towns and a democracy maintaining a policy of ghettoization, attrition, and occasional collective punishment. There is no comparison in scale, agency, accountability, impact, legal status of the participants, the subscription of one set of victims to the victimization of the other, or body counts.

The only reason to use this kind of comparative rhetoric is reduce the weaker party to subhuman status, which I guess is a kind of irony.
Marshall Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
IOKIYAJ

Maybe in this life, but not in the next one.
Bob Roddis Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:47 am
But they were offered a state back in 1947

As a corollary to point #2 by LaFollette Progressive, “they” and the Gazan children of today aren’t the same group of people.
Don Williams Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 am
SLC’s “Hamas Rules!” is getting kinda trite.

So I thought I would give him something else to chant while he rubs his groin feverishly: An alleged American military running cadence which would probably work for the IDF with a few edits.
—————-

“We shoot the sick, the young, the lame,
We do our best to maim,
Because the kills all count the same,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Chorus: Napalm sticks to kids,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Flying low across the trees,
Pilots doing what they please,
Dropping frags on refugees,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Gooks in the open, making hay,
But I can hear the gunships say,
“There’ll be no Chieu Hoi today,”
Napalm sticks to kids.

See those farmers over there,
Watch me get them with a pair,
Blood and guts just everywhere,
Napalm sticks to kids.

I’ve only seen it happen twice,
But both times it was mighty nice,
Shooting peasants planting rice,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Napalm, son, is lots of fun,
Dropped in a bomb or shot from a gun,
It gets the gooks when on the run,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Drop some napalm on a farm,
It won’t do them any harm,
Just burn off their legs and arms,
Napalm sticks to kids.

CIA with guns for hire,
Montagnards around a fire,
Napalm makes the fire go higher,
Napalm sticks to kids.

I’ve been told it’s not so neat,
To catch gooks burning in the street,
But burning flesh, it smells to sweet,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Children sucking on a mother’s tit,
Wounded gooks down in a pit,
Dow Chemical doesn’t give a shit,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Bombadiers don’t care a bit,
Just as long as the pieces fit,
When you stuff the bodies in a pit,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Eighteen kids in a No Fire Zone,
Books under arms and going home,
Last in line goes home alone,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Chuck in a sampan, sitting in the stern,
They don’t think their boats will burn,
Those damn gooks will never learn,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Cobras flying in the sun,
Killing gooks is lots of fun,
Get one pregnant and it’s two for one,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Shoot civilians where they sit,
Take some pictures as you split,
All your life you’ll remember it,
Napalm sticks to kids.

NVA are all hard core,
Flechettes never are a bore,
Throw those PSYOPS out the door,
Napalm sticks to kids.

Gather kids as you fly over town,
By throwing candy on the ground,
Then grease ‘em when they gather ’round,
Napalm sticks to kids.”

Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm_sticks_to_kids
mark f Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
While the war in Gaza was in full swing John Hinderaker posted something about “new media” being an important front in the war on terror. In the now-defunct Power Line Forum I posted an article about four Palestinan sisters who’d been killed in their beds during a bombing strike, and pointed out that that was what a war zone actually looked like. I didn’t even really choose to highlight it because the girls were Palestinian or because they’d died as a result of Israeli violence or whatever; I just wanted to point out to the authors of Power Line–all three of them being fathers of daughters–that in real war zones, as opposed to sitting at home posting political opinions on the internet, innocent children are killed in their beds.

Amazingly, not one single commenter would agree with me that the deaths of those four girls was a tragedy worth contemplating. It was, after all, their fault that Hamas was their political leadership and was lobbing rockets across the border. I think the oldest of the girls was a teenager, yet in the minds of Power Line readers, they bore the responsibility for the bombs falling on their heads.
Don Williams Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Just remember — we were attacked on Sept 11 ,2001 because the Islamofascists “hate our freedoms”.

We were told so by our Christian President Bush — and Christians don’t lie.
SLC Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Re Don Williams

I have posed this question to Mr. Williams on a number of threads on this blog and have yet to receive a response. If Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers are so ticked off at Israel, why have they not launched any attacks there? Even in the Gaza Strip, they confine their activities to trying to overthrow the Hamas government. The only rational explanation for their conduct is that Mr. bin Laden is a Mossad agent and his organization is a Mossad front whose purpose is to discredit Muslims.
JM Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
And so we’ve managed to rediscover on this thread that armed conflict leads to dehumanization, that urban warfare is the most dehumanizing at all, and that because the US is Israel’s sponsor, the dehumanization we receive is aimed at the Palestinians (whereas, in other parts of the world, it’s aimed at Israel). That’s why MY’s info seems so strange to out national conversation.

Also, it must mean that we “hate Israel,” because that’s what we usually hear when we don’t automatically justify everything that foreign country does.
El Cid Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
No one anywhere near the U.S. political, foreign policy, or media establishment gives a shit what happens to Palestinian civilians. They don’t count. At best, they are occasional debating points with which to say something bad about Palestinian leadership. But as people, no one in power cares.
Hector Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Re: We were told so by our Christian President Bush — and Christians don’t lie

President Bush is as much a Christian as the late and unlamented Saddam Hussein was a Muslim.
Don Williams Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Re SLC at 17: “I have posed this question to Mr. Williams on a number of threads on this blog and have yet to receive a response. If Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers are so ticked off at Israel, why have they not launched any attacks there? ”
—————
Gee, I don’t know SLC. When looking for what caused 911, I simply looked at the past , documented grievances cited by the perps.

But my understanding is that the Israel Lobby has a mystical Vulcan mind meld with Bin Laden that allowed them to claim after 911 that Israel had nothing to do with Bin Laden’s motivations — in spite of Bin Laden’s fatwas and TV news interviews to the contrary.

For example, who can forget the New York Times article on Sept 23, 2001:

“IT probably came as something of a surprise to many Americans that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were apparently not about Israel and the Palestinians, at least not directly. That conflict dominates American images of the Middle East, and the past year has been especially bloody. Yet there were no indications that the architects of the attack had American support for Israel as their primary motivation.”

Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/weekinreview/23SCHM.html

ha ha ha. Normally you would have to read Judith Miller’s articles to get reporting of that quality.

By the way, I wrote to the New York Times several times in fall of 2001, pointing out that the above story was directly contradicted by their own fucking archives. To no avail.

Which was when I realized that the New York Times exists to LIE to the American People, not to inform us.
onlyme Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
El Cid Says:

No one anywhere near the U.S. political, foreign policy, or media establishment gives a shit what happens to Palestinian civilians.

Well, there are Inconvenient Truths and then there are Really Inconvenient Truths.
mwl Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
@9: The fact that Israel defends its civilian population far more effectively than Hamas defends Gaza’s civilians does not negate the fact that Hamas’ rocket fire is a valid casus belli.

I strongly doubt that you would consider rockets to be a mere “nuisance” if they were being fired at your house, or a school with your children.
Shylock Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.
some guy Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
That January, Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist group, won Palestine’s parliamentary elections, defeating the more moderate Fatah Party. Both parties sent armed partisans into the streets, and Gaza verged on civil war. Then, on June 9th, a tentative truce between Hamas and Israel ended after an explosion on a beach near Gaza City, apparently caused by an Israeli artillery shell, killed seven members of a Palestinian family, who were picnicking.

oh wait, you wanted to know how we stop rocket attacks, not how we stop artillery shelling of civilians, or how we end the use of white phosphorous against civilians, or how we keep soldiers from shooting civilians waving white flags.

hhhhhmmm, rocket attacks, how might we stop them?
shooter242 Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
As long as the Palestinians prefer religious intolerance to religious freedom, I have no problem with their treatment. As the old saw goes they are getting the Government they deserve.

Yglesias, if you’re so concerned about the children perhaps you should introduce the parents to freedom.
Njorl Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
President Bush is as much a Christian as the late and unlamented Saddam Hussein was a Muslim.

We have undeniable evidence that George Bush was engaged in Christianity related program activities.
LaFollette Progressive Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I strongly doubt that you would consider rockets to be a mere “nuisance” if they were being fired at your house, or a school with your children.

No, probably not. And I strongly doubt that you would consider having your hometown blockaded, bombed, and cordoned off as a prison to be just deserts if your neighbors voted for a really shitty mayor. So what’s your point?
daveNYC Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:33 pm
The fact that Israel defends its civilian population far more effectively than Hamas defends Gaza’s civilians does not negate the fact that Hamas’ rocket fire is a valid casus belli.

To do what, bomb the flour plant? The sewage plant? Houses with civilians? Is your argument that it’s not war crimes if the other guy can’t defend against them? The firebombing of Tokyo was OK because Japan was to weak to stop it?
Don Williams Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Actually, an interesting question is WHO created Hamas — and WHY.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html
SLC Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Re Don Williams

Gee, Mr. Williams doesn’t know why Al Qaeda has not launched any attacks in Israel and in fact is trying to overthrow the Hamas Government in Gaza which does launch attacks against Israel. The answer is obvious but apparently, Mr. Williams is too dense to see it. Mr. bin Laden is a MOSSAD AGENT. End of story.
JM Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
@9: The fact that Israel defends its civilian population far more effectively than Hamas defends Gaza’s civilians does not negate the fact that Hamas’ rocket fire is a valid casus belli.

No, you were supposed to say that a handful of pissant home-made rockets are an existential threat to the state of Israel.

You are an anti-semite. We all see that now.
MortimerPeacock Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
As long as the Palestinians prefer religious intolerance to religious freedom, I have no problem with their treatment.

I really hope you’re joking here. It’s well know among non-Neanderthals that plenty of Palestinians are Christians.

And I presume you think there’s no “religious intolerance” in Israel?
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Israel is only trying to nip their cockroach problem in the bud. Get them while they’re young and the filthy shvatz goyim infestation will be substantially reduced.
tomemos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
“As long as the Palestinians prefer religious intolerance to religious freedom, I have no problem with their treatment.”

And you think, what, that the Israeli government prefers religious freedom? Non-Orthodox Jews can’t even get married in Israel.
tomemos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“The fact that Israel defends its civilian population far more effectively than Hamas defends Gaza’s civilians does not negate the fact that Hamas’ rocket fire is a valid casus belli.”

And the Israeli blockade, what is that exactly?
SS Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
SLC, while none of us knows Al-Qaeda’s motivations, I think if one had to guess, the guess would be that they see Israel as a small fish that is enabled by other countries in the West.

Just a guess, of course.
Bucephalos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
The rocket attacks are a nuisance

I lol’d.
@31–Jews did 9/11?
danceswithgoats Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 pm
From the original article:

“In the police station in Sderot, a “Qassam Museum” displays the exploded carcasses of hundreds of rockets that have landed in the area. Barack Obama visited there as a candidate, in July, 2008. “No country would accept missiles landing on the heads of its citizens,” he said. “If missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that.”

Why is it Israel’s responsibility to care for the children of Gaza? Shouldn’t that be the responsibility of Hamas? Hamas uses the deaths of their civilians to score points against Israel. Every time they engage in random attacks on Israel, Hamas endangers all their citizens. You hold Israel to a higher standard but if Hamas wants to be treated like grown-ups then they need to act like grown-ups.
tomemos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
“Why is it Israel’s responsibility to care for the children of Gaza?”

“Not caring for” and “starving and killing” are two distinct concepts.
Marshall Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
You hold Israel to a higher standard

No I don’t. I hold them all to the same standard: targeting children for the purpose of destroying your enemy’s human capital is a war crime. It’s just that Israel is much, much better at carrying out this strategy than is Hamas.
matt w Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Every time they engage in random attacks on Israel, Hamas endangers all their citizens.

Interestingly enough, this sentence is just as true when you exchange the words “Hamas” and “Israel.”
Cain Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Why is it Israel’s responsibility to care for the children of Gaza?

Am I my brother’s keeper?
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Why was it Germany’s responsibility to care for the children of Buchenwald? Shouldn’t that have been the responsibility of Jews? Jews used the deaths of their civilians to score points against Germany. Every time they engaged in random attacks on German officials – the Jews put the lives of all the Jews in jeopardy. Germany was held to a higher standard but looking back – it’s clear now that if the Jews had wanted to be treated like grown-ups…then they should’ve acted like grown-ups.
danceswithgoats Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
OK, what would you rather have Israel do?

tomemos – Google “Gaza” on google images and tell me if you see one starving person in all the pictures. Kind of like the 250K Iraqi kids that died due to the embargo – BS.

Marshall – If I thought for a moment that Israel deliberately targetted children you would not read anything from me defending them.

matt w – Israel does not engage in random attacks.

Cain – Given the circumstances, Israel does a better job than Hamas.

Trevor – trying to compare Israel to the Germans of WWII is ludicrious (sp?). You can do better than that.
Marshall Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:29 pm
f I thought for a moment that Israel deliberately targetted children you would not read anything from me defending them.

Well, check out comment 10 then:

Well, I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers. I saw chicken farms, for egg production, completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of chickens killed. I met with families who lost their loved ones in homes in which they were seeking shelter from the Israeli ground forces.

How about the Liban Lait factory in Baalbek that the IDF bombed in the 2006 war? I suppose you think this is all collateral damage, that the evil ones purposefully stash children in arms caches and arms caches in milk factories. But all of this is perfectly consistent with strategies employed by powerful states throughout history: remove their productive capacity and decimate their ability to wage war or resist in any way far into the future. But THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A WAR CRIME and bullshit claims of self defense are what all war criminals use to justify their evil.
SLC Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Re dancingwithgoats

Mr. dancing just doesn’t understand Mr. abb1 and Mr. Trevor. To them, Israel = Nazi Germany and Bibi = Hitler. As I stated on a previous thread, if Hitler really was the ruler of Israel, the Palestinians would have been eliminated long ago.
chet Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
That this malevolent, heartless pinprick of a country can cause so much misery defies reason.

As to its unconditional US support, can anyone provide a single strategic benefit that American citizens derive from it?
Marshall Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
If I thought for a moment that Israel deliberately targetted children you would not read anything from me defending them.

Furthermore, the initial premise of this blog post is that the entire Gaza blockade targets children. Gaza is fully of hundreds of thousands of children, and there are Israeli naval vessels off the coast intercepting shiploads of food and clothing for them. What exactly is the point of all that if not to target children?

Usually you people argue that the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are violent justifies anything the Israeli government does, and then you accuse those of us who think that international law and human rights exist independently of Hamas and Hezbollah’s actions of holding Israel to a “different standard.” It’s been awhile since I’ve actually seen someone deny that Israel deliberately targets children. It’s obvious that they do; the debate is between those who imagine that’s defensible and those who realize just what we’re being asked to contort ourselves to justify.
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
DWG,

I’m not comparing anything. Germany was dealing with a very tough problem (Jews rich, everyone else destitute) yet do you ever hear any mention of it in the histories? Their Occupation of Paris was very mild and respectful. A hearty mazel tov! for Israel’s restraint in the face of so much terror. The Fakestinians have only themselves to blame.
abb1 Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
As I stated on a previous thread, if Hitler really was the ruler of Israel, the Palestinians would have been eliminated long ago.

SLC, the Zionist state is far past the Kristallnacht and the Nuremberg Laws, but the Final Solution is still under discussion. You, for one, seem to be an enthusiastic proponent of it.

So, what’s the evidence for your assertion?
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
As any devotee of the world’s greatest philosopher (Ayn Rand) knows – there are the superdupers and there are the lice and parasites. When the lice roam freely and demand their “rights” what kind of message are we sending to new hordes of lice around the corner? SLC, danceswithgoats, et. al.simply reject the evils of idealism and compassion. Israel is the only country on Earth with the guts to embrace the profound moral good in the Ayn Rand vision.
Don Williams Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Re chet at 48: “As to its unconditional US support, can anyone provide a single strategic benefit that American citizens derive from it?”
———
Well, SOME American citizens probably derived some benefit from that $15 Million that Israeli billionaire Haim Saban dumped into the DNC’s coffers back in 2000-2002. Members of the Democratic Caucus, specifically.

SOME Americans derived some benefit from that backstabbing that Israel Lobby billionaire S Daniel Abraham delivered to Howard Dean in the 2004 Iowa primary –after Dean said the USA needed to be more of a neutral party in the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

And SOME Americans derive a middle class living from lying to their fellow countrymen while employed in the pro-Israel propaganda sector of the US news media.

The rest of us bury our dead and try to figure out how much our elderly and young will suffer from the $Trillions pissed away on foreign wars waged by Israel’s whores for Israel’s benefit.
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
All this emphasis on Israel’s understandable (and few) mistakes. Who cares what the goyim think?! Let the nose-picking self-haters like Goldstone have conniption fits about that. Don Williams misses the point: We are all Israelis, now!
Ron Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Screw the hypocrites.

Israel’s duty is to protect its citizens.If missiles were
were being launched from Tijuana to San Diego, we would have flattened the place in hours.
fdgdfg Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
As long as the Palestinians prefer religious intolerance to religious freedom, I have no problem with their treatment. As the old saw goes they are getting the Government they deserve.
Yglesias, if you’re so concerned about the children perhaps you should introduce the parents to freedom.

I don’t think it is very Jesus Christs of you to enjoy the suffering of thousands of people. But then again you’re a racists who really just hates those brown people; unless you hope and want the GOP to be bombed and murdered for their religious intolerance.
abb1 Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Israel’s duty is to comply immediately with international law: end the occupation, end the blockade, and accept a just solution to the refugee problem.

Did Nazi Germany have a “duty to protect its citizens” is 1945?
tomemos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
If missiles were being launched from Tijuana to San Diego, we would have flattened the place in hours.

As has been noted in a previous thread, Americans are getting shot in America by Mexican drug cartels, and yet Oaxaca is still standing. Try again.
bluemeanies Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
@55

If needed food supplies were being blockaded form the US, artillary fire destroying our essential infrastructure and children were being killed by an occupying army American citizens would surely use whatever rockets we could get our hands on to strike back however we can.

So, if we put ourselves in the shoes of both participants and imagine the most violent means within our capacity for responding to provocation we have endless violence and endless provocation. The cycle must be broken somewhere.

And for me if one group is a supremely organized and stable state and the other group is a chaotic mess of independent actors, some of whom are affilliated with ‘government’ some not, the group that is more capable of breaking the cycle is the organized state. And that is why I pay more attention to Israeli actions – because the path to stopping them is the simple order of the Isreali government/military. To stop Palestinian actions you need a state capable of policing military force within borders. This is much more complicated, and highly unlikely to occur while the Israeli military is attacking.
Zaadar Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
American liberals are funny.

How many Serbian civilians did your heroe Bill Clinton kill ?
tomemos Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“your heroe”

A Dan Quayle fan, I see.
Ron Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Shorter Israel-haters:

Israel is evil, therefore it is ok to launch rockets on its people, and it is not ok for Israel to react.
Trevor Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Shorter Israel lovers: Amalek is everywhere, therefore it is ok to nuke any and all countries including the slanty-eyed anti-Semites cursing Jews from the Spratly Islands. (The Samson Option) Who cares what the goyim think? Never again.
abb1 Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
@62, sure it’s ok for Israel to react. By complying with international law, ending the occupation and accepting a fair solutions to the refugees problem. It’s either that or the rockets, what’s so complicated here?
Senescent Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:12 pm
You know what they say, nits make lice.
Julian Elson Says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I’d say this: if one recognizes a gradient of oppression, with the genocidal extremes of the Congo Free State, Nazi Germany against Jews and Roma, the Khmer Rouge, and the Ottoman Empire against Armenians at the extreme end, but a variety of forms of oppression which, while heinous, fall short of that, from the Japanese in Manchuria to the British in India to the French in Algeria to the Kims in North Korea, then I think that it’s pretty obvious that Israel isn’t very close to Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge, and France in Algeria, for instance, seems like a more closely-fitting comparison.

If one regards the Congo Free State, Nazi Germany, Khmer Rouge, Ottoman Empire, etc, not as exceptional, but as fairly typical oppressive regimes, then Israel is like Nazi Germany, and Nazi Germanies are fairly common.

That said, it seems pretty clear that Israel is engaging in a collective punishment of Gaza that would be unconscionable if every Gazan were an adult and is still more unconscionable because they’re mostly kids. What security needs is Israel addressing by forbidding Gazans from importing jam when they have macaroni? What does a slogan of “no prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis” have to do with protecting Sderot from rockets?
abb1 Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:28 am
if one recognizes a gradient of oppression

The fact of oppression itself doesn’t tell us much. The US is also very oppressive, with 2+ million people in jails, ruled by ruthless gangs and jailers. But the reason most of these people are oppressed is that they belong to a wrong socio-economic class; and in this sense the US is similar to something like the Khmer Rouge regime.

Israel, OTOH, clearly is very similar to Nazi Germany: militant ethnocentric regime with millions of people deemed (and treated like) “vermin” for no other reason than their ethnicity.
This Machine Kills Fascists Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:53 am
If missiles were were being launched from Tijuana to San Diego, we would have flattened the place in hours.

As has been noted here, someone from Ciudad Juarez recently crossed the border to El Paso and shot a few people. Last time I checked, Ciudad Juarez had not been flattened by air strikes, tanks had not rolled across the border to demolish the houses of the shooter’s relatives, and the city’s water, power and food supplies had not been devastated.

So, go and smite yourself, asshole.
David Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 7:49 am
If a wartime blockade of enemy territory is ‘collective punishment’, which country isn’t guilty of it ?

And what about the sanctions on Iraq for over a decade ? How many children did that kill ?
James Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Nice relatavism, David. I thought that your lot were meant to be opposed to that.
larry birnbaum Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:48 am
It’s terrible. The question for Israelis is whether they can afford to care more for Palestinian children than the Palestinian leadership in Gaza does. The way out of this horrible situation is clear: Hamas, elected under a political framework (the Palestinian Authority) established by accords between Israel and the Palestinians, must endorse those accords, including specifically the goal of negotiating a two-state resolution of the conflict. That will open the way to reconciliation with the PA, a unified Palestinian government, and a return to a more normal life for the children of Gaza.

As usual with Yglesias, the onus for all action lies with Israel; the Palestinians are bystanders without any will or agency of their own.
ironi burgani Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am
The median age statistic seems to come from the CIA Factbook, which also says that Gaza has one of the lowest death rates in the world – less than half of that of the US.
aldersa Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:48 am
AHH the circle is complete, Palestinians shouldn’t be held accountable for electing Hamas because the median age is 17.4…brilliant, so what should the palestinians be acocuntable for? When do you begin to hold them responsible? This double standard game is becoming tired, when you are done deifying the Palestinians and begin to hold them accountable let us in Israel know so we can start negotiations.

After all according to you they are just children so we can’t possibly negotiate with children…
abb1 Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Enough with this “negotiations” bullshit already. End of the occupation, end of the blockade, and return of the refugees – that’s all you need to do.
Jerry Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Americans generally don’t understand what the word “occupied” means in the context of Israel. Palestinians, as a group, consider all of Israel as well as Gaza and the West Bank “occupied.” That’s why removing the Israeli presence from Gaza and the West Bank wouldn’t bring peace. After all, Israel did evacuate Gaza, and received about 8000 rocket attacks in the following years. (There were few casualties, but not for lack of effort on the Palestinians’ part.) And in the 1990s, Israel removed essentially all of its military forces out of the West Bank before renewed violence pulled them back in.

There are many Moslem states, covering vast areas and encompassing hundreds of millions of people. In all of them, Jews were officially second-class citizens with few civil rights before the creation of Israel, and in some of them, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Jews cannot become citizens at all. There is room for one state, which is smaller than the Navajo Nation, with a Jewish national character. Allowing widespread Palestinian immigration into Israel would put an end to that Jewish character. That’s why I believe that peace and security for Palestinian Arabs who aren’t already citizens of Israel needs to be built outside of Israel’s borders. This is not perfectly just, no. But both Israelis and Palestinians have a good claim on this land; there is no good answer but for them to split it.
abb1 Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Palestinians, as a group, consider all of Israel as well as Gaza and the West Bank “occupied.”

And they are correct: of course it’s all occupied, as long as the victims of 1948 Zionist ethnic cleansing are being prevented from returning.
Dave Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
“As long as the Palestinians prefer religious intolerance to religious freedom, I have no problem with their treatment. As the old saw goes they are getting the Government they deserve.

Yglesias, if you’re so concerned about the children perhaps you should introduce the parents to freedom.”

I don’t think a post has ever made me so angry. Man, only one thing can cure my reaction to that sort of ignorance, and I’m going to go smoke some of it right now.
imp Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
But you forget, a few months ago some unidentified person(s) fired a homemade rocket out of Gaza into Israel and caused somebody to have a heart attack. If that doesn’t justify starving over a million children to death, what does?
Jerry Says:
November 5th, 2009 at 8:37 am
The ethnic cleansing comment makes some sense. But remember that just as 800,000 or so Palestinians left their homes after 1948, 800,000 or so Jews left their homes in Arab and North African countries after 1948. And while there are a million Moslems with full Israeli citizenship, Jews can’t even set foot in some Arab countries legally. Removing Jewish settlements from the West Bank would constitute ethnic cleansing; there’s no proposal to expel Palestinian Israelis from Israel proper.And Jews have continually inhabited parts of the West Bank since before the Arab conquest.

Matt Yglesias

Gazans are Mostly Children

79 Responses to “Gazans are Mostly Children”

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