because sometime you just have to laugh for crying

So, yesterday or so, the Israel IDF bombed Gaza. Again. Specifically, they bombed buildings under construction so, on the good side of things, nobody was there and there were no casualties. More specifically, the buildings under construction were on the campus of the University.

That’s right, potential building if higher learning. The irony is so thick we could walk on it, barefoot.

To be fair, I haven’t heard the IDF side of the story yet. I searched it, but apparently they haven’t made a comment. This time.

In the past though, also to be fair, right wing Israeli bloggers have called the Gaza University a “greenhouse of Hamas terrorism”, so it must be okay to bomb it. Just like when they bombed a UN elementary school in ’09. Because, you know, of that nasty greenhouse effect.

Only, these were building under construction so, well, no roofs. No roofs make it hard for there to be a greenhouse effect, even a metaphorical one, because they haven’t been used for anything yet. I suppose this was one of them pre-emptive strikes, just in case anyone was going to get all green-housey in there. You know, later.

Or, perhaps, it’s just that an educated population is tyranny’s greatest fear. Ever. Educated folk stand up for themselves, demand basic things like the right to farm, and have water, and not be indiscriminately killed while attending school or farming and shit. Educated folk see through the bullshit and the lies.

Heck, when the lies are being told by the IDF and the Israeli government, it doesn’t even take an education. Just a willingness to not be intentionally obtuse.

Please don’t misunderstand me – I think Hamas is just as much to blame as the Israeli government and IDF. I think all three organizations largely suck shit. I just wish they’d quit making civilians pay for their blood thirsty ways. And, in the case of Israel, which holds pretty much all the cards, I wish that they’d realize that being a big (homicidal, bigoted, apartheid-loving) bully just makes them look so, so bad.

On a more positive note, I watched this, from TED.com, in which JR, a French artist, received the TED award and made his TED wish. Part of his work was done in Israel and Palestine, where Mullahs, Imams, Rabbis and a host of regular folk from both sides of the apartheid wall participated in an installation that promoted unity.

If we could just completely marginalize the haters…

No, wait, that marginalizing thing is what got us here, isn’t it. Maybe we should use the J’s Love Project strategy and love more.

I think that a protest in which all the peace lovers of the world marched en masse to their leaders' halls of ignorance, er, power, and then force-hugged every last one of the fuckers, would be pretty damned effective. I think it might actually change some of them (a good hug is a powerful thing).

And the ones that couldn’t handle it, and whose heads just exploded? Collateral damage, baby. Cheney and Rumsfeld would appreciate the irony, I’m sure.

For Gaza

Let me state this plainly:

I am not anti-Israel. I believe that Israel has a right to exist as valid as any other nation state. I don't know if I would have made the same choices that were made in the late 1940's, but that's water under the bridge. Israel exists and has a right to continue to exist.

I am not pro-Palestine. I believe that the nation state is one of the poorer inventions of the human species. Show me a nation-state and I will show you an institution that will want something that someone else possesses, and will fight and kill for it if they get the opportunity.

I am not anti-Israeli. The Israeli people are a vibrant and dynamic culture with much to offer the world.

I am not pro-Hamas. Hamas, as much as the nation-state of Israel, has many crimes to answer for. I do not condone or approve of terrorism or violence no matter how much I might understand the frustration and anger that spawns it.

What I am is anti-Israeli government and policy in so much as that government and policy considers it justifiable to marginalize 1.5 million people and dictate their quality of life so that it is, at best, an existence of bare subsistence.

I am pro-Palestinian. Palestinians are a people. Like the Israelis, they have a vibrant and dynamic culture to share with the world. Like the Israelis, they deserve the opportunity to exist and flourish.

I am pro-Gaza. It is for the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza that my heart aches, that my teeth grind, that my fists clench.

They are impoverished for no reason other than an arrogant belief that one people are more worthy than another; denied the rights that we consider most basic because one culture has decreed they are less worthy; refused the basic goods required to build their homes and feed their children because a group of developed nations have decided that it is justifiable to punish an entire people for what they consider to be the sin of  poor democratic choice.

The international community of nations tout themselves as wise statesmen acting in the best interest of humanity, but they are not. Rather, they are bullies, the largest and most immature children in the playground vying for control of a global sandbox. They do not speak for me. They do not speak for you. They speak for themselves and those economic concerns that promise them fame, power and fortune.

I am anti-bully. Bullies steal from others so that they can grow fatter and bigger. They beat up those that they can to feel powerful in a vain attempt to prove their arrogance justifiable. They say that they are protecting us, but really it's more like a protection racket, an organized crime. All this can be yours,, they say, if you will just shut up and follow the program.

We cannot shut up. In the name of all of those values that our rulers give lip service to but never honor, in the name of true morals like empathy and justice and equality, in the name of simple dignity, we cannot shut up.

Instead we must remember the weak, embrace those who have been cast out and called unclean, stand up for those who cannot, dissent from the lie of the status quo. If we will not stand now for those who are beaten down, who will stand for us when we are the slaves, the marginalized, the disenfranchised?

There must be a better way, and if our 'leaders' will not seek it, then we are the ones that must demand it with more conviction, more peace, more resolve. Our leaders must be made to remember. And for that to happen, we cannot forget.

Gaza, we remember you. And we will not forget. Or rest.