Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

21 November 2012

SLAIN AS THEY SLEPT

Mohammed al-Khoudry was staring at the rubble of a house where two young children and their father died on Tuesday.

“I’ve really tried to understand the Israelis. I used to work on a farm in Israel. I speak Hebrew. I watch their news. All the time they talk about fear. How they have to run to their bunkers to hide from the rockets. How their children can’t sleep because of the sirens. This is not a good way for them to live,” said Khoudry, who now scrapes a living growing his own produce.

“We Palestinians don’t talk about fear, we talk about death. Our rockets scare them; their rockets kill us. We have no bomb shelters, we have no sirens, we have nowhere we can take our children and keep them safe. They are scared. We are dying.”

The dying continued on Tuesday even as a ceasefire was being negotiated. The victims included Suhaib and Mohammed Hejazi, aged three and four, and their father Fuad, killed when an Israeli missile hit their house in Beit Lahiya as they were sleeping. The boys’ mother, Amna, was badly wounded.

The passage above is the start of an article by Chris McGreal published today 21 November 2012 in the London Guardian. It illustrates graphically the imbalance in the impact on Gaza and on Israel of the week-long hostilities between Hamas guerrillas and the Israeli army and navy, during which five Israelis and more than 150 Palestinians have died. Israel launched its attack with the targeted assassination on 14 November 2012 of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari. A truce has been announced for 19.00 Greenwich Mean Time today.

Antigone1984:

Reading the Guardian extract, we ask ourselves: which is worse, the fear of death or death itself?

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 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Capitalism in practice  (4 July 2012) 

5.Ladder  (21 June 2012)

 6. A tale of two cities (1)  (6 June 2012)

 7. A tale of two cities (2)  (7 June 2012)

 8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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