The Brooklyn Rail

Walking in the street today I saw a father on the sidewalk holding his child’s hand. Involuntarily my mind’s eye formed an image, taken from the daily series in the news, of a parent holding a child, wrapped in white cloth, taken from the rubble of a bombed building in Gaza. How not to be enraged by the voices of those, from US Secretary of State Blinken to liberal pundits, emphasizing the need to “avoid civilian casualties” while agreeing on the need to fight Hamas. According to Blinken, speaking in the UN, “There is no hierarchy when it comes to protecting civilian life. Civilians are civilians.” Which does not prevent the US from shipping arms to Israel, with which the whole West “stands” in opposition to “terrorism.” According to French president Macron, “The fight must be merciless, but not without rules, because we are democracies that are fighting against terrorists, … democracies that do not target civilians, in Gaza or elsewhere.” Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister informed the UN that his country also condemns the killing of civilians—except, unmentioned, the Yemeni refugees shot to death by Saudi forces for attempting to escape the war in their country. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, meanwhile, called for the resignation of that body’s secretary general for pointing out that the Hamas attack on Israel “did not happen in a vacuum” and that Palestinians had been living under occupation for fifty years. “It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views,” said Ambassador Erdan, referring to a simple statement of the facts.

Meanwhile the death toll rises daily, as the Israelis bomb hospitals, mosques, homes, refugee camps, killing medical personnel and UN aid workers along with thousands and thousands of parents and children. At time of writing, six hospitals have had to shut down because they ran out of fuel, cut off by the Israelis along with food, medicine, and water. (According to the WHO, there have been 168 attacks on health facilities in the Palestinian territories, 72 in Gaza and 96 in the West Bank, since October 7, resulting in nearly 500 deaths.) Writing in the New York Review of Books some weeks ago, David Shulman noted that already then “state violence against Palestinians has escalated dramatically,” with thirty-four children killed by Israeli fire over the first half of 2023. As his fellow activist Meir Blumkin explained these developments, “This is how you pave the way to forced expulsion.” Hamas’s attack opened the way to a further escalation of Israeli violence: more Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since October 7 than during any similar period in the last 15 years.

All this killing is hardly unique. It joins the ongoing barbarism in Ukraine, the nonstop drownings and state-organized misery of the world’s migrants, and other characteristic features of our moment. If the war widens in the Middle East, it will get worse, even while the US and China prepare their forces for a possible military struggle over Taiwan. It’s a grim time to take a walk and see parents and children enjoy the day, necessary as such pleasures are if we are to survive at all.