war scenes

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For the last 23 days I've come home every night for more news on Israel's war on Gaza and the Palestinian people. Burnt into my memory are the white phosphorus blasts, like upside down fireworks, shot over Gaza households; children and old women, blood streaming down their faces, treated in the hallways of hospitals with no free beds or rooms; Israel's military spoke people and their mechanical chain of responses: "Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hamas fired rockets. Hamas hides under civilians."


The numbers tell part of the story. Since Dec. 27th: at least 1,300 Palestinians killed, at least 850 of them civilians (civilians are women and children in these numbers- every male over 18 is cynically labeled non-civilian), at least 400 Palestinian children killed. While the cease fire is officially called, they continue to pull more bodies from the rubble of Gaza's 4,000 destroyed buildings. In the same amount of time, 13 Israelis have been killed. 3 civilians, 10 military, and of those 10 military 4 were killed by their own tank fire. Hamas rockets accounted for only 4 deaths, 3 civilians and one soldier, meaning Israel's own tank fire has killed as many Israelis as Hamas rockets since Dec. 27th, the start of this so-called war.

Hamas rockets can't justify this death toll, which includes the bombing of hospitals, UN schools, and UN humanitarian storage facilities in Gaza (the later 2 sites both presenting clear evidence that no Palestinian combatants were using them).

The role of the United States in these events has been shameful. In the first week of Israel's campaign, the U.S. blocked security council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Then on January 8th the U.S. was the only security council member to abstain from the vote. Afterwards, now in clear defiance of the U.N., Israel increased the intensity of its warfare, counting on U.S. approval against international opinion and international law.

On January 11th the U.S. House passed resolutions (390 to 5) supporting Israel's right to defend itself. That is, for the 4th largest military force in the world (Israel) to carry out war in one of the most densly populated areas of the world with a civilian population of 1.5 million, 55% of which is children, in search of homemade rockets. Defense indeed.

Real defense of Israel would mean calling for an immediate ceasefire, one that Hamas had been observing at least as well as Israel before the beginning of Israel's recent campaign. Before the July 2008 ceasfire, Hamas had shot 179 rockets per month into Israel. After the ceasfire, in the four months before Israel sparked agressions again, Hamas was shooting an average of 3 rockets a month.

Both Hamas and Israel deserve our condemnation, not only for their lack of regard against civilian populations (they both are and have been committing war crimes), but also for their short-sighted politics. If the goal of Israel was to weaken Hamas, they've done the opposite. If the goal of Hamas has ever been to represent or protect the Palistinian people, then their tactics have failed and continue to fail.

But the international community and the U.S. (they are distinct here because they have been more seperate than ever on this issue in particular) already agree on the condemnation of Hamas. Meanwhile the list of Israel's atrocities are covered in U.S. media and politics (this seemingly includes Obama) by the words "Hamas, terror, rockets." More than just the civilian death toll, they gloss over the barring of international journalists to the Gaza strip by Israel and Israel threatining the safety of international aide workers on multiple occasions.

Now we have a cease fire. And for peace the U.S. needs to be involved in rational humanitarian dialogue. This includes moving as far as possible from Bush's simple proclamations, like his Jan 15th farewell nod to Israel and Iraq: "Good and Evil exist in this world, and between the two, there can be no compromise."

Against that quote I want to end with Fares Akram, a Palestinain journalist whose father, an unmarked civillian, was killed on January 3rd:

"My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father."
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trip journal 2

8:28PM, Saturday
my head feels tight, my neck tense, slept for an hour or 2 after the beer. only 60 pgs through Erewhon.

12:35AM, Sunday
more sleep- wandered through the whole of the train- got starred at- the food car is a moving cafe- tired of Butler, on to Rorty- deciding that the Turkish educational system is run by Platonists.-

watched the cutest boy get smacked hard across the face by his baba- i just about to take a picture of him- 4 yrs old but he starred at his father- no hint of tears- the boy instead explained calmly to his father what he had been doing- he had a bottle of orange soda and was dancing with it, entertaining the travelers around him- slapped for insubordination and nothing else.

1:50AM
listening to Of Montreal, "he's just a slutty little flirt...," happy after some Philosophy and Social Hope and hot tea- want to dance in the comfortable aisles of this sleeping train.

4:15AM
Kaseri- we've been through the mountains, Erzincan and Sivas, to Ankara now. K got off here, and so did the Gendarme, the rural army, who rode with us for 2 hrs, pulling through bags, recording ID numbers with a microphone, machine guns slung over their shoulders. my first time for this, but i'm not surprised. i see a machine gun a day in Erzurum and slide through random checkpoints and metal detectors, often with pockets full of change, detectors detecting nothing, or beeping and the guard waving us through.

the irrelevant theatre of power. only slightly more clear in Turkey than in america. they checked none of my bags and these ID numbers, i know through the bureaucratic mess of getting my residence permit, will only be lost and forgotten with millions of others.

the purpose is not detection but the appearance of detection, like taking my shoes off in an american airport, or standing in that ridiculous air-puffer room- the purpose is not to find anything, like i would put something in the sole of my shoe i couldn't put in my pocket, but for me to bow to the theatre of power by inconveniencing myself, disrupting my travel, as if i'm admitting in my silence that yes, you should be doing this, you have every right to, sir, for my protection, i bow to you, happily look at my shoe, take my number, disrupt the order of my clothes, anything else? let's make sure we take every precaution.

halfway through my trip.

6:14AM
i wake up to a vivid, alien scenery, but can't turn the god-damned flash off my camera. i will disable it manually if forced to- i hate, passionately, hate flash- didn't Sony imagine a situation in which one wanted to capture a beautiful scene through a window? what the fuck.



9:08AM
the car is the quietest it has been- folks sprawled out, mouths agape, in all sorts of interesting forms- impossible for me to get more than 2 hrs sleep at a time-

7:50PM
sitting in the restaurant car, this moving, mostly empty cafe- sitting alone, reading, Raki, french fries. i think that is the Marmara sea outside my window, bridges lit up. 2 hrs from Istanbul.