As The Lights Go Out In Gaza
Listen to a reading by Caitlin Johnstone:
In America they killed all the buffalo just to take away food from the natives,
made mountains of their skulls and posed proudly in photos
like they posed proudly in front of burnt bodies after lynchings in the south.
In Australia they stole the brown children and gave them to pale families
and watched their ancient civilization disappear into the toxic fumes of industry
like a sailboat into the mist.
In Israel teenagers play with buttons that cause explosions on screens
and look forward to the end of the Gaza operation
so they can leave and go play better video games.
In Gaza mothers clutch tattered pieces of flesh and clothing to their chests
and scream names that will never again be answered
and call out questions to the heavens that will also go unanswered.
And the ghosts of the buffalo roam through the ruins
looking for their heads
while the people of Gaza comb through the rubble
looking for their dead,
and the rest of us stare at screens and cry like babies
and ask our own unanswered questions
of heavens clouded by the fumes of industry,
vanishing stars above a dying world
as the lights go out in Gaza
one by one.
_____________
_____________
_____________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
As an Indian (yes, that's the nomenclature most of us prefer because it memorializes the stupidity of whitey thinking they landed in a different place), I have to weep for most Americans, who cannot see that the Indian genocide is still fully in effect. I pray for Palestine knowing full well that nothing, on our (er, our rulers') side, will ever change.
=== War Calculus Tel Aviv / Washington ===
Few in The West venture the mandatory critique of the driver of it all, The Holy of The Holies, the religiously justified mass murderers in Tel Aviv, of whom come with some 2,000 year old injunction from their god that - "This Land is Your Land". Problem - If that was true, the rest of humanity was left uninformed of this important real estate arrangement.
Two War Solution Paths . . .
Solution 1. Destroy Palestinians with Israeli - American Air Power. This kills non-combatants = civilians, a major war crime and here a clear demonstration of the moral bankruptcy of The West.
Other such methods elsewhere in the M.E. remained better concealed. No prospect of facing the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. Washington owns the ICC.
This approach intended to avoid IDF casualties, preserve President Netanyahu's Government from major IDF battlefield losses which would be politically devastating for this President, in a country that has grown soft while talking tough, like all others in The West and cannot absorb any degree of battlefield losses from real wars.
A six day war, BTW, is not a war, more a skirmish.
Solution 2. Commit a largely unprepared IDF to Close In Urban Warfare wherein The IDF would take heavy losses, counted in tens of thousands and would finish off the Netanyahu Government, whose likely preemptive maneuver would be full President Zelenskyy - ban The Opposition, close down media, suspend elections.
Armies and soldiers die while causing the other side to die. Technically more legal. The purpose of armies.
Similar to the early phase of the SMO in East Ukraine against well entrenched NATO-AFU-AZOV Nazi Forces and where Russian-Chechen Forces took most of their losses as they spared the population. Better at Close In Urban Warfare than the IDF.
Tel Aviv Thought Leaders know what they are avoiding. Background chatter around using gas.
Suggestive that illegal gas weapons do exist. Of course they do.
______________
The Americans are bothered. The optics cannot be managed. They've switched to that word "restraint".
They never, ever argue for restraint unless events are going against them.
But then Washington lost control of Tel Aviv decades ago.
The effects will roll on for decades.