Chris Hedges Essays on the "wide Moral Abyss" issues in the Current Situation in Gaza

[KoKo]

(Chris Hedges Divinity Student background is very apparent in this article along with his years of reporting for the NYT. He addresses important morality issues concerning global foreign policy actions and interests in these times which could prove disastrous if not resolved . (/i)

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Published on Monday, July 14, 2014 by TruthDig.com
Israel Is Captive to Its ‘Destructive Process’
by Chris Hedges

Smoke and flames are seen following what police said was an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, 8 July. (Eyad Al Baba / APA images) Raul Hilberg in his monumental work “The Destruction of the European Jews” chronicled a process of repression that at first was “relatively mild” but led, step by step, to the Holocaust. It started with legal discrimination and ended with mass murder. “The destructive process was a development that was begun with caution and ended without restraint,” Hilberg wrote.

The Palestinians over the past few decades have endured a similar “destructive process.” They have gradually been stripped of basic civil liberties, robbed of assets including much of their land and often their homes, have suffered from mounting restrictions on their physical movements, been blocked from trading and business, especially the selling of produce, and found themselves increasingly impoverished and finally trapped behind walls and security fences erected around Gaza and the West Bank.

“The process of destruction [of the European Jews] unfolded in a definite pattern,” Hilberg wrote. “It did not, however, proceed from a basic plan. No bureaucrat in 1933 could have predicted what kind of measures would be taken in 1938, nor was it possible in 1938 to foretell the configuration of the undertaking in 1942. The destructive process was a step-by-step operation, and the administrator could seldom see more than one step ahead.”

There will never be transports or extermination camps for the Palestinians, but amid increasing violence against Palestinians larger and larger numbers of them will die, in airstrikes, targeted assassinations and other armed attacks. Hunger and misery will expand. Israeli demands for “transfer”—the forced expulsion of Palestinians from occupied territory to neighboring countries—will grow.

The Palestinians in Gaza live in conditions that now replicate those first imposed on Jews by the Nazis in the ghettos set up throughout Eastern Europe. Palestinians cannot enter or leave Gaza. They are chronically short of food—the World Health Organization estimates that more than 50 percent of children in Gaza and the West Bank under 2 years old have iron deficiency anemia and reports that malnutrition and stunting in children under 5 are “not improving” and could actually be worsening. Palestinians often lack clean water. They are crammed into unsanitary hovels. They do not have access to basic medical care. They are stateless and lack passports or travel documents. There is massive unemployment. They are daily dehumanized in racist diatribes by their occupiers as criminals, terrorists and mortal enemies of the Jewish people.

“A deep and wide moral abyss separates us from our enemies,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recently of the Palestinians. “They sanctify death while we sanctify life. They sanctify cruelty while we sanctify compassion.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/14-4

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Mr Hedges is taking quite a risk there.

I've been informed in the past that any comparison between the actions of the Israeli military and those of Nazi Germany are explicitly 'anti-Semitism'.

[KoKo]

2. I read it from the "moral caution" perspective of what he was conveying.

And his counterpoint to the quote in the snip of the article I posted.

His expression of Moral/Human Consideration of Outcomes in Global Interventions is one not often heard these days. I give credit to him for filling a void in expressing concern about that missing view and those who share his concerns.

Just as I, and others, supported Dennis Kucinich's proposal for a "Department of Peace" in US Government to counter the overwhelming, influential "Special Interests" always seeking War/Intervention and America's Version of "Nation Building" as the answer to Global Strife all over the world.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. I can see that.

I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of folks out there who will, from this point onward, assume and claim that he is an anti-Semite.

I wouldn't agree with them based on that article, but right or wrong, the accusations will be made.

[KoKo]

5. I know....

there's long history with that...but ..it's a NEW WORLD and Times have Change....when New Holocausts are appearing.

If we don't remember History....we are Doomed to Repeat It...

Some famous Quote....don't have time to look up the link.

But, yeah...I worry for future going forward. So, does Hedges, who see's the "stuff" which us older DU'ers see ourselves...I think.

[yurbud]

4. "it's not fascism if we do it."