Chomsky On Gaza

Noam Chomsky (call him whatever derogatory epithets you will, I admire the man immensely) begins his righteous rant on Israel's assault on Gaza as follows:

Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force.

And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world's largest open-air prison, where some 1.5 million people on a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land are subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade.

Such cruelty is to ensure that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed, and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement granting basic human rights will be nullified. The Israeli political leadership has dramatically illustrated this commitment in the past few days, warning that they will "go crazy" if Palestinian rights are given even limited recognition by the U.N.

...

Once again, Israel goes beyond the bounds of civilized behavior, not assaulting the people and groups that might endanger its existence as a nation, but instead killing several hundred unarmed civilians who have engaged in no military action against Israel... including several dozen children.

In my youth I was a vocal supporter of Israel. Gradually I realized the inevitability of the kinds of conflict we have seen in the past couple of decades. But by no means is all of Israel's aggressive behavior necessary or helpful. The US must cease its active support of Israel's raw aggression against civilians who are not engaging in war against it, especially until Israel ceases its relentless killing of children. The US has no strategic interest in supporting such uncivilized and unjustified use of force, and it must end its participation.