the insignificance of killing boys
This line was tagged onto the very end of
an article in The Guardian.
Elsewhere in Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli army shot dead seven Palestinians, including two boys, nine and 14, during a curfew, and two gunmen said by Israel to have been trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement.
Say what you like; it was accidental, the boys shouldn't have been where they could get killed, or children can be suicide bombers, too. Select whichever line suits your audience. The fact is that young men and boys are the targets in Israel's crusade to dominate Palestine. Especially boys. Israel has been cultivating a taste for homicidal rage within the ranks of its military for decades, and it is using those killers now to quash any base for future dissent from or resistance to their almighty will. Why is it virtually always Palestinian boys that are killed this way? I don't know why the girls are not savored targets, as are the boys, but I suspect in the Israeli military's cold calculations, the girls don't count as much.
Apart from and exceeding the outrageousness of Israel's boy-murder spree, is this world's blasé lack of interest in the news of such atrocities. Sure, Baby Bush is calling for an investigation into the alleged crimes at Jenin. Big deal. His call is disingenuous; Bush seeks only to rehabilitate the image of his most significant ally in the Middle East. And I fully expect the investigation will distribute the blame (if any) not based on real proof or the real culpability of the parties, but instead will dole out the blame in exact inverse proportion to the amount of power each party holds: The powerless Palestinians will be blamed the most for the Jenin massacre; the hot headed Israeli's will get a little blame; and the Americans, of course, will get none.
And after all the posturing, theatrical incredulity, and histrionics, we tack on to the end of the story, almost as an insignificant aside, they murdered two more little boys. And now for the weather...
It is all business as usual, imperial egos, money and power. And though it feels like it will never change, it will. Indeed it will. Not in our current lifetimes, certainly, but when humankind grows-up a little more, and a little more, and a little more, things will be better. I understand well the despair and rage of suffering beneath cavalier cruelty and breathtaking injustice. And when facing one's own destruction at the hands of another, ignored by a world that apparently could care less, I know how tempting and seductive it is to choose to go out in a blaze—or an explosion, taking some of that world along—rather than die quietly.
I don't know what part is played by such outrageous passions in the growing-up of the world; and it is not our place to know. But it is our place to care, and care deeply, tearfully. We should not ignore our anguish at these events—but I believe we will. Until another life.
