Fantagraphics has released a series of graphic commentaries and reflections by Joe Sacco, author of "Palestine" and "Footnotes in Gaza," called "The War on Gaza." With the permission of Fantagrapahics and Joe Sacco, we are reprinting them on my Substack.
"G" for GENOCIDE? "G" for Geriatric? "G" for Ghastly? "G" for Grisly? "G" for Greedy? "G" for Gaudy? "G" for Grotesque? "G" for Grievous? GEE they ALL FIT Grandpa Genocide! Now for Joe Sacco's cartoons of his Dem-Publican Zionist replacement "Bomber Harris"! After the Iron Lady "the kinder gentler hand of the "weaker" sex and those standing on her shoulders put in the trash for ever more! Like Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and now Bomber Harris!
Hey Joe did you ever think to drawing all the Congress members in NASCAR Jump Suits, displaying their "Sponsors"? The bigger "donors" the bigger the advertising patch! Its a tossup between AIPAC, EXXON, Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs, Big Pharma, Health Insurance Providers and MIC Merchants of Death at who would get the sweet spot on their bought and paid for "Drivers" of Legislation Backs!
Noticeably absent from your critique is the fact that HAMAS employs its citizenry as unarmed combatants in its strategy of asymmetric warfare. They are pawns in its propaganda war and you are a willing enabler of that behavior.
I trust you will never seriously consider that HAMAS plays a deeply cynical zero-sum-game or that the Palestinian leadership has failed for over 75 years to achieve any of its stated objectives.
Critics such as yourself are not interested in peace but rather only in self-affirming moral superiority.
Wake up Rick and Smell the Coffee! You are living in an alternative reality! Almost every Palestinian leader be it a Mayor, Poet, Journalist or Peaceful Resistance Leaders or Militant it made no difference they were assassinated ! Those speaking Peace considered the most dangerous of them all. As Edward Said's metaphor compared the power of the Occupier vs the power of the Occupied "Is a conversation between the neck and the sword". Zionists NEVER EVER contimplated sharing even one inch of Palestine with Palestinian/Arabs ! Founding father Zeev Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall" and "Return to the Iron Wall" spells it out with out the usual hasbara double speak! He called out all Zionists that hinted or promised the Palestinian's a state of their own in some far off distant future as a SWINDLE ! Your Brain was infected with a Swindled Reality. The 2 State Solution was merely an INSIDE JOKE within Israel and Washington! Until you understand PEACE is the enemy of Zionist Expansionist Dreams. A Fair Peace would make "Settlement Building" moot. Thats why the Likud assassin murdered Rabin who merely contimplated land for peace. We will never know if he was serious according to Ilan Pappe who points out he was killed before doing anything to make it happen!
Israel is going nowhere. The Palestinian leadership has missed their chances of a two state solution repeatedly. They will continue to be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and efforts by South Africa and any number of students who have no skin in the game will come to naught. I would imagine that another 10 to 30 thousand martyrs will be added to the list for nothing.
This is a pity because there are any number of powers that would embrace a two state solution and work to fund it. Unfortunately, given the ardent position of various Palestinian factions Israel public opinion is against such a solution.
Bull Shirt Rick. Zionists NEVER EVER WANTED TO SHARE PALESTINE WITH ARABS! The 2 State solution was an INSIDE JOKE for decades! Begin, Sharon and Bibi killed any chance of a 2 State solution climaxing with Rabin's assassination! I have never heard someone so calmly and mater of factly describe a "Final Solution" so calmly and coldly! Boasting "and there's nothing the world can do about it"! "Protective Stupidity" is blinding you Rick!
I disagree. Palestinian leadership, along with thinkers such as Chris Hedges, Pappé, Finklestein, Said, Chomsky, Peled, and a thousand others have achieved a stark turnaround in worldwide awareness of the crimes of Israel. These crimes were known and written about by Arendt, Einstein, and even admitted to by the Zionist leadership. Today, those responsible are far closer to being brought to justice than 75 years ago. That is a monumental achievement, given the asymmetry of the lies and propaganda.
I think that many people have recognized the asymmetry of the situation. Those responsible are far close to "justice"? I don't think so. Not until HAMAS leadership is before the justices in the Hague will there be anything approaching justice. Netanyahu can certainly join them; however, there is lots of blood on the hands of the Palestinian leadership.
Good heavens Rick. You have to be totally ignorant of the history of Palestine since the UK gave their land to the newly formed state of Israel...to come on here and give it one more collage try to blame everything on Hamas.
Given the conditions in which Palestinians have lived since the USA and other western countries decided to make Israel.......our outpost in the Middle East....it's a miracle that they are still resisting.
But they are. And that for you is an impediment to peace in the region??? Blaming the victim was never so easy I guess.
1. Have the various extremist Palestinian factions achieved a Palestinian state?
2. Are the Palestinians continuing to be ethnically cleansed?
A frank answer to those two questions encapsulates the success of the Palestinian leadership over the past 75 years. I seriously doubt that you speak either for the dead or the majority of the Palestinians in Gaza.
There can be peace or justice but not both. How many more martyrs will it take to satisfy your desire for resistance and justice?
1. To begin with you start by asking a pseudo question: A common line of attack for folks who expect the obvious state of affairs to be supporting their argument.
2. Another pseudo question, but a bit more interesting since you seem to be acknowledging ethnic cleansing/genocide intent on the part of the Israeli government.
But when you suggest that the obvious answer to these pseudo questions justifies your position...which is a bit muddy, but boils down to blaming Palestinian leadership for the carnage in Palestine.
It must be nice to be such a clear thinker my friend....but in order to keep it simple...two answers, one of them wrong..........you have to do what all partisans who justify absolute power do: Ignore the criminality of the 'winners' and blame the continued violence on those who haven't learned to submit to superior power.
So let me complicate things for you, in bold, so you can't miss it: THERE IS A GENOCIDE GOING ON IN GAZA...A CONTINUED LAND THEFT GOING ON IN THE WEST BANK....AND IT IS BEING AIDED BY MASSIVE AMERICAN WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. For you, the answer if to bow down to American weaponry and accept the loss of your land and the permanent second class slavery for your kids.
For most of the people who follow Chris Hedges there is another road to peace. And its a cost saving one. AMERICA REFUSES TO BE COMPLICIT IN A GENOCIDE AND STOPS SHIPPING WEAPONRY TO ISRAEL...we'd see how quickly a deal might be cut between the two sides if Israel had to produce by herself, the weapons being used to bomb schools, universities, hospitals and refugee tent cities.
And for the love of logic...don't try to justify those killings by saying Hamas is hiding out among the doctors, teachers and displaced tent dwellers.
Given what Israel is doing to Palestinian families...the Israeli military can be confident Hamas sympathizers are everywhere in Gaza....when a people stop resisting their own destruction, the end comes pretty quickly.
We all can imagine....and empathize, with what young Palestinians are feeling now...as they watch those they love die in air raid after air raid.
Trying a little empathy yourself might help you get over your need to turn every conflict into some kind of us versus them team sport.
Obviously you cannot answer the first question because to do so would not be supportive of your chosen narrative.
You think that not supplying American weapons as Chris Hedges suggests will bring peace? Perhaps both of you are blind to the other possible futures. Futures which are more terrible than what exists now. I think both of you are mislead by false hope. Conflating the history of apartheid in South Africa with this conflict sounds nice but it may be a false assumption.
I do blame the Palestinian leadership, especially HAMAS, for the suffering of average Palestinians. What have they achieved other than convincing individuals such as yourself of their righteous cause? Is there a nation state for the Palestinians? Are Palestinians still be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank? Do the Palestinian people live lives of opportunity? You can choose to not ask these questions but you can only run away from the truth for so long.
Were I a Palestinian, I would have left that area long ago. It would be for the same reasons that people leave Russia, or China, or countries in Latin America or Africa. It would be for the same reasons that my forebearers left Europe. They chose not to live in a place where the existing power elite used them as slaves.
"Trying a little empathy yourself might help you get over your need to turn every conflict into some kind of us versus them team sport."
Seems to me that you are playing the role of cheerleader for HAMAS as is Chris Hedges. His very muted criticism of HAMAS and Russia hardly work towards a solution.
As far as empathy, look yourself in a mirror and ask what you would do if your leaders employed you and your family in their quest for justice and vengeance. How many additional souls must die to satisfy the vanity of these self-proclaimed "freedom fighters".
There land will be taken. The Jews don't trust the Palestinian leadership and that leaves them with no other option.
You're so full of the obvious state of affairs that you assume we can blame Palestinians for the obvious negative answers. History is a little more complex than that Rick.....even if it continues to be essentiall His Story.
By your reductive reasoning, if we returned to first principles and took our analytic tools (lol) back to prior to 1948.......we could as easily conclude that the Palestinians current stateless situation is the fault of the UK and the allied powers who colluded with Britain to give Palestine to the Zionists.
The Palestinians have Palestine. It was and is their traditional home. They are the indigenous people of that region Rick.........trying to pin their stateless situation, and the 70 years of thuggery and land theft on the people of the Palestinian resistence is just stupid.
If that is your problem....and you were unaware of how Palestinians were rendered stateless...than I've informed you. If your real intellectual weakness is ideological in origin.......than you intend for all of us to forget who's land it is they are destroying over there..........and to blame the victims of the west's last foray into settler colonialism..........on the people being treated like we treated the native people of the USA and Canada.
You want us to see bad Palestinians, as many of our forebears were taught to see bad Indians............in order to justify their slaughter and blame it on Hamas/Sitting Bull.
It's an intellectually shameful argument and we aren't going to buy it Rick.
International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist. Israel is the occupying power; Hamas the resistance.
You keep avoiding an answer to the very basic questions posed to you.
You mistakenly assume that I blame the Palestinian people. I do not, I think their leaders should be criticized for their mismanagement. I think that individuals like Chris Hedges should be criticized for ignoring the failure of the Palestinian leadership and continuously whittering on about the failings of the West and waving the flag of "resistance" (I've been reading his books for decades. On some points I very much agree with him; on others I do not.).
The innocent Palestinians are caught in a vice between two extreme factions (extreme Zionists on one side and HAMAS on the other).
Since you have presumed to know my "state of mind", I'll play a rhetorical game but differently (I won't assume that I actually know your state of mind any more than you have already revealed):
Do you think all of the innocent Palestinians to a man, woman, and child, are satisfied with HAMAS leadership? Do you think they are all willing to be martyrs to the "Resistance"? One would want to know the source of such omniscience.
You can bring up 1948 and the creation of an Apartheid state. It such a point is not a solution. It generally serves as a method to pick sides and "other" the opposition. The existence of the nation state of Israeli is a fait accompli and given the genocide and pogroms experienced in Europe during the last century, the members of that Nation State see this conflict as existential. I seriously doubt they will come around to your sense of "justice"?
"Truth does matter in these discussions."
It most certainly does; however, you ignore truth.
1. Israel exists as a nation state.
2. A people who suffered over 60% extermination in Europe will never trust a nation state that is not their own. Would you?
3. 75 years have passed and the Palestinians are in worse shape than ever.
4. HAMAS as a part of its asymmetrical warfare strategy employs its citizenry as unarmed combatants. This "use" of its population is a core element of their strategy.
"International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist." Okay at what price? Did you ever ask yourself this question?
Are you effectively telling the millions of Jews who left Europe and Russia after almost being exterminated or suffering pogroms that they have NO RIGHT to a homeland where they set the rules? The answer to that could be a resounding "yes"; however, that is a point divorced of the reality of Israel's existence.
"You want us to see bad Palestinians, as many of our forebears were taught to see bad Indians............in order to justify their slaughter and blame it on Hamas/Sitting Bull."
That borders on an insufferably arrogant comment. You presume to know my state of mind vis a vis "bad Indians" and HAMAS/Sitting Bull.
I such a conflation or the point of "European colonialism" means anything to the various powers that have and are interjecting themselves into this forever problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis. History is complex.
"It's an intellectually shameful argument and we aren't going to buy it Rick.
International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist. Israel is the occupying power; Hamas the resistance."
Have you ever asked yourself if the cost of "resistance" is worth it? Should you consider it to be "shameful" if you have not asked yourself such a question?
"Israel is the occupying power and HAMAS the resistance" - Apart from the rhetorical flourish (along the lines of "colonizer") and the introduction of the post-modernist rhetorical approach does this mantra solve anything? Has it solved anything?
In the end neither you or Chris Hedges offer any achievable solution to this most vexing of problems. There are reasonable solutions that could be adopted; however, given the absence of compromise on both sides the end result will most likely be: Palestinians continue to be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and the lives of the people living in Gaza will only get worse.
Even Sitting Bull recognized when he was beaten. At some point the cost of resistance is simply not worth it. You cannot have both peace and justice in a situation like this. You can learn from the past and make the best of a terrible situation. Unfortunately, neither side is willing to compromise.
"G" for GENOCIDE? "G" for Geriatric? "G" for Ghastly? "G" for Grisly? "G" for Greedy? "G" for Gaudy? "G" for Grotesque? "G" for Grievous? GEE they ALL FIT Grandpa Genocide! Now for Joe Sacco's cartoons of his Dem-Publican Zionist replacement "Bomber Harris"! After the Iron Lady "the kinder gentler hand of the "weaker" sex and those standing on her shoulders put in the trash for ever more! Like Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and now Bomber Harris!
Could "G" stand for Gaza?
No, "g" stands for "ghoulish": G Joe is the most ghoulish President ever.
Gosh!
Thanks for posting these graphics.
Hey Joe did you ever think to drawing all the Congress members in NASCAR Jump Suits, displaying their "Sponsors"? The bigger "donors" the bigger the advertising patch! Its a tossup between AIPAC, EXXON, Koch Industries, Goldman Sachs, Big Pharma, Health Insurance Providers and MIC Merchants of Death at who would get the sweet spot on their bought and paid for "Drivers" of Legislation Backs!
Hmmm. I get what the artist is trying to convey, but if I think about the actual novel, the message gets a little obscured.
And no one will step up and stop or attack this jew zionist charismatic judeo Christian mass murdering genocidal Trifecta from hell.
no one. .... WHY?
Noticeably absent from your critique is the fact that HAMAS employs its citizenry as unarmed combatants in its strategy of asymmetric warfare. They are pawns in its propaganda war and you are a willing enabler of that behavior.
I trust you will never seriously consider that HAMAS plays a deeply cynical zero-sum-game or that the Palestinian leadership has failed for over 75 years to achieve any of its stated objectives.
Critics such as yourself are not interested in peace but rather only in self-affirming moral superiority.
Wake up Rick and Smell the Coffee! You are living in an alternative reality! Almost every Palestinian leader be it a Mayor, Poet, Journalist or Peaceful Resistance Leaders or Militant it made no difference they were assassinated ! Those speaking Peace considered the most dangerous of them all. As Edward Said's metaphor compared the power of the Occupier vs the power of the Occupied "Is a conversation between the neck and the sword". Zionists NEVER EVER contimplated sharing even one inch of Palestine with Palestinian/Arabs ! Founding father Zeev Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall" and "Return to the Iron Wall" spells it out with out the usual hasbara double speak! He called out all Zionists that hinted or promised the Palestinian's a state of their own in some far off distant future as a SWINDLE ! Your Brain was infected with a Swindled Reality. The 2 State Solution was merely an INSIDE JOKE within Israel and Washington! Until you understand PEACE is the enemy of Zionist Expansionist Dreams. A Fair Peace would make "Settlement Building" moot. Thats why the Likud assassin murdered Rabin who merely contimplated land for peace. We will never know if he was serious according to Ilan Pappe who points out he was killed before doing anything to make it happen!
Israel is going nowhere. The Palestinian leadership has missed their chances of a two state solution repeatedly. They will continue to be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and efforts by South Africa and any number of students who have no skin in the game will come to naught. I would imagine that another 10 to 30 thousand martyrs will be added to the list for nothing.
This is a pity because there are any number of powers that would embrace a two state solution and work to fund it. Unfortunately, given the ardent position of various Palestinian factions Israel public opinion is against such a solution.
Bull Shirt Rick. Zionists NEVER EVER WANTED TO SHARE PALESTINE WITH ARABS! The 2 State solution was an INSIDE JOKE for decades! Begin, Sharon and Bibi killed any chance of a 2 State solution climaxing with Rabin's assassination! I have never heard someone so calmly and mater of factly describe a "Final Solution" so calmly and coldly! Boasting "and there's nothing the world can do about it"! "Protective Stupidity" is blinding you Rick!
I disagree. Palestinian leadership, along with thinkers such as Chris Hedges, Pappé, Finklestein, Said, Chomsky, Peled, and a thousand others have achieved a stark turnaround in worldwide awareness of the crimes of Israel. These crimes were known and written about by Arendt, Einstein, and even admitted to by the Zionist leadership. Today, those responsible are far closer to being brought to justice than 75 years ago. That is a monumental achievement, given the asymmetry of the lies and propaganda.
I think that many people have recognized the asymmetry of the situation. Those responsible are far close to "justice"? I don't think so. Not until HAMAS leadership is before the justices in the Hague will there be anything approaching justice. Netanyahu can certainly join them; however, there is lots of blood on the hands of the Palestinian leadership.
Good heavens Rick. You have to be totally ignorant of the history of Palestine since the UK gave their land to the newly formed state of Israel...to come on here and give it one more collage try to blame everything on Hamas.
Given the conditions in which Palestinians have lived since the USA and other western countries decided to make Israel.......our outpost in the Middle East....it's a miracle that they are still resisting.
But they are. And that for you is an impediment to peace in the region??? Blaming the victim was never so easy I guess.
Simple questions:
1. Have the various extremist Palestinian factions achieved a Palestinian state?
2. Are the Palestinians continuing to be ethnically cleansed?
A frank answer to those two questions encapsulates the success of the Palestinian leadership over the past 75 years. I seriously doubt that you speak either for the dead or the majority of the Palestinians in Gaza.
There can be peace or justice but not both. How many more martyrs will it take to satisfy your desire for resistance and justice?
This is a non sensical reply Rick...
1. To begin with you start by asking a pseudo question: A common line of attack for folks who expect the obvious state of affairs to be supporting their argument.
2. Another pseudo question, but a bit more interesting since you seem to be acknowledging ethnic cleansing/genocide intent on the part of the Israeli government.
But when you suggest that the obvious answer to these pseudo questions justifies your position...which is a bit muddy, but boils down to blaming Palestinian leadership for the carnage in Palestine.
It must be nice to be such a clear thinker my friend....but in order to keep it simple...two answers, one of them wrong..........you have to do what all partisans who justify absolute power do: Ignore the criminality of the 'winners' and blame the continued violence on those who haven't learned to submit to superior power.
So let me complicate things for you, in bold, so you can't miss it: THERE IS A GENOCIDE GOING ON IN GAZA...A CONTINUED LAND THEFT GOING ON IN THE WEST BANK....AND IT IS BEING AIDED BY MASSIVE AMERICAN WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. For you, the answer if to bow down to American weaponry and accept the loss of your land and the permanent second class slavery for your kids.
For most of the people who follow Chris Hedges there is another road to peace. And its a cost saving one. AMERICA REFUSES TO BE COMPLICIT IN A GENOCIDE AND STOPS SHIPPING WEAPONRY TO ISRAEL...we'd see how quickly a deal might be cut between the two sides if Israel had to produce by herself, the weapons being used to bomb schools, universities, hospitals and refugee tent cities.
And for the love of logic...don't try to justify those killings by saying Hamas is hiding out among the doctors, teachers and displaced tent dwellers.
Given what Israel is doing to Palestinian families...the Israeli military can be confident Hamas sympathizers are everywhere in Gaza....when a people stop resisting their own destruction, the end comes pretty quickly.
We all can imagine....and empathize, with what young Palestinians are feeling now...as they watch those they love die in air raid after air raid.
Trying a little empathy yourself might help you get over your need to turn every conflict into some kind of us versus them team sport.
Obviously you cannot answer the first question because to do so would not be supportive of your chosen narrative.
You think that not supplying American weapons as Chris Hedges suggests will bring peace? Perhaps both of you are blind to the other possible futures. Futures which are more terrible than what exists now. I think both of you are mislead by false hope. Conflating the history of apartheid in South Africa with this conflict sounds nice but it may be a false assumption.
I do blame the Palestinian leadership, especially HAMAS, for the suffering of average Palestinians. What have they achieved other than convincing individuals such as yourself of their righteous cause? Is there a nation state for the Palestinians? Are Palestinians still be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank? Do the Palestinian people live lives of opportunity? You can choose to not ask these questions but you can only run away from the truth for so long.
Were I a Palestinian, I would have left that area long ago. It would be for the same reasons that people leave Russia, or China, or countries in Latin America or Africa. It would be for the same reasons that my forebearers left Europe. They chose not to live in a place where the existing power elite used them as slaves.
"Trying a little empathy yourself might help you get over your need to turn every conflict into some kind of us versus them team sport."
Seems to me that you are playing the role of cheerleader for HAMAS as is Chris Hedges. His very muted criticism of HAMAS and Russia hardly work towards a solution.
As far as empathy, look yourself in a mirror and ask what you would do if your leaders employed you and your family in their quest for justice and vengeance. How many additional souls must die to satisfy the vanity of these self-proclaimed "freedom fighters".
There land will be taken. The Jews don't trust the Palestinian leadership and that leaves them with no other option.
You're so full of the obvious state of affairs that you assume we can blame Palestinians for the obvious negative answers. History is a little more complex than that Rick.....even if it continues to be essentiall His Story.
By your reductive reasoning, if we returned to first principles and took our analytic tools (lol) back to prior to 1948.......we could as easily conclude that the Palestinians current stateless situation is the fault of the UK and the allied powers who colluded with Britain to give Palestine to the Zionists.
The Palestinians have Palestine. It was and is their traditional home. They are the indigenous people of that region Rick.........trying to pin their stateless situation, and the 70 years of thuggery and land theft on the people of the Palestinian resistence is just stupid.
If that is your problem....and you were unaware of how Palestinians were rendered stateless...than I've informed you. If your real intellectual weakness is ideological in origin.......than you intend for all of us to forget who's land it is they are destroying over there..........and to blame the victims of the west's last foray into settler colonialism..........on the people being treated like we treated the native people of the USA and Canada.
You want us to see bad Palestinians, as many of our forebears were taught to see bad Indians............in order to justify their slaughter and blame it on Hamas/Sitting Bull.
It's an intellectually shameful argument and we aren't going to buy it Rick.
International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist. Israel is the occupying power; Hamas the resistance.
Truth does matter in these discussions.
You keep avoiding an answer to the very basic questions posed to you.
You mistakenly assume that I blame the Palestinian people. I do not, I think their leaders should be criticized for their mismanagement. I think that individuals like Chris Hedges should be criticized for ignoring the failure of the Palestinian leadership and continuously whittering on about the failings of the West and waving the flag of "resistance" (I've been reading his books for decades. On some points I very much agree with him; on others I do not.).
The innocent Palestinians are caught in a vice between two extreme factions (extreme Zionists on one side and HAMAS on the other).
Since you have presumed to know my "state of mind", I'll play a rhetorical game but differently (I won't assume that I actually know your state of mind any more than you have already revealed):
Do you think all of the innocent Palestinians to a man, woman, and child, are satisfied with HAMAS leadership? Do you think they are all willing to be martyrs to the "Resistance"? One would want to know the source of such omniscience.
You can bring up 1948 and the creation of an Apartheid state. It such a point is not a solution. It generally serves as a method to pick sides and "other" the opposition. The existence of the nation state of Israeli is a fait accompli and given the genocide and pogroms experienced in Europe during the last century, the members of that Nation State see this conflict as existential. I seriously doubt they will come around to your sense of "justice"?
"Truth does matter in these discussions."
It most certainly does; however, you ignore truth.
1. Israel exists as a nation state.
2. A people who suffered over 60% extermination in Europe will never trust a nation state that is not their own. Would you?
3. 75 years have passed and the Palestinians are in worse shape than ever.
4. HAMAS as a part of its asymmetrical warfare strategy employs its citizenry as unarmed combatants. This "use" of its population is a core element of their strategy.
"International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist." Okay at what price? Did you ever ask yourself this question?
Are you effectively telling the millions of Jews who left Europe and Russia after almost being exterminated or suffering pogroms that they have NO RIGHT to a homeland where they set the rules? The answer to that could be a resounding "yes"; however, that is a point divorced of the reality of Israel's existence.
"You want us to see bad Palestinians, as many of our forebears were taught to see bad Indians............in order to justify their slaughter and blame it on Hamas/Sitting Bull."
That borders on an insufferably arrogant comment. You presume to know my state of mind vis a vis "bad Indians" and HAMAS/Sitting Bull.
I such a conflation or the point of "European colonialism" means anything to the various powers that have and are interjecting themselves into this forever problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis. History is complex.
"It's an intellectually shameful argument and we aren't going to buy it Rick.
International Law says an occupied people have the right to resist. Israel is the occupying power; Hamas the resistance."
Have you ever asked yourself if the cost of "resistance" is worth it? Should you consider it to be "shameful" if you have not asked yourself such a question?
"Israel is the occupying power and HAMAS the resistance" - Apart from the rhetorical flourish (along the lines of "colonizer") and the introduction of the post-modernist rhetorical approach does this mantra solve anything? Has it solved anything?
In the end neither you or Chris Hedges offer any achievable solution to this most vexing of problems. There are reasonable solutions that could be adopted; however, given the absence of compromise on both sides the end result will most likely be: Palestinians continue to be ethnically cleansed from the West Bank and the lives of the people living in Gaza will only get worse.
Even Sitting Bull recognized when he was beaten. At some point the cost of resistance is simply not worth it. You cannot have both peace and justice in a situation like this. You can learn from the past and make the best of a terrible situation. Unfortunately, neither side is willing to compromise.