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what has israel achieved?
well, there are 400 fewer children in gaza.
there are many fewer houses, as the israelis have razed hundreds of them.
there are fewer schools, because the israelis shelled several.
there are fewer united nations headquarters, because the israelis shelled the one in gaza city with phosphorous shells no less.
the israelis achieved tremendous damage to their own political cause, to their own international standing.
they demonstrated the extent to which fanon was right about colonialism, about it's corrosion of reason, it's replacement with a kind of spreading psychosis that degrades the occupiers as much as the occupied. they demonstrated the differences between types of corrosion: for the occupier, there can remain an illusion of reason, projects to be developed and implemented with are internally rational in appearance, but which are unhinged at the levels of premises.
the israelis and hamas in their lunatic pas-de-deux demonstrated the wholesale bankruptcy of the ideologies of nationalism. you can count the civilian casualties and use them as steps in a proof.
the israelis accomplished a theatrical demonstration of the extent to which the israeli right is concerned about the obama administration and its potentials for maybe possibly not going along with everything and anything the israeli right does, and, worse, that it may not find the discourse of "terrorism" to be such a generative frame.
the israelis also demonstrated just how far a well-co-ordinated media campaign to market a military action that heaps crime atop crime can go in convincing a gullible american public that everything is hunky dory. if you control the frame of reference, you control what can be derived through it. you had to venture outside the american media shell to get an idea of what has actually been going on.
the only positive elements i can see coming from this are:
proof that for a reasonable settlement to this conflict, a hard break must be forced between the logic that has been running the show since 1967. i expect we are going to see attempts to force such a break happen quickly over the coming months--how far it will go, how it will be done, whether it can be done in the context of the existing arrangements that constitute the "international community" remains to be seen.
hopefully, the right will loose in the next elections to labour. they're not a lot better, but they're certainly preferable to olmert, to kadima and---especially--to likud.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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