Mindless in Gaza

I have been searching desperately for some silver lining in the deepening tragedy in Gaza, and what finally came to me were the chilling words of the poet Aeschylus: "And slowly, even against our will, wisdom drips against the heart by the awful grace of god."

If there is a distinguishing feature in this latest round in the sixty years of reciprocal violence — something other than its ferocity — it's that the futility of the attack was clear as soon as it began.

Already, to no one's surprise, painfully won progress toward accommodation in the moderate Arab countries is evaporating, while Israel is clearly generating another round of "retaliation," this time with that much less sympathy from the international community. Even if Hamas' fighting ability is effectively abolished by the time the carnage is over, will Israel achieve the security we all desire her to have, and which is the rationale for the attack? Only in the very shortest term.

Before too long, the seething hatred in the Arab world, and the increased revulsion amongst the onlooking world at large, must boil over into action. (A similarly "devastating" blow has just been landed on the major rebel faction in Sri Lanka, and a suicide bomber took revenge within the hour).

Before it even revealed the full scope of its cruelty, the massacre was styled Lebanon II or (by Jakob Rieken) the "Mideast version of the Bay of Pigs." And as Israel's wisest analyst, Uri Avnery, said of this carnage, "logic has little influence on politics."

This realization is small comfort, given the terrorization of a million and a half people, the children blown apart on their way to school, the devastation crashing into homes and hospitals; but it could just possibly, if we choose to build on it, become much larger.

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