Monday, January 21, 2008

Humanitarian Crises in Gaza -1

I'm as aware of anyone else of the power of narrative, and how they way one frames a story is essential to how it will be understood. Unlike the post-modernists, however, I don't delude myself into thinking that any and all narratives are equally true.

The first question, then, when looking at the disaster that is Gaza these days is where do you begin the story, what parts do you leave out, and what embellishments you add. Do you start with Israel shutting down the border crossings, thereby reducing the availability of oil in Gaza, leading to the shutdown of the single power station there, leading to blackened hospitals and cold ovens in bakeries? Or do you start with the ever-rising numbers of Palestinian rockets being shot at Israeli civilians from Gaza? Perhaps you start with the blockade on Gaza since Hamas was democratically elected at the beginning of 2006? (And, if you mention that blockade, do you mention that it's being maintained by the Europeans and others, or do you imply it's just another evil Israel thing?).

Perhaps you start the story with the war of 1948 - and if you do, which part of it? The part where the Palestinians, backed by the entire Arab world, flaunted a UN decision and purposefully set out to commit genocide against the Jews 2 1/2 years after the Holocaust? Or is 1948 the year Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians?

Should we start with the riots of 1920, when the Palestinians first began murdering Jewish civilians so that Zionism might go away, or with the growing Jewish determination at the end of the 19th century to carve themselves some sort of refuge in a hostile world that was only getting more violently hostile, and regret that they choose a place where Arabs were living? Perhaps we might begin with the 7th century, when the Arabs first arrived, unbidden, pillaging as they went, and destroyed the flourishing ancient culture of Byzantine? Or Perhaps with King David, 1,700 years before that?

Complicated, isn't it?

No comments: