Worth Reading

Glenn Greenwald's latest article takes on the current situation in Gaza, and some of the responses he's gotten from people, telling him he should put himself in the shoes of the Israeli people.

. . . for those who insist that others put themselves in the position of a resident of Sderot -- as though that will, by itself, prove the justifiability of the Israeli attack -- the idea literally never occurs to them that they ought to imagine what it's like to live under foreign occupation for 4 decades (and, despite the 2005 "withdrawal from Gaza," Israel continues to occupy and expand its settlements on Palestinian land and to control and severely restrict many key aspects of Gazan life). No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years, one which builds walls around you, imposes the most intensely humiliating conditions on your daily life, blockades your land so that you're barred from exiting and prevented from accessing basic nutrition and medical needs for your children to the point where a substantial portion of the underage population suffers from stunted growth.

The whole article is good, taking on how people who whole heartedly support this action look at the Palestinians.

I maintain an annoyed neutrality towards these issues, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth considering. You might also want to look at this article at Salon, which goes over Israeli support for this current action, and why this war isn't likely to be much more than a blip on the long term scale.