Chomsky on the attack on Gaza

"It’s a hideous atrocity, sadistic, vicious, murderous, totally without any credible pretext. It’s another one of the periodic Israeli exercises in what they delicately call "mowing the lawn." That means shooting fish in the pond, to make sure that the animals stay quiet in the cage that you’ve constructed for them, after which you go to a period of what’s called "ceasefire," which means that Hamas observes the ceasefire, as Israel concedes, while Israel continues to violate it. Then it’s broken by an Israeli escalation, Hamas reaction. Then you have period of "mowing the lawn." This one is, in many ways, more sadistic and vicious even than the earlier ones."

Noam Chomsky appearing on Democracy Now. View the interview with him here.

And another tragic dimension and long-lasting effect to the indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, as detailed in this piece in The Independent.

"As with all wars, the war in Gaza is being measured by its dead. According to a UN report published three days ago, nearly 1800 Palestinians have died in this latest war on Gaza, 377 of them children (although by now, the numbers will already be a bit higher).

There are several campaigns and initiatives to humanize these latest victims of Israeli aggression, in an attempt to make sure that they are not just numbers to fall into the chasms of history but rather human beings with names and stories.

But we must also measure this war by its injured, lest we forget about Gaza when the bombing stops. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also reported that nearly a third of the 9000 who have been injured are children.

Here we must be clear, these injuries are not scrapes and bruises. These are serious, life altering injuries, including amputations, the loss of eyes, and brain damage. And all in the name of Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists."

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