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In Gaza it seems that everyone carries with them a well-honed set of opinions ready to blurt out for international journalists and other interested foreigners. Of course, I don’t doubt their substance but I must confess that, despite the horrors of military occupation and the terrible life in Gaza, many stories begin to sound the same. This may well be another reflection on the tragedy that is Gaza—so many heartwrenching anecdotes of human sacrifice are trivialized by the sheer quantity of victims.

During the first Intifada, the Palestinian cause caught the world’s sympathetic attention as images of children throwing rocks at tanks hit television screens worldwide. For a short time, the Palestinian resistance movement was entirely nonviolent. Citizens staged strikes, held public demonstrations at military checkpoints and for a while it seemed that the brutality of Israeli occupation was finally being exposed to the world. But it was not to be. Israel responded with Yitzhak Rabin’s notorious “break their bones” policy—and Israeli soldiers literally set about breaking the bones of children caught throwing stones.

The crushed hopes of the peace process and the endless Israeli expansion of settlements destroyed any possibility for a Palestinian state. On top of this, Israeli military measures grew ever more draconic. (more…)