The Gaza War and the Century of the Militants

I take your Finger and you take my Hand, but it will never stop

Hamas of course is the big bogeyman of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, but the five thousand or so shot off in the years since 2001 come from an assortment of players--all Palestinian armed groups are involved; including Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees, Fatah and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Total Israelis killed by rockets since 2001? Twenty-eight.

Israel’s response?

(Jerusalem Post, Sept 4, 2014)

Rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday, in the most comprehensive assessment yet of damage from a seven-week war with Israel during which whole neighborhoods and vital infrastructure were flattened.

The cost of rebuilding 17,000 Gazan homes razed by Israeli bombings would be $2.5 billion, the Authority said, and the energy sector needed $250 million after the Strip's only power plant was destroyed by two Israeli missiles.

"The attack on Gaza this time had no precedent, Gaza has been hit with a catastrophe and it needs immediate help because many things can't wait long," Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Palestinian economist and a senior member of the West Bank's dominant Fatah party, told reporters in Ramallah.

Total Palestinians killed, something over 2,100 (they’re still counting).

A finger lost and a hand taken in return, yet the beat goes on and none of the Israeli goals have been achieved. Islamic Jihad still exists, as does the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Popular Resistance Committees, Fatah and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As does Hamas, provoked by the Israeli attack, perhaps even energized, but its head hardly cut off.

This is the Century of the Militants, as the world’s most powerful military nations are getting their asses handed to them by rag-tag clusters of dissidents that grow like mushrooms in the darkness and moisture of ignorance. That ignorance is one-sided, heavily imbalanced on the scales of justice in terms of a world history that belonged to armies and gunships. But the seeds of change were there as far back as the birth of the United States, as the strangling rag-tag British American Colonies took on the King of England and prevailed to build a nation.

Palestine and the Gaza War are but one seven-week illustration of the militancy that now pervades the globe. The current struggles are too many to count and yet all we get in response is additional darkness and moisture, as if coalitions of the powerful are a new and useful answer rather than an environment best suited for growth.

Coalitions merely share the defeat more widely and expand the number of asses-handed-back. No matter the John McCains of the world, their breed is dying and god knows how many of their young soldiers must die ahead of them to prove their useless and historically bankrupt points of view. The Century of the Militant will prevail and its end will come only with social change and equity. The alternative is wars and wars and wars.

I will continue to take your finger and you may continue to take my hand in war, but it will never end until you take my hand in peace.