The latest seven-week war in Gaza is over. More than 2,000 people are dead–most of them civilians, 500 of them children. At least 10,000 people have been injured, and 500,000 are homeless. Yet there have been few words of criticism from our nation’s editorial boards or political leadership for these reprehensible, tragic events.
What has happened to us? Where is our sense of outrage at the deaths of thousands of innocents that we show when a single American, 200 airline passengers or three Israeli youths are killed?
Is it the assumed moral superiority of the perpetrators? Yes, as our mainstream media heads, and elected officials have said, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” but at what cost, in what manner and to what end?
The label of Palestinian forces as “terrorists” may act as an easy excuse for why our officials and media higher-ups have refused to empathize with those in Gaza.
But terrorism is a funny term, often used by those with state power to describe those without it. Although the word itself wasn’t in modern usage until the 19th century, the British likely would have referred to Americans as such in 1776, as would have the Confederacy to abolitionists and John Brown, or the Soviets to Polish freedom fighters.