Surveying the ruins of Rafah.

The conflict in Palestine is an old time colonial
war between foreign settlers and the indigenous
people. The endless shouting about suicide bombers
and innocent Israeli civilian casualties is pretty
odd. As regrettable as the civilian casualties in
Israeli side are, they are in all reality small
compared to pretty much any war of independence
from colonial rule after the Second World War.
It seems that large number of people are totally
unaware which kind of conflicts these were - and
the undeniable fact of all wars: Almost all people who
die in any war are usually good and decent, normal
people. Not monsters, who deserve their fate.

It gets problematic in Palestine because the
oppressors are people that the West now considers
as eternal victims par excellence, the Jews.
After centuries of vile portrayal, they were
raised to a pedestal after the Holocaust.
And then it was forgotten that they are normal
human beings. With all the vices and virtues
of humanity.

As terrible as a genocide is, it doesn´t give any
group of people any rights to commit atrocities
when they themselves get the chance. An extreme
case of this kind of weak minded attitude that
people who have suffered should have special
rights, is that the world has been pretty much
silent on Ruanda´s participation in the "African
world war" in Congo.