Where is Arab outrage over civilian casualties?

Gaza

We will take vengeance, said Yusuf Sadiq in the Palestinian Web newspaper Palmedia. The Israeli bombing of the Gaza town Beit Hanoun last week killed 20 civilians, 17 of them from the same family, and seven of them children. These innocents join scores more who have been martyred over the past several weeks during the latest Israeli incursion into Gaza. "The time has come for us, the Palestinians, to teach these fools that our blood is like flames on the path of resistance." If they massacre us in our homes, we will "think of new ways to reach the interior of the Hebrew entity." If we fail to retaliate, "these apes will commit more mistakes and massacres against Palestinian citizens."

Why is the response left to us alone? asked Ali al-Khalili in Ramallah’s Al-Ayyam. "What has happened to our cause, that it no longer has any impact on Arab and world conscience?" Arab conscience seems to have "choked, died, and rotted in the mud of the Iraq catastrophe." Led astray by the false logic of the U.S. war on terror, the Arabs sit silent. When the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for the massacre at Beit Hanoun, Arabs simply shrugged.

"If only our blood were wine," said Basim Abu-Saniyah in Ramallah’s Al-Hayat al-Jadidah. If the blood shed in Beit Hanoun were "aristocratic Chivas Regal whiskey or leftist vodka"—the drinks that fuel secular Arab intellectual discussions—"then the anger would have been great and protest marches would have been organized." Ordinary Palestinian blood, though, the blood of women and children, is spilled so often these days that the sight of it "does not trouble the Arabs."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

How many times must Israel reiterate that the tragedy at Beit Hanoun was a terrible accident? asked Yoel Marcus in Tel Aviv’s Ha’aretz. Unlike Palestinian suicide bombers, Israeli troops never deliberately target civilians, and the Israeli public does not celebrate their deaths, but mourns them. "From a historical perspective," though, the worse accident is that Israel has been "dragged into a war on two fronts by a prime minister and a defense minister devoid of military understanding." The longer we muck about in the territories, the more likely it is that innocents will die. "This country is tired of playing war games and being the butt of seething hatred. We need a peace agenda."

We already have one, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Israeli troops made the first overture by pulling troops out of Gaza a year ago. What if the Palestinians had concentrated on building Gaza infrastructure, rather than firing rockets into Israel? They would have "never seen another Israeli in Gaza." Even now, the agenda is clear. "All the Palestinians need to do to end Israel’s military operations is to stop attacking Israel."