By my troth, I care not

It has been 10 days since Israel began its campaign against Hamas and by proxy the Gaza Strip. Palestinian estimates say at least 400 people are dead, many, perhaps most of them civilians. I've read blame apportioned to both parties for instigating it. Both sides have apparently broken the terms of the truce and what better way to counter the truce at this stage than by entering full fledged combat. I read that Israel has killed 452 Palestinian children since 2004 and have lost 11 children of their own in the same period. Astounding statistics no matter who you are. Yet the only emotion, indeed the only reaction I can draw out of myself, is one of apathy. Sympathetic apathy at best. I'm trying to understand why that is the case.

Every few years, months if we are so lucky, a conflict erupts with Israel and one of its eternal enemies. Everyone knows who started it... it was the other guy. It dates back millennia and at this rate may continue on for a few more. I think part of my apathy is derived from the fact that I can understand both points of view. The Holocaust was so destructive and evil that I will never begin to relate. Sixty years on, the memory of victimization is still heavily played but more often in Hollywood than anywhere else. The Palestinians have been disavowed of their own land by those damned Jews. Generations of them have grown up in refugee camps so we must sympathize with them. Fighting to regain your home or fighting to defend your home. Both noble ends which I most definitely wish India did more often. So my equal and opposite action and reactions cancel each other out.

Maybe the approach to the solution is all wrong. The very recently late Samuel Huntington put forth his famous Clash of Civilizations theory in 1993. Why don't they turn this theory into practice? Line up all available armed forces of both Israel and Palestine and duke it out to the end. Let us have all the labels fighting each other together. The aggressive, victimized Jewish bullies against the freedom fighting, victimized Palestinian terrorists. Heck, throw in everyone else who has a quibble with Israel. Maybe then this irritating distraction will cease to trouble the world. People won't crib about how the US is silent yet again on Israel's aggression or the Arabs remaining mum on bus bombings in Tel Aviv. There won't be anything for them to be silent or vocal about. The entire trite and oft repeated conflict will cease to trouble us. No more scrolling past pictures of crying families and plumes of smoke on the BBC or New York Times. Apathy can give way once again to genuine concern about the state of the American auto industry. 452 Palestinian children killed by the Israelis don't deserve to dominate the news over Chrysler's $4 BN loan, do they? Right? I thought not.