Out of Graves

An embarrassing incident of massive Israeli military incursion into densely packed cities and refugee camps in Gaza didn't stop both houses of the U.S. Congress from declaring their nearly unanimous and totally uncritical support for the Israel state sponsored terror on gaza. One family buried a slain son over his grandfather. Another bundled up the tiny bodies of three young cousins and lowered them into the grave of a long-dead aunt. A man was laid to rest with his brother.

More than two weeks into the Israeli offensive that has killed more than 940 Palestinians, Gazans are struggling to find places to bury their dead. Cemeteries throughout Gaza City that were closed for new burials have now reopened.
The first to suffer and die in these inhuman conditions will be the most vulnerable: infants, children, the elderly, the sick. What else can they do? Where can they go? Not to the medical centers being destroyed in the attack.
No doubt Israel is hoping to copy America's success in burying atrocities, mass murder and oppression behind the PR illusions of a triumphant "surge" in Gaza. Just like the bipartisan Terror War establishment in Washington, the Israelis too hope to establish a "peace of the grave" in their own military adventure. They have a long way to go to match the million innocents slaughtered in the American war on Iraq, of course -- just as their harsh sanctions seem like a pajama party compared to the 500,000 children killed by the bipartisan, Clinton-Bush sanctions regime imposed on pre-war Iraq: one of the greatest deliberate non-military inflictions of death and suffering on a people since the heyday of Hitler and Stalin. But the Israelis are certainly doing their best to follow the master's example.

There's only one problem: how can you have a "peace of the grave" -- if you run out of graves?