Gaza: the logic of colonial power

Nir Rosen, a journalist who covers the Middle East, has written an insightful article on the situation in Gaza in the English newspaper, The Guardian. Mr. Rosen exposes the hypocrisy of powerful states that attempt to legitimize morally inexcusable actions by holding only one group of civilians as sacred.

Just as the traditional American cowboy film presented white Americans under siege, with Indians as the aggressors, which was the opposite of reality, so, too, have Palestinians become the aggressors and not the victims.

Much like the United States in its frontier days, Israel has adopted a philosophy of manifest destiny that will not spare the Palestinians. To this day, Native American reservations largely remain symbols of despair in America, the under recognized burden of an exclusionary manifest destiny.

The international community, and America in particular, has the opportunity to prevent the tragedies of history from repeating themselves, yet it would take the kind of inspired leadership that seems lacking in Washington, Obama's election notwithstanding.