A year into the current chapter of the Israel-Hamas conflict, Toronto Star contributor Justin Ling asked in his moving op-ed, why can’t we talk about it? I’m even afraid to write about this publicly. There is literally nothing anyone can say that someone else will not vilify them for. But I say this because it’s an angle I don’t see reflected in the media, and to me it seems crucial.
We can’t talk about it because we talk about only part of the story. Most conversations are about right and wrong, which is important, but it’s also a trap. It sucks out people’s energy without diminishing the practical source of the violence.
Reporting such as the Saturday Star’s update typically reminds us that Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, while seeing no need to explain Israel’s military supremacy. The US government has long used Israel to funnel its own tax revenues to its own weapons manufacturers through the mechanism of so-called foreign aid. In the past year, the amounts have increased by an order of magnitude. The US has lent even further leverage to Israel by sending its own fleet to the region, and defending Israel’s leaders from the International Criminal Court. In short, the US has not simply stood in solidarity with Israel — it has actively removed any incentive for restraint.
The question that’s been missing about the past year is, whose interests are being served? It isn’t Israeli citizens, whose long-term security degrades with each grieving family member who blames their government. It isn’t the US, which seems ready to repeat the Iraq war but this time with Iran. It does seem to be Netanyahu, who can’t afford an election — but he alone couldn’t force the US to act so irrationally. What about the weapons manufacturers, whose revenues are enhanced by the cycle of violence? What about the oil companies, which could raise prices if Iran’s supply were taken off the market or annexed? Unfortunately, money has an enormous and continuous legalized influence on US policy.
As usual, normal people are getting stuck in us-versus-them conversations while billionaires quietly make the decisions that remake the world. While it’s important to bear witness to events themselves, we need more help from our media to make sense of them. Maybe then we will be more able to talk, and direct our anger productively.