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by Peter A. Belmont / 2012-10-13
© 2012 Peter Belmont
In this piece about Sara Roy and Gaza. Marc Ellis tells us some of what Sara Roy says about the horrible Israeli mistreatment of the people of Gaza.
It is a dreadful story. It is especially dreadful in that it is the story of solemn and important promises cruelly broken. Indeed, seldom has such a widely made promise been so universally and so cruelly broken.
Sara Roy has been a valuable student of Gaza, and publicist of Gaza’s troubles, for at least 25 years. Marc Ellis excerpts her recent Edward Said lecture.
Sara Roy embodies active human concern for real human beings. Perhaps that is what Marc Ellis means in saying that she “exemplif[ies] the prophetic”. Of course, human beings other than Jews do what she does. And also of course, not all Jews do what she does. Certainly a very small proportion of people at all, whether or not Jewish, do what she does. I suppose that those who do, Jews and others, “exemplify the prophetic” to repeat Marc Ellis’s diction.
And what this piece says is true, that the USA and EU and above all Israel are content to allow horrible crimes against the people of Gaza to continue.
When a frog slowly boils, it is the frog that slowly dies, but the societies that permit and encourage frog-boiling (of the Gaza type) (USA and EU and UNGA generally) are (in my view) criminals — and not only those who actually do the boiling (Israel).
When the signatories of the Geneva Conventions (and , here, particularly the Fourth) undertake to “respect and ensure respect for” the Convention “in all circumstances”, it is a promise not to let the Gazan frog boil.
Seldom has such a widely made promise been so universally and so cruelly broken.
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