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Into the Heart of Darkness

February 9, 2009

In News The Israel-Palestine Conflict

By Andrew Sullivan


Photo: Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty Images.

A Palestinian schoolgirl inspects her classroom which was burnt during Israel’s offensive, at UNRWA’s (UN Relief and Works Agency) primary school in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on January 24, 2009. Some 200,000 Gaza children returned to school for the first time since Israel’s offensive, many having lost family members, their home and their sense of security. The main UNRWA centre and several schools were destroyed by Israeli bombing during the 22-day war. By Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty Images.

Now that the offensive is over, it seems to me that its wisdom and morality are even more questionable than before. If Israelis believe that this little girl above will blame Hamas for what was done to her school, or that the unimaginable trauma inflicted on Palestinian civilians will in any way help secure the future of the Jewish state, or that what they have done will end the tunnel smuggling, then their judgment is even more impaired that many of us feared. More on Monday.