The Frog Is Exhausted

[Violet_Crumble]

by Amira Hass

If you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out and save its life. But a frog swimming in room temperature water that is gradually heated will grow used to the heat; by the time the water boils, it's too late and the frog dies. That's another metaphor for the resilience of the Palestinians against any new weapon with which they are attacked, a new Israeli regulation further limiting them, a land expropriation. True, the frog doesn't die, but it is exhausted.

But there's an absentee present making sure the temperature constantly rises. In the development of the Israeli system of control over the Palestinian people and their land, the Israeli occupation has raised to the level of genius the use of gradualness as a means of making people grow used to something. The gradualness is implemented over a period of time, but it is also spread out over space.

The Israeli assault on the chances of the Palestinian people to lead normal lives is evident in millions of different ways. Here, a family is hurt, there, a village. Here it's from ammunition, there from settlers, here it's a new military order. A lot of it is reported on our side, but spread out. The assault is intensified gradually. But the overall totality of the damage is not felt, because of the way it is gradually applied, dispersed over large areas.

Gideon Levy reports on children from the south Hebron area, killed and wounded by an Israel Defense Forces phosphorus shell. According to international law, the use of phosphorus shells in populated areas is forbidden, Levy reminds his readers. The IDF Spokesman promises the use of phosphorus shells is "only to mark boundaries and the boundaries of sectors," and that the IDF will scout the area and neutralize any shells or similar devices, if found, for the safety of the residents. In other words, Levy notified the army that there was a population in the area, and that when the army leaves a training area it should neutralize any remaining dangerous ammunition left behind. The report in the weekend paper passed without any other media reaction to it, since it's just another Palestinian child who will be killed and just another Palestinian child who will suffer dreadful pain because of a wound, so it's not news. We've gotten used to it.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=9135

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ENomine]

2. Hmmm...

If the Israelis ARE in fact perpetrating genocide, they should have just left that crap to the Rwandans and the Germans; cause' Israel seems FLABBERGHASTINGLY inefficient at it! :hurts:

j/k of course :D

[Jim Sagle]

3. Fuckin' A.

[occuserpens]

4. The frog which is not here

It is hard to imagine a frog jumping out of a pan with boiling water and no one sane will check this experimentally, this is just a wrong analogy. Further, wrong analogy suggests wrong view of the I/P situation. In fact, Mr.Hass appears to believe in 2-state solution and he fears that now hopes for the indepenent Palestinian state are dying. But E.Said did not believe that Olso will succeed, and now it is clear that he was rigt: 2SS is a chimera, there is no frog to jump from Hass' pan.

[Lithos]

5. Locking

This article covers too inflammatory of a topic in that it polarizes people into two extremes that are incompatible and immutable.

Lithos
I/P Forum Moderator