Bill Moyers Brings His Humanity To Gaza

Bill Moyers is, hands down, one of the most thoughtful, compassionate, independent and engaged journalists working today. This essay on the tragedy in Gaza, with with he ended a recent episode of his PBS Journal show, musters all his insight to remind us of the humanity of this calamity, and treats the war with all the care and seriousness that is the exact opposite of a political culture that instead treats life and death, in his words, as "abstractions of policy".




Also, his essay reminds me of one of the essential truths of terrorism and how it applies in this case, that the whole point of terrorism is to get your enemy to over-react. Terrorism is the tool of a weak actor who, on purpose, fights outside of convention by attacking civilians in order to cause fear in the population and get the enemy government to use so much excessive force that it deligitimizes it's actions, either domestically or internationally. That is, the Israeli massive assault is exactly what Islamic militants want Israel to do. By Israel bringing so much suffering to the Gazans it makes the prospect of real peace that much harder and furthers the goals of extremists.