ON THE CHILDREN OF GAZA...

Pictures of perished children of Gaza under newspaper headlines; meant to reach, touch, scar our collective conscience, (as) if there is one...

Parenthood has one effect, which I would wish to believe is universal: You cannot bear the idea, much less the sight, of children dying, children losing their parents, children in pain writ large. The mental picture, the comparison, the allegory with you and yours becomes an inevitable, automatic, instinctive habit. An egocentric take on the plight of others, for sure, but all the more empathetic for that reason.

Nowadays, I am trying to devise ways to cope with what I fail to change, for the agony becomes too real, too crushing, too crippling otherwise. This blog seems to be one.

Today, I found myself staring at the father and his three deceased children, probably of ages 2 to 5 on the frontpage of a daily. I stared at their pajamas, all rags and tatters, their fatal wounds, their faces. All I could manage to think of was "good for them." The boys did get away with the ways of the world; the confinement, the destitute, the deprivation of their homeland; the obligation to witness and be subject to further violence; our inescapable daily subjection to "humanity" and what it truly stands for.

They no longer have to await help when none will come; they no longer have to witness the desperation and the futility of their parents; they no longer have to try and understand the indifference to their existence and extinction; they no longer have to hope.

Their existence was brief, presumably not enviable in its circumstances, insignificant. But they were there.

They had few joyful moments; when they did, it was utter and complete. They had their innocence, and they got to keep it.

They never got to learn the words collateral damage, rapprochement, detente, proliferation, non-proliferation, casus belli... They never heard of commodification. They were, though, the very object of one. They did not have the toys that the big boys roaming and rumbling in UN chambers had. They were one.

They found their escape. One can only envy their fortunes.