While we are all preoccuped with Lebanon’s death by thousand cuts, the Israeli destruction of Gaza threatens “total breakdown of the fabric of society,” reports the Independent.
A 12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.
Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.
It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.
As of last night, 29 people had been killed in the most concentrated 48 hours of violence since an Israeli soldier was abducted by Palestinian militants just more than a month ago.
The operation is codenamed “Samson’s Pillars”, a collective punishment of the 1.4 million Gazans, subjecting them to a Lebanese-style offensive that has targeted the civilian infrastructure by destroying water mains, the main power station and bridges.
How grotesquely appropriate to name it “Samson’s Pillars.” Here’s what Samson, according to myth, accomplished in Gaza:
16:28 And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.
16:29 And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.
16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
Judges
Sounds like terrorism, no? Now, what pathological condition might have engendered such behavior?
Samson ‘was mentally ill’
Dr Eric Altschuler, from the University of California, in San Diego, claims that instead of being a hero, Samson was actually mentally ill.
In a report in the New Scientist, Dr Altschuler said that in today’s society Samson would be seen as “a bit of a thug”.
[snip]
Dr Altschuler said Samson routinely got into fights, killed 1,000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it and showed no remorse.
He also showed a reckless regard for his own safety when he told Delilah, a woman who had already tried to kill him three times, the secret of his strength.
All these Dr Altschuler said point to Samson having an anti-social personality disorder (ASPD).
People diagnosed with ASPD exhibit at least three of seven specific behavioural traits such as being impulsive, reckless and habitually getting into fights.
[snip]
Kevin Gibson, a consultant clinical psychologist and head of adult psychology at Sunderland Hospitals Trust, said society would view Samson in a different light today.
“Today we would see his ruthlessness and exploitiveness as having a personality disorder,” he said.
Well, when it comes to the government of Israel, some of us do.
