I would preface this with “Not the Onion” – but the Onion is not even the Onion any more.
Some palestinians are in despair because – wait for it – Israel withdrew from Gaza, making it harder for them to hurt our soldiers!
Since Israel’s decision in 2005 to withdraw its troops from bases inside Gaza, redeploying to the perimeter with a blockade at sea and control of the skies, it has been even harder for ordinary Palestinians to resist in the way Ahed Tamimi did.
In the days of the old intifada any Palestinian could land a stone on a soldier with no trouble, as the soldiers were in amongst them. “Now we can’t be like Ahed because we can’t even see a soldier, never mind hit them with stones. We never get close enough to kick or punch. If only we could,” a young man complained.
For those in Gaza this inability to see or hit back at the enemy has created a uniquely desperate despair, which has spilled out into the buffer zone protests of recent weeks. Perhaps for this reason, Hamas understood it could not hold back any protester and allowed women to protest too.
It seems we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
Or, to put it another way, caught between a rock and a hard harder-to-be-injured place.
