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This Reminds Me
When Our Children Were Young

Disclaimer: This is not about parenting. This is about the life and death of Palestinians.
When our children were little, they mischievously did what I assume all siblings do at some point. They get into a game of running to mom or dad and tattle when they are upset with a sibling who may or may not be guilty of anything. My wife got rather tired of this quickly and had an idea. she cut out a picture of an ear and stuck it on the refrigerator. The next child that came to tattle was told to go tell it to the ear. They would go stand by the refrigerator and vent their concerns to the ear. This was great until they reached a point where they realized this was all for nothing. The ear, and by extension, the refrigerator didn’t care. The big old refrigerator was not coming after anyone to discipline them.
Jump ahead — this is when we leave parenting behind. Sort of. The devastating loss of civilian lives in Gaza is now in the 20,000 range. The majority of them are women and children. They are not combatants. They are not fighting back at the IDF. They are largely busy enough trying to stay alive and move to what they hope is a safer place.
Gaza has been carpet-bombed. Nearly all of the population has become homeless. Most of them have no home to return to. If they can find the street their house was even on, it…