The indispensable James Wolcott--he's in my blog roll to the right--links in his latest post to Sara Roy's report on conditions in Gaza before Israeli war planes began another killing spree on December 27. Today, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni denied there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Roy makes clear that the blockade of Gaza had precipitated a humanitarian crisis there before Operation Cast Lead began making corpses in clumps. She marshals her evidence with a seeming dispassionate air before concluding, passionately:
How can keeping food and medicine from the people of Gaza protect the people of Israel? How can the impoverishment and suffering of Gaza’s children – more than 50 per cent of the population – benefit anyone? International law as well as human decency demands their protection. If Gaza falls, the West Bank will be next.
Follow the link above and read the whole thing. It's awful to think that things are now much worse.
Wolcott also links to his own review, in the same issue of London Review of Books as Roy's article appears, of John Updike's The Widows of Eastwick. Which man, reviewer or reviewee, has the greater command of written English, the more coruscating prose style? Wolcott I think is something of a showman, and sometimes seems to be calling attention to his own flourishes, while Updike's prose never betrays a trace of effort. Maybe it's like arguing about two pretty girls, one of whom is wearing a shorter skirt. I like them both and recommend Wolcott's review, but be careful: it's a little like looking directly at the sun.
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