Great American Wars and Gaza

At the time of writing, figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry put the number of Palestinian deaths during Operation Protective Edge at over 1,7oo. The CIA World Factbook estimates the population of the Gaza Strip to be 1.8 million. This suggests that during the last month 0.1% of the Gazan population has been killed.

Each death (on each side) is deplorable in itself. But the proportion of the Gazan population killed in a little under a month is worthy of reflection. It is approximately equal to the proportion of Americans killed in World War One. In that war, the United States lost approximately 116,500 from a population of 99 million in 1914. It’s 3 times the United States’ losses in Vietnam as a proportion of population. And it is magnitudes higher than the approximately 8,000 US troops and contractors killed in Iraq in the last decade as a proportion of the U.S. population.

The speed of the killing is also worth of note. Operation Protective Edge has lasted 27 days and killed 1,700+ Palestinians. That puts the rate of deaths at 63 individuals a day. Only the Civil War, WWI, and WWII have a higher death rate for Americans than this. The rate of death for Gazans is nearly six times the rate of American deaths in Vietnam, which polarized American society. Its over 30 times that of the Iraq War.

Given the gruesome shock of these figures, it is difficult to understand how there is not more outrage.

In nearly every town in America memorials remind us of the bloodshed of those Great American wars. We vow, “Never Again.” But we hold on to the memory of those wars, moments of human tragedy, as critical pointers towards who we are. Our national identity is forged by a narrative of those episodes of bloodshed, and we frame ourselves as a nation in terms of our response to those periods. Americans are freedom lovers, liberators, and defenders of democracy. In this narrative World War Two was “our finest hour.” Who we are is fundamentally tied to how we behaved during — and in response to — war. The memorials serve the dual purpose of reminding us that even in the darkest of human days, we could be counted upon to stand on the side of liberty, and that afterwards we can recognize the massive and tragic destructive power of human warfare. We are who we are, because we do not look away — at the time or afterwards.

And yet, when the US Congress came to discuss the situation in Gaza, its response was not to pause and reflect on the bloodshed in Gaza, but to underwrite it. The House of Representatives voted 395-8 to grant $225 million to assist with Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The Senate approved the measure with unanimous consent. This was in addition to the sale of munitions from the War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel, and the approximately $3 billion of annual aid.

Given the fiscal and diplomatic cover provided by the United States, the assault on Gaza is as much an American war as any of the above. But it is not one that fits within the memorial narrative, for in Gaza the United States neither recognizes the human destruction as something to be averted at all costs (by ceasing to fund it) nor does it stand on the side of liberation. It underwrites the assaults carried out by the stronger occupying force, unsanctioned by international authorities or international law. It funds and supports military tactics that have produced extensive civilian deaths.

It is better located perhaps, amongst the “Lesser American Wars” which lack the overt memorials erected to the Great American Wars. Not included in the pantheon of the “noble” Great Wars, these Lesser Wars are not enlisted in the great American narrative. Amongst their number count the genocidal destruction of the Native American population, the occupation of the Philipines, and the centuries long war against the Black body. In these campaigns, the United States has protected power, eschewed the norms of war, and unleashed overwhelming force on weaker foes. And in these wars, the numbers killed are hard to ascertain. But these Lesser Wars, sans memorials in every village, are as much a part of the American national identity as the Great Wars. They mark the crucial absences within the United States’ self-narration, the spaces where attention is not focused and “We will forget.” They are the acts of colonializing aggression that make possible the heroism of the Great Wars. Forgotten, they produce the land, resources, wealth, and myths of success that enable us to believe that we stand on the side of righteousness, and that afford us the moral and material capacity to memorialize those Great Wars in every town. The memorials to the Lesser Wars exist in what has been erased, what is not recognized in the act of remembering ourselves collectively.

Of the $225 million grant, Senator Lindsay Graham said, “As dysfunctional as the Congress has been, this is one of our finer moments.” Such a statement seems inhumane given the context of the grant. But in not recognizing the context, the United States Congress is acting within American tradition. In truth, Graham’s claim makes perfect sense if we understand the assault on Gaza as just another of America’s Lesser Wars. In locating Gaza amongst the bloodshed that is not seen, the United States is recognizing it as the colonial war it is.