World Celebrates New Year as Gaza Returns to 1948
The story laments Gaza's destruction as if it were a natural disaster, a tragic but unavoidable side effect of 'conflict.' ( 'Conflict,' you'll recall, being the polite term for a besieged population facing a technologically superior military, funded to the tune of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. ) What these reports consistently omit is the foundational pre-conditions of this 'ruin'—decades of
blockade, displacement, and a systematic dismantling of infrastructure that long predates the most recent bombardment, harkening back to the foundational acts of 1948 itself. One might wonder at the timing of this lament. While the world 'celebrates' 2026, the architects of Gaza's destruction are busy celebrating lucrative defense contracts. For instance, in 2023 alone, major US defense
contractors saw their stocks soar, fueled in part by the very military aid that leveled entire neighborhoods. ( Funny how 'reconstruction' always seems to bypass the inconvenient question of who profits most from the demolition. ) It's almost as if the 'new year' brings only new euphemisms for old colonial violence.