Published 3 January 20093 January 2009 · Main Posts proportionality Jeff Sparrow A typical headline: ‘Israel Attacks New Hamas Targets as Gaza Rockets Hit Ashkelon‘. Of course, the ostensible objectivity (on the one hand, the IDF; on the other, Hamas rockets) obscures the most basic feature of this unfolding tragedy – the gross disproportionality of suffering. Latest estimates are that 400 Palestinians have been killled and 2000 injured. In that time, four Israelis died and four suffered injuries. Every human death constitutes a unique catastrophe but it’s ridiculous to pretend that Ashkelon or Sderot – prosperous towns with a well-equipped infrastructure, under occasional bombardment from antiquated rockets – face anything like the devastation unleashed in Gaza, a ghetto deliberately starved of medical supplies and now coping with wounds caused by some of the most technologically advanced weapons in the world. The blog Palestinian Mothers makes that point through a series of images, some of which are reproduced over the jump. The first series shows Gaza, which now resembles a moonscape. The second shows rocket attacks on Israel. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body.