Last week I returned from Jenin, where I had been with a few other internationals. It was a site of unconscionable, inconceivable barbarism. Thousands upon thousands of homes destroyed, housing for at least 15,000 reduced to nothing more than concrete powder -- a bitter, painful dust replete with unexploded bombs and missiles and shreds of personal belongings and corpses. Between 1 and 5 people, mostly children in Jenin had been losing limbs or worse daily. Were it anywhere else in the Western world, this monstrous scene of devastation and human misery would have long ago drawn official political and rescue responses from world governments; but it seems clear that the international community already made the shameful decision to cast off the Palestinians.

While I helped in Jenin to distribute food and identify and mark unexploded bombs, the sole official international efforts in Jenin consisted of a small slowly assembling United Nations team and another small group of Norwegian and British search and rescue experts. Hardly any Western media, the “bastion of democracy and the free press” were evident, save for BBC and a handful of others. What an outrage!

There were no international dignitaries touring the site of this war crime (save one Scottish parliamentarian, come to Palestine of his own accord) and ABSOLUTELY no other international expert teams made available to direct search and relief efforts.