We ration our exposure to violence, to grief, to war, to disease and to starvation. We come to despair of solutions. We graduate our tolerance. And so it is that we shut our minds to what is going on today within and around the borders of Israel. Of course, we cannot isolate ourselves completely.
Some murders are so horrible they sneak in beneath radar.
The use of warplanes on civilian areas still has the capacity to shock. But, by and large, we cannot deal with the enormity of the unfolding tragedy. The abnormal becomes normal. The extraordinary becomes not only expected but accepted. It is a tragedy for those families on either side of the divide directly marked by the continual violence.