In the 36 hours since Israel committed the war crime of murdering an unknown number of civilians on a ship they invaded in international waters, CNN and other major media outlets have turned their airwaves over to the Israeli propaganda machine to wage a one-way debate: a Goliath pummeling an absentee David. This is a conflict where Biblical allusions take on extra significance, where the old testament is waved about like a real estate deed and where the U.S. stands hip to hip, check by jowl and arm over should with Israel against the rest of the world brutally enforcing a military and media policy that can be summed up with the phrase FREE ISREAL, F**K PALESTINE.

As an occupier, Israel is responsible for the welfare of the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza strip, 65% of whom are under 18. That is not some bleeding heart liberal moral code talking, that is international law. Instead, for four years running, Israel has put the residents of Gaza on a diet intent on achieving the fashionable “Nazi Death Camp look”.

Over the weekend, a boat filled with life saving supplies and 600-peace activists intent on reaching Gaza was raided and attacked by the Israeli military. The result- at least 10 dead and 30 injured.

Most Americans are saying, yikes, sucks for you Palestinians. I feel for you. But I’ve got an underwater mortgage, I am hanging on to my job by my fingernails, the entire economy I grew up in is a house of cards ready to come down the next time some shit ant country like Greece wobbles, and the New York Knicks, despite all of the lobbying in the world, are not going to land LeBron James in the NBA free agent sweepstakes, so I have to rely on the baseball for my escapism and the weighty metaphor of rooting for the richest team in baseball, whose 3rd baseman makes about 40 grand per at bat (not hyperbole) and whose very name- The Yankees- conjures up the ever rising and justified global anti-American anger within me, a Yankee myself- and I gotta tell ya- this is all just to much for me, and besides, what does the Israel/ Palestine conflict have to do with me? I mean, not to be a bag a douche or nothing, but why should I care?

Why should we care? Excellent question.

Well, even the bias of a man like Lee Hamilton, who was cherry picked by George W Bush to co-chair the 9-11 commission said that “US support for Israel was a significant root cause for Al Qaeda’s hatred of the United States and the attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Oh. So it is that important.

Given the urgency of the issue, you may be surprised to know, given the side show of partisan politics that play out for our distraction on the cable news channels, Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye on this. So much so that, during the only debate dedicated to foreign policy between candidates Obama and McCain in our last Presidential election, the word Palestine or Palestinian appears in the transcript a grand total of zero times.

When all of our elected officials agree on the policy of FREE ISREAL, FUCK PALESTINE, what is there to talk about?

The repeated crimes against humanity committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. Is not just an academic way of describing the “FREE ISREAL, FUCK PALESTINE” policy in effect, it ism in fact the International Crime Court’s legal definition of Apartheid.