Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Palestinian Chronicle: Palestinians as Hamsters

One often despairs of seeing truly scientific coverage of current events in Gaza. Many of the most valuable insights into human behavior were actually obtained by doing experiments on rats and other small rodents, but what author has applied such insights to the current situation? Now, at last, the value of rodent-derived studies has been affirmed. And this, perhaps, is the silver lining in the current infighting between Fatah and Hamas: the horizons of scientific knowledge are being expanded:
One law of nature is that if organisms are crowded together in a confined area with limited freedom to move or expand, they will inevitably turn on each other. This is already happening with our hamsters, which continue to reproduce in exponential numbers. Now, with ten furry rodents in a cage designed for two, the critters are constantly flipping over each other, biting one another and pushing each other off the treadmill in a territorial bid to claim their own slice of space in their cramped quarters.

At the risk of oversimplifying the otherwise complex situation, the Gaza Strip is more or less a huge hamster cage, its inhabitants viciously vying over exaggerated seats of power and positions, each side ready and willing to spill the blood of their neighbors in the name of their distorted cause.

The clashes between Hamas and Fatah in the Gaza Strip, which witnessed a brief lull in the past few weeks when Israel pounded the Strip instead, have resurfaced with a vengeance. According to Palestinian media sources, nearly 40 people have been killed in the clashes since Monday morning alone. Scores more have been injured, many of them seriously. Hospital sources in Khan Younis and Gaza City have reported that a number of injuries have been to the lower extremities, namely the knee area, which has resulted in many amputations given the extent of damage. [...]
Here, perhaps, we also see the limitations of the scientific method: no scientist has yet devised a method for inducing hamsters to shoot other hamsters in the kneecaps.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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