We’re putting Mister B, our elderly dachshund, down. Our appointment with the vet is later this afternoon.
I took this photo five minutes ago. He’s under ten pounds, wasted away to almost nothing. He’s losing interest in eating, not keeping food down, incontinent, barely able to stagger around. Now he has an abscess in his groin and is visibly uncomfortable, if not in pain. Lulu & Fritzi, our younger dachshunds, know he’s having a rough time and have a special bark to summon us when Mr. B can’t get up and needs our help.
It’s time. It’s been time but we’ve been in denial. We’ll be with him, holding him as he goes.
I posted this to Facebook two or three days ago. It’s a screen grab from the BBC website, along with my comment on it:
Today, a Jewish friend gave me a love tap: “What exactly are you saying Paul?”
My response: “I think I’m saying people who support Israel, who understand the goal of Hamas is the total elimination of Jews (and that virtually every single Palestinian is on board with that sentiment), and therefore understand why Israel’s response to the Oct 7th slaughter is so harsh, can’t come right out and admit or accept that the IDF is intentionally starving out Gaza. Of course a lot of the horror stories coming out of Gaza are Hamas propaganda … but some aren’t. It’s getting harder to just blindly support Israel.”
Today I read that the endless press photographs of starving Gazans holding empty pots and pans are taken at a known location, an access point for the media, and are probably staged; i.e., Hamas propaganda. And I’d like to believe that. But what if that story, along with endless IDF denials that they’re shooting into crowds, is Israeli propaganda? How would I know? Maybe it’s best to just butt out. I’m not Palestinian. I’m not Israeli. And there’s nothing I can do to influence events anyway.
It’s not like we Americans ever tried to starve indigenous populations.
Speaking of our own uneasy history with native Americans … how will the history of what’s playing out in Gaza today read to the world in ten, twenty years? Maybe more to the point, how is it going to read to a future generation of Israelis?
Standing by for more love taps.