Paris:Gaza. Paris:Iraq. Paris:Afghanistan (etc.) "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." -- attributed to Joseph Stalin.
Our western social liberalism, comfortable on the freeway, recoils at the idea any number of violent deaths could or should ever be compared to any other number. To suggest any such calculus would be wrong. We easily, piously and emphatically argue that our superior moral compass does not allow any such distinction. The choir agrees.
But by what right do we insist that the relatives and survivors of multitudes -- the survivors of "statistics" -- must never disagree? As our drones circle overhead, as babies freeze to death in Gaza, as we keep innocent men in cages for 10 years and brutally torture more, by what right do we instruct those who manage to survive the violence we commit and/or support about our moral principles? By what right do we lecture that the genocide of a hundred thousand, of millions, does not excuse murder of a few, just to make the horror they endure real, to send a desperate message? Do we even care to answer their questions?
Well, of course we do, and we are entitled to go to Gaza, where American made munitions continue to litter the rubble of generations and proclaim, "No violence justifies more!" Well, never mind. Maybe the whole mess (in their part of the world, not ours) actually IS a little more complicated than that. In fact, what's done in our name across the globe is too complicated to be our problem. We are too busy trying to switch channels, and flow with the traffic.