Comparing Disaster to War
There Are Reasons to Consider Similarities Between Images of Gaza and Californnia
News videos from California are horrific. Burned-out builds. Charred cars. Rubble.
In so many ways — and this maybe an impolitic comparison — these videos and still images mirror what we have seen from Gaza, and to a lesser degree Ukraine.
The two photos from the Associated Press posted above — one from California and one from Gaza — share a similar aesthetic. But there are significant differences, which is why others who have made the observation I’m making have faced criticism. Jamie Lee Curtis was heavily criticized for saying that “The entire Pacific Palisades looks like, you know, unfortunately, Gaza or one of these war-torn countries where awful things have happened.” This “seems off,” minimizing Gaza and other war zones and elevating and equating their pain with that of a rich white woman — and thousands of others like her.
Los Angeles and its suburbs do look war-torn, and the fires’ impact has been similar to what happens in war zones — death and massive displacement, destruction of homes, businesses, infrastructure. Our unwillingness to acknowledge these similarities is a commentary on our own privilege — a reality that Curtis alludes to with the modifying clause “where awful things have happened.” She speaks in the passive voice, elides the “doer,” the subject responsible for the action.
But there is a subject responsible for the genocidal assault on the people of Gaza. Bad things are not just happening to Palestinians. Israel is actively waging war — as is Russia in Ukraine, and the Sudanese government against its own people. (The outgoing Biden administration has declared a genocide in Sudan, but hypocritically not in Gaza.)
The charred wreckage in Gaza is not the result of winds or drought or natural forces like the California damage (more on why this is a problematic frame in a minute). Gaza is a choice, one made by Israel’s leaders — chief among them Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and with American complicity. We are Israel’s chief patron, provide it billions in military aid, and act as its defender at the United Nations.
Each death in Gaza, each person turned refugee, is the direct result of human action. Israeli soldiers rampage across the 141-square-mile strip, the military launches missiles into Gaza, issues evacuation orders that it then ignores, bombing the people it told to flee.
The destruction does not just occur, but is actively pursued — just as it is in Ukraine and Sudan and in other war zones around the globe.
Coverage of Gaza, at least in the United States, focuses on diplomacy and military matters. This is partly due to Israel’s ban on press access to the strip, but also because that is how we have been taught to cover war and write about war — in our history books, in our newspapers, on our television. The human toll is presented as numbers with an occasional human story. The stories are driven by government spokesman.
Los Angeles is different, at least on the surface. The cause of the fires has yet to be determined, but our rhetoric surrounding the blazes is one that assumes accident. These fires — and other extreme weather events — are “natural disasters.” The weather, the natural world, is responsible. The fires happen independent of human hands.
What’s important in Southern California are the human stories. Reporters spend time with the displaced, talking to families, surveying the damage. The press focuses on the human reaction in the moment, though much of this comes about through a kind of gaming of sources by the press. We find the victims and put them in situations where we can capture their victimhood. These stories are designed to elicit sympathy, which might generate needed help but also reinforces a sense of distance. “Oh, those poor people,” we legitimately and humanly respond, all the while thinking, “thank god, it’s not me.”
The distance is reinforced by the phrase “natural disaster,” which we use to describe these extreme weather events. The phrase, however, reinforces a sense of random victimhood when what we are witnessing is not random and far from natural. The damage that humans have been doing to the environment and our unwillingness to address the changing climate makes this catastrophe a man-made event. We burn carbon at obscene levels, build homes and businesses in sensitive areas, encroach on wilderness, action that have increased these “natural disasters” in both number and intensity.
War is an apt metaphor for the fires — not because firefighters are waging one against the blaze, but because we have waged on on our planet and, perhaps, we can say the planet is fighting back, waging a war of rebellion against us.