As the US military descends to throttle Gaza’s -excuse me- Haiti’s points of entry, as it prepares detention facilities at Guantanamo to intercept and repatriate the expected rush of Haitian refugees, as the US protects its business interests in the Dominican Republic and Haiti which profit from the kept-poor labor market of captive Haiti, there are fewer differences than parallels. One difference, Israeli medics are willing to come help the injured of Haiti.

How did they get in, when every other charity has been forced to queue for the opportunity? Other national and private efforts had to wait behind US military convoys bringing soldiers before food, reinforced borders before help. By the time most medical care was allowed to reach the earthquake victims, surgeons were left with only the option of amputation. I’m curious how a captive labor population of amputees is supposed to benefit their Western overseers.

It minimizes the acute circumstances in Gaza to paint Haiti as a concentration camp with settlers waiting outside the fence for the inmates to exterminate themselves. I’m not aware that our white religious zealots are after anything but Haitian children, their souls or supplicant bodies. But the same prison population control strategies apply. When the Haitians elect populist leaders, we fund goon squads to assassinate them, or we kidnap them into exile. Where is that different? There is a Haitian diaspora as there is for the Palestinians. There is our exploitation of their resources and their labor. How fitting that America’s closest cohort sent medics in for the photo op, and quickly aborted their work before the same darker-skinned unchosen got wise.