The reason the response to this tragedy is political and politicised is that the causes of the tragedy are political. While Lisa Goldman's heart is in the right place and the spirit of her post humane and generous, it also attempts to achieve something that is unachievable: de-politicising something whose very essence is political. Lisa's post would have worked for the children who lost their entire families (but somehow survived themselves) in the 2004 tsunami, for example, but a non-political response to a political crime/accident is just not possible. It was either an Israeli shell or a Palestinian bomb/mine that killed the family on the beach. That's political. It cannot be ignored. P.S. Writing this has jogged my memory that, horrifyingly enough, there were people who tried to politicise even the tsunami tragedy. Now THAT is truly disgusting.