No-one, other than a fanatical Hamas supporter, would argue that all in Gaza are innocents. There is fault on both sides in this latest violent clash between the people of Gaza and the state of Israel. The cease fire of the previous six months neither prevented rocket attacks by the Palestinians on Israeli towns in the north, nor dissuaded Israel from continuing plans to attack Gaza – plans ongoing for more than a year.
In the last three years, nine Israelis have died as the result of rockets fired from Gaza. In the same period, nearly fifteen hundred Palestinians have died in Gaza due to Israeli aggression. Both statistics were compiled prior to the ongoing Israeli attacks, and highlight the disproportionate response of the Jewish state.
At the time of writing, the BBC is reporting a Palestinian death toll of 347, since Saturday.[1] Of these, 62 are considered “civilian” deaths. According to UN humanitarian chief John Holmes, this figure only relates to women and children. Adult males are not considered “civilian”, and therefore aren’t included. Obviously, this means the true “civilian” death toll is much higher.
Israel, apparently, regrets killing women and children, but considers all adult males to be potential Hamas members, and consequently fair game.
Gaza is the most densely populated piece of land on the face of the planet. Like the Americans before them in Iraq, Israel is using the myth of precision bombing to justify imposing collective punishment on the people of Gaza. After keeping them at near starvation levels for months, depriving them of fuel, power, medicines, and the basic necessities of life, the Israeli government now considers them sufficiently cowed to smash their morale by its very own version of “shock and awe”.
Collective punishment is not new. It was widely used by the Nazis during the German occupation of European nations between 1938 and 1945. Commonly, whenever a German was killed by the resistance, a number of local townspeople were shot in retaliation.
Over the last three years, Israel has killed roughly 150 Palestinians for every Israeli murdered by rockets from Gaza. Can it be given any name other than collective punishment?
American support for the latest Israeli aggression is total. Why would it be otherwise when Jews are in control of the United States? If you doubt that fact, just check out the numbers of Jewish politicians and government officials in Washington. Given the power of the Jewish community in this country, are they likely to speak out in protest against their own people?
The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a catalogue of wrongs, with nothing – absolutely nothing – done right. The first, and greatest, of those wrongs was committed in 1917, when British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued the “Balfour Declaration”. For any government to sanction the occupation of a foreign land by one religious group was irresponsible in the extreme, but Britain was winning a World War and brimming with arrogance and Empire. The Arab was considered a lowly creature, expendable, by most Englishmen of the day, with the exception of T.E. Laurence. Giving away Arab lands to appease an unruly lobby, the Zionist movement, seemed a reasonable solution to a thorny problem.
All this began long before the Nazi extermination camps of WW2, but Hitler’s treatment of European Jews created sufficient excuse for the newly founded United Nations to support the establishment of a Jewish state of Israel, despite bitter Arab opposition.
Ever since, a combination of Jewish aggression and Arab intransigence has maintained a violent stalemate that continues to this day. Adding to the insolvency of the situation has been the total commitment of the United States to its Jewish ally, dragging European partners dependent on the US for umbrella defense, often unwillingly, with it. The Arab cause has felt isolated, with no powerbase to turn to for assistance. Israel has consistently ignored UN resolutions and expanded its territories further into Palestinian lands at every available opportunity.
Perhaps the greatest block to peace in the region has been the continual, cold-bloodedly arrogant, attitude of successive Israeli governments. Wealthy, a nuclear power well supplied with US weapons technology, Israel is well placed to lord it over the region, suppressing resistance to its enslavement of the Palestinian people as a sledgehammer swats a fly.
It’s only a matter of time, however, before an Arab state acquires a nuclear weapon. That would drastically undermine Israel’s power in the region, so much that the Jewish state will go to any lengths to prevent it happening. It’s for this reason the US Israel lobby whipped up so much frenzy recently over Iran’s moves to enrich uranium.
Peaceful resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has always been scuppered by a combination of arms dealers, religious extremists, and political greed. The attitude of a majority of Israelis towards Palestinians is that they are simply scum. They wish they’d just go away. Few Israelis are inconvenienced these days by the Palestinians. Unless you’re unfortunate enough to live in Sderot or Ashkelon, and are hit by a Katyusha fired from Gaza, the concrete wall and checkpoints will keep most Palestinians out in the desert.
One day, the refusal of Israel to curb its arrogant expansion and seriously enter into meaningful negotiations with its Arab neighbors, will result in a nuclear war in the Middle East. When that happens, the rest of the world will rue the day it didn’t do more to curb its American ally’s militaristic support and enthusiasm for the Jewish state of Israel.
Of course, by then it will be too late.
[1] “Israel vows war on Hamas in Gaza” BBC, December 30th 2008
Filed under: Israeli/Palestinian conflict