Tag Archives: Gaza

Political Rants

Kids’ crusade.

The Israeli war machine is cranking at nearly full bore now, with something approaching 100 Palestinians killed in several days of air strikes, a ground invasion and re-occupation of Gaza threatened, and I’m sure quite a bit else that doesn’t rise to the level of mainstream reportage here in the United States. This is being characterized as a “war”, albeit an “asymmetric” one, but I don’t know how you call something a war when only one side has an actual military … that is, the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world. The other side has very primitive rockets that they obviously can’t hit the broad side of a barn with.

Targeted.I’ll be clear, for what it’s worth: firing rockets into southern and central Israel is not only wrong, it’s strategically idiotic. But this nearly uncontrolled act of violence is a response to the ongoing assault against Palestinians, from the massive crackdown in the West Bank on the pretext of the 3 Israelis being kidnapped and murdered, to the continual expansion of settlements and other occupation infrastructure, to the steady incarceration, wounding, and yes, killing of Palestinians, young and old, in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

This assault on Gaza is just the latest chapter of the Israeli government’s practice of demonstrating their willingness to kill Palestinians in large numbers. Netanyahu has built his entire career on this, catering to some of the worst tendencies of his electorate.  More than 1,500 children under the age of 18 have been killed by the IDF since 2001. Several more have died in the last few days. Netanyahu blames Hamas, but it is he who drops bombs on one of the most densely populated place on Earth. You should expect to be held responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions. All Bibi’s government talks about is self-defense, but this is a very one-sided “war”. Must you survive by murder?

Netanyahu is a lot like Assad: He only knows one thing, and that thing is violence. This is not an intractable problem. It can be solved if the Israeli government acts responsibly, and abandons its claim to the 22% of historic Palestine that is not Israel.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Gaza misery.

All-out war has been averted in Gaza. That’s a good thing. The bad thing? More than 160 Palestinians were killed over the last week, more than half of them (in excess of 90 individuals) were civilians. Speaking on Public Radio International, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that “most of the people hit in Gaza deserved it“. Earlier today, with the cease-fire in place, a Palestinian man was shot along the border of Gaza inside what the IDF terms a “no-go” zone, but also in an area transited by Palestinian farmers on the way to their fields. This is not an unusual occurrence and is probably only being reported in the U.S. because of the conflict/cease fire story. This happens all the freaking time.

You don’t have to be a cynic to believe that Netanyahu wanted this flare-up, with elections just weeks away. He is following in a long tradition of Israeli political leaders who know that the iron fist earns votes. Already he has reconfigured his political coalition from a center-right to a more extreme right grouping, including the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party headed by current Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, a man who wants all Israeli Arabs – 20% of Israel’s population – to sign loyalty oaths and who has openly advocated for their expulsion. The bet appears to have paid off politically – a large majority in Israel favored the attack on Gaza. They have their problems, we have ours, it seems.

I am encouraged, at least, that the Palestinians in Gaza are getting their story told to some degree in the United States, the land where the money for Israel’s military comes from. I have heard in-depth commentary and reporting on Gaza over the last week that simply did not exist on cable television four years ago when the last murderous campaign (“Cast Lead”) ensued. Still, I’m doubtful that the majority of Americans understand the degree to which this is not a conflict between equals. Israel has had the Palestinians in Gaza under sustained attack for six years now, not that what came before was any bed of roses. Hamas may have a rudimentary offensive missile capability, but it’s nothing against the fourth most powerful military in the world. And anyone who distinguishes the lot of Gazans from that of Palestinians on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, who are being steadily bereft of their land, acre by acre, day by day, is simply not confronting reality.

In Gaza, the battle may be over, but the war is their daily life. They deserve our attention and our non-violent support.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

More of the same.

Israel has been knocking the living hell out of Gaza again this week. This round of bloodshed began with the killing of Zuhair al-Qaissi, head of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant Palestinian group. Rockets fired into southern Israel in response were supposedly shot down by their new anti-missile system. I will reserve comment on that until I see convincing confirmation that the system worked, having lived through bogus claims about Patriot missile batteries during the Gulf War. I can say, anecdotally, that the one thing I hear repeated by defenders of the Israeli government here in the U.S. is missiles, missiles, missiles. It’s like the G.O.P. candidates talking about gas prices. A million Israelis are under the threat of missile attack, they say.

Little is said about the fact that more than a million and a half Palestinians live constantly under the far more credible threat of attack from the fourth most powerful military in the world. Well over a thousand have been killed in attacks by the IDF over the past three years. Rockets from Gaza have killed about 30 Israelis – too many, clearly, but losses at a whole different order of magnitude from what’s happening on the other side of the Green line. Palestinian deaths have equaled that number just over the past week to ten days. Add this to the fact that, even without being shot or blown up, Palestinians live like dogs in Gaza mostly because it is under a constant state of siege by Israel and a U.S.-led coalition of powerful nations. At the very least, Israelis have some kind of a life between the missiles. Palestinians, not so much.

The fact that Hamas has, in essence, broken with Syria and Iran and are aligning themselves more with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which is in that country’s ruling parliamentary coalition, may seem to offer hope of some progress in this bloody standoff. The Egyptian group, a progenitor of Hamas, is no longer a militant organization; it appears to be having a moderating influence on Hamas. Prelude to a peace agreement? Don’t bet on it. If there is one thing the Israeli government fears more than anything else, it is the threat of a negotiated settlement. They prefer to settle things on the battlefield, where they hold a distinct advantage. Negotiations mean giving something up of value, like the 22% of historic Palestine that lies outside of the Green Line, including the West Bank – namely, the territory that would make up a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu, like Sharon, Shamir, and Begin before him, will never allow diplomacy to get in the way of Israel’s expansion of settlements on the West Bank. Expect more IDF attacks in Gaza as negotiations grow more likely.

luv u,

jp