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TechnoratiStop This Strategy of Strangulation
The Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, will this week decide whether to tighten to slow the strangulation of an entire people. Since the democratically elected Hamas government took power in the Gaza Strip in June, the 1.5 million people who live in that cramped and crumbling prison on the Mediterranean have been punished by being choked off from the world. Gaza is surrounded by gun-toting soldiers and razor-wire; nothing goes out, and almost nothing goes in.
The result? The factories are shuttered. Some 85 per cent of the people have no work. Virtually all the essential building projects - including repairs to the sewage system - have stopped, because there is no concrete. The price of flour has soared by 80 per cent. The banks have almost run out of money. The charity Save the Children say that malnutrition - once confined to the worst refugee camps - is rippling out into the general population.
And then a new form of punishment was thought of. The Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak decided to turn out the lights. Some 60 per cent of Gaza's power supply comes from Israel - so Barak decided to halt it. Food rotted in freezers. Work in hospitals stuttered to a halt. Israel's message seemed to be: Let there be darkness.
This plan was halted when a slew of brave Israeli human rights organisations appealed to the Attorney General, claiming the black-outs were illegal. He is mulling it over. But he refuses to stop the overall blockade, and he has waved through plans to choke off Gaza's supply of diesel - necessary to run ambulances and the few remaining sparks of economic activity.
The Israeli government claims it has to engage in this because Qassam rockets are being fired from Gaza at the nearby Israeli civilian city of Sderot. But the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has shown that these rockets are being fired in retaliation for Israeli attacks against Gaza's civilians. He writes: "Anyone who takes an honest look at the progression of events during the past two months will discover that the Qassams have a context: they are almost always fired after an IDF [Israeli Defence Force] assassination operation, and there have been many of these. The question of who started it is not a childish question in this context. The IDF has returned to liquidations, and in a big way. And in their wake there has been an increase in Qassam firings."
Once this is pointed out, the Israeli government shifts to a different rationale. It says its goal is to put pressure on the Palestinian people, so that they realise their folly and get rid of Hamas. But imagine if the surrounding Arab countries had decided to punish Israel for electing Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert by encircling it with tanks and barbed wire, shooting anyone who tried to get out, and ruining the Israeli economy. Would the Israeli people have shrugged, expelled Sharon, and elected the peace party Me'retz? Of course not. They would have turned to whichever hardline party promised to fight back with the biggest guns and loudest rockets. The Palestinians are just doing the same.
Whenever I try to explain this, I think of a 19-year-old girl called Mirsat Massoud. I went to her home in Jaballya refugee camp in Gaza last winter. She wasn't there: she had blown herself up a few weeks before, and I wanted to understand why. As their remaining children scampered around us, her parents explained that Mirsat had lived all her life in this bashed-up, broken-down camp, and she had never left the claustrophobic cramp of Gaza.
Her mother, Hijam, told me that as a small girl Mirsat would wake to the sound of Apache helicopters above the camp. When she was 10 she saw Israeli soldiers shoot up a family in their car. "She was nervous all the time," Hijam said. But she didn't fall for extremism, at first. She joined Fatah, and campaigned for Mahmoud Abbas to become president. But Mirsat was shocked to see Abbas being so blatantly humiliated: he offered Israel negotiations and compromise, and in return Sharon snubbed him. She felt it as her own humiliation. She was drawn towards Hamas, and as the attacks in Gaza became more extreme, so did she.
On the morning she blew herself up - taking a clutch of Israeli soldiers with her - Mirsat's father, Amin, found her watching the television at 4am and crying. He explains: "She just kept saying, 'Now they are firing at schoolchildren.' She kept repeating it again and again. She was very distressed." A school bus carrying 20 nursery school kids through Beit Lahia had been hit by an IDF shell. Their teacher was killed in front of them, the blood splattering over the kids. Two teenagers walking to school on the street were also blasted to pieces. "I think that is what tipped her over the edge," her father says. "She became a martyr that afternoon."
Mirsat's mother tries to offer all the standard-issue bravado about how she is "proud" of her daughter's actions. So I ask if she would like her other children to be suicide-bombers. Reflexively, without thinking, she clutches the son who is at her heels, hard. "No," she whispers.
The harder Israel beats Gaza, the harder its people become. Even the right-wing Jerusalem Post - a cheerleader for the strategy of strangulation - admitted this week that "there is no doubt that Hamas [is] now stronger than it has ever been." This programme of collective punishment is a gift to Hamas, and the even more extreme organisations to its right. Punish moderates, you get radicals. Punish radicals, you get extreme radicals. There is another way. End the collective punishment, and engage with the Gazan people's elected representatives. Invite Hamas to the Annapolis "peace" summit in Maryland this month. Talk. I loathe Hamas - but it is the elected government, and it is making Israel a decent offer. Haniyeh has talked privately about a 20- or even 40-year hudna (ceasefire), provided Israel withdraws to the legal 1967 borders. Forty years is a very long time. If they have a four-decade stretch of economic development, without being terrorised by Israel, how likely is it the Palestinian people will want to pursue war to reclaim the rest of historical Palestine in 2047? They barely want it today, as you can tell from the fact that all their elected leaders are prepared - in practice - to accept a two-state solution, here, now, if only Israel would too.
As I left her home, Mirsat's father peered at me very closely and said: "I want my daughter to be the last suicide-bomber. But when our children grow up like this" - he waved his hand across the refugee camp - "how can she be?" If next week the Attorney General decides to plunge a new generation of Palestinian children into darkness, he will ensure that more Israeli civilians die, far on to the bloody horizon.
--j.hari@ independent.co.uk
© 2007 The Independent
19 Comments so far
Show AllSTAR OF THE SEA: Thank you for reaching beyond the polarity that sees "us versus them," while seeking to appoint black/white characterizations to a complex issue, with simple winner/loser, persecuted/trespasser constructs. Some people just want to feel right/righteous and see their view validated; and a lot of people don't recognize why spirituality must enter our debates to lift them out of these linear constructs that will always result in divisiveness. The Divine Circle upon which matter (and all things THAT matter) is designed has no sides!
Unbelieveable..
Israel, remove giant log from eye!
NelsonJ
So, you only want to kill the Zionist! I guess it's safe to say that more than half the population of Israel are supportive Zionist, three or four million, or so. Tidy little number or dead Jews and I guess you want to go after their Zionist brothers in New York as well? I once hear David Duke give campaign talk in Shreveport about "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Is he Kin to you?
This young lady felt so much despair and the situation hopeless to kill herself at such a young age, this is all insanity, and then her mother to say she is proud is even sadder. Israel is partly responsible for these kinds of acts, for their brutalization, and inhuman treatment of these people. When you grow up in despair and destruction, what must that do to the mind of these young people on both sides, but especially the Palestinians. Violence breeds violence, and hatred breeds hatred, and from the beginning of time it has not changed or altered anything or improved any situation.
Mark Abram
The consequences of oppression and occupation are farreaching and victimize all sides. In the face of all that is right and fair and legal and just Israel continues its horrid crimes. It matters not one whit that something as bad or worse was done to Jews, SOME of whom are now living in Israel. A crime is a crime especially one that is continuing and increasing and whose perpetrator has nuclear weapons. All manner of disgusting human traits are unleashed once a great crime becomes the ruling paradigm. despicable overraection CAN even at times be the more horrible event. Having said that, it is way past time for Jews and other friends of Israel to use all their power and influence to rein in this horriffic occupation and daily strangulation of Palestinians. America can but alas is a pitiful giant and refuses to confront Israel for many reasons we all know about. The onus is on saner people who have influence in Tel Aviv and at AIPAC. If an Arab says Israel is committin crimes, everyone will say he is anti semitic (even though Arabs are Semites too!) but if a Jew or an Israeli who has Israel's interest at heart says Israel is engaged in crimes, it will make people stand and take notice. Forget the anti semitic crap...nowadays Arabs hear somethign very similar and it is chilling....I implore Jews who love Israel to wrest their country away from these Neo con fascists in Washington AND Tel Aviv and give it back to Jews and Palestinians who are sick and tired of hate and blood and are willing to live in peace. Too much is at stake to do anything else!
Like starofthesea I am distressed by the namecalling and hate, which cannot hide its antisemitic character whether it overtly spouts hateful prejudice against "Jews" or only demonizes "Zionists."
Let's remember that a "Zionist" is an Israeli patriot, and that perhaps the sanest and one of the most right-living peacemakers in the world, Uri Avnery, who was first to reach across barriers and meet with the PLO and Hamas, counts himself as an ardent Zionist.
I write this as a person of partial Jewish ancestry who strongly supports the Palestinian struggle for justice and opposes the depravity to which Israel and the United States have both fallen.
It's tempting to suppose that the words of venom have been posted by provocateurs intent on manufacturing evidence that critics of Israel and supporters of the Palestinian struggle are in fact the antisemitic monsters the Israel lobby paints them as. But sadly, I suspect that these posters are among those who count themselves as supporters of the Palestinian cause, and are actually among its worst enemies.
The Israeli and US elite learn oppression from each other. When one of them can't openly repress a subject population the other will fill in (i.e., 1980s Central and Latin America, South African cone, Iraqi-Iranian war, etc.)
However, neither presently cares about world opinion nor is there a strong Soviet bloc to act as a super-ego to the Israeli/American Id.
Thus, both are using the same tactics of torture, collective punishment, aerial bombardment, political assasinations, terrorism, cordon sanitaire, and so on.
The lizard part of the human pysche can now run wild. Of course, when such raw id is let loose, the rationalizers stoop increasingly into using irrational arguments and explanations, denials, double-standards and ahistorical, non-contextual moralisms.
In other words, the consequent degrading behavior caused by a society's uncontrolled id, produces mainstream explainations that degrade public discussion.
Because there is no super-ego controlling the behavior of the two co-dependent, psychopathological nations -the US and Israel, each nation will continue slaughtering any form of reality testing -a reality testing mechanism that could produce a healthy national ego.
As with any psychosis, the problem becomes the solution: free markets, corporate domination of everyday life (and governments), welfare and bailouts for the rich, military solutions to national differences, and privitization and the commercialization of public life (consumerism).
It is distressing to read when such vileness breaks out on a website called Common Dreams. Sometimes it feels more like a common nightmares. Name calling and incendiary, hate-spewing diatrabes are something I associate with the Limbaugh's and Coulter's of the world. For those of us who abhor what Israel's Zionist policies have wrought, perhaps we should look at our own USA before we pick up too many stones to throw. Oppression, murder and mayhem, unfortunately seem to be equal opportunity scourges. Why not talk about the systemic abuse of regimes all over the planet. I have a great foreboding when I read so much vitrolic talk about how everything wrong with the world can be attributed to Zionists.
Look folks, WE sure don't want to be judged by our government's rotten to the core behavior, and neither do many, if not most of the population of Israel. If you don't like what you see there, try seeing it as a mirror of our own tainted history and present behavior. They are not other than us, folks---they ARE us, and so are the Palestinians, and all the other oppressed and all the other oppressors of this world. Scapegoating is very shortsighted, as well as dangerous.
Come on, people, we can't do to the Israelis what they are doing to the Palestinians. But we don't have to go along with it either.
I realize there is no political will in this country for doing what offends our corporate masters. I read that Corpocracy is a corporate-owned government and a Kleptocracy is a criminal corpocracy. Guess which one we live in. The Democracy is history, a sad joke.
Elmystorio
A Zionist Troll? No, I'm Cajun French Catholic living in Southwest Louisiana. But, I guess you agree with NelsonJ "eradicate (the people), just like the vermin they are…the most vile bastards on the planet." If you want you can hide behind the sham of "good Jews" those who agree with you and "Zionist vermin, vile bastard" who believe that Israel should exist, it's consistent with the progressive mind set. Although, NelsonJ, et al, sound a lot like the racist shits of the 1950's who harped about "good niggers," those who allowed the redneck peckerwoods their way and the "plane ol niggers" who caused trouble, defended themselves, etc. Some see you for what you really are! Allons Boire un Coup
And why are Europe and the UN sitting like a bunch of ASSES and not standing up to the atrocities of Israel and the US ?!?!?!?
Temp: You posted the EXACT same comment on another article critical of Israel... you wouldn't be a Zionist Troll would you?
Katiedid: The reason why the Israeli side of the story is the only one that's heard is because they OWN the western media... They have all the MSN terrified of being painted as Anti-Semitic if they dare question what Israel is doing. The Zionists are VERY good at silencing any opposition to what they're doing. They're rabid dogs...
greatbear215 and Jonno
And your solution is what? Let's see. Invade Israel and put down the "Zionist Pigs,' put their holy places to the torch and drive their war criminal army into the sea. What to do with the Zionist population of seven million who don't want to leave? You've got it Jonno and greatbear215. Kill two million, or so, of them and disperse the rest through Europe and the world. Wait, The Romans did this already, not very original. While you don't have Flavius Silva and Legio X Fretensis, you can muster General Qussem Soleimani and the Quds Forces. Rant on. Twits!
katiedid, try AIPAC. The other side of the story is heard everywhere but here. I know you're in the US or you wouldn't be asking this question.
So Gaza can appropriately be called the Warsaw Ghetto. And the Israelis can be called...
This world is getting more and more insane. There are sane voices, but they're not the ones in charge.
I simply don't understand how the Israelis get away with this, why their side of the story is the only one heard.
Brought to you by the same group who was responsible for the 46 million killed in the Russian revolution(mainly Christians), that wasn't a holocaust so is OK,The one in Turkey, that wasn't one either, So I just wonder if this group of people with their warped views(Zionists) didn't actually actually run that real holocaust as they sure seems to have had the practice before,OR!!!! better not go there or I'll be branded,Them Khazars sure have spread about the world haven't they, they influence the political directions of every country they are in, media controlled by them so they whitewash whatever they want and play the victims The only anti semitics are the Zionists who are not of middle east descent but are the riff raff from Europe and other countries, who's ideals failed in other countries they tried the hostile takeover on. seems they make their mark in Palestine because it is fair easier to subdue a people who are caged into a prison , what a wonderful breed of people, one can only hope that kama settles where its due and that they like other butchers and oppressors of real freedom, get back tenfold what they diss out
Israel needs to stop their insane crap! Enough is enough! Israel needs to face international sanctions, for her treatment of the Palestinians. And these sanctions needs to have some "teeth" in them.
Israel needs to be brought before the "bar of justice" at the international level. The holocaust is not a free pass to abuse others. Nor is it an excuse for criminal conduct.
Israel has violated international law again and again and again; and there are never any consequences. Israel needs to suffer consequences; and the consequences need to be severe.