Tormenting Gaza

Disappointing global response to Israeli aggression calls for more grassroots efforts to help Palestinian struggle.

For the third time in the last six years, Israel has cruelly unleashed the full fury of its military machine against the defenceless 1.7 million people of Gaza, inflicting heavy civilian casualties and further devastation on the long besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip.

With cynical disregard of the realities of this latest confrontation between Israel and Palestine, instead of condemning such recourse to massive violence as “aggression” that violates the UN Charter and fundamental international law principles, the reaction of western diplomats and mainstream media has perversely sided with Israel. From the UN Secretary-General to the president of the United States, the main insistence has been that Hamas must stop all rocket attacks while Israel is requested ever so politely to show “maximum restraint”.

[amazon asin=0805088091&template=*lrc ad (left)]Up to now, the Israeli attacks have caused over a hundred deaths (more than half of whom are women and children) and several hundred injuries, while the reported firing of over hundreds of rockets from Gaza have yet to cause a single death or injury, although there are reports that nine Israelis sustained injuries while fleeing to shelters.

Political condemnation

Granted that such indiscriminate rocket attacks are unlawful forms of resistance, but to single out this lesser type of violence and overlook the greater violence distorts the context in biased and unacceptable ways. Surely, the greater occasion of terror is that being inflicted on the hapless Gazans as disclosed by comparing the casualty figures, and surely the political condemnation by responsible governments and even more so by the UN should be directed at the aggressor, who also happens to be the only political actor with the means to end the escalating violence.

The international reaction to this latest crisis confirms for all with eyes to see that geopolitical alignments, not law or justice, dominate the diplomacy of leading western states and the UN, when it comes to the Middle East, and especially if it concerns Israel-Palestine, and never more so than in relation to Gaza.[amazon asin=1619022443&template=*lrc ad (right)]

After several days of the Israel attack, self-servingly code-named “Protective Edge” by Israel, US President Barack Obama has offered to mediate a return to the 2012 ceasefire that had been arranged through the good offices of Egypt after the earlier onslaught on Gaza.

Whether the US government, the undisguised patron and unconditional supporter of Israel, has the credibility to play such a mediating role is rather doubtful. It is possible that Hamas, weakened by developments in Egypt and elsewhere in the region, and by the desperation of a terrorised and totally vulnerable people, might accept such a move even if excluded from participating directly in the negotiations, which would mean depending on the Palestinian Authority to represent Gaza’s interests.

After all, Hamas, although prevailing in fair elections back in 2006, remains “a terrorist organisation” according to the western diplomatic establishment, even though it has been in recent years mostly on the receiving end of Israeli state terrorism, and should be allowed to act diplomatically on behalf of Gaza.

At present, the issue may be moot as Benjamin Netanyahu belligerently insists that no amount of international pressure will lead Israel to stop its attack until the goals of the military operation have been attained.

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