July 19, 2014
Israel is clearly winning the David v. Goliath struggle with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seized on the murder in June of three Jewish teenagers from a West Bank settlement to launch Israel’s third war against Gaza in six years.
So far, some 230 Palestinians have been killed, 70% women and children, and one Israeli has died. Israeli bombing and shelling has made the rubble in Gaza bounce.
As in the two previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, it’s unclear who began the reciprocal rounds of shelling. Palestinians claim Israel broke what had been a successful, 18-month cease-fire; Israel claims Hamas fired first.
In fact, the latest conflict was likely begun by rockets launched against Israel by the militant Islamic Jihad movement to avenge an air attack by Israel on its members. Israel knows just how to provoke the Palestinians to violence.
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic movement, replied to Israeli air attacks by launching salvos of home-made and smuggled rockets at Israel. These unguided weapons have proven militarily useless, little better than rocks. But they gave Israel an ideal pretext to attack Gaza and try to crush the elected Hamas government, which Israel considers its bitterest foe after Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Palestinians made a grave mistake resorting to rockets and mortars. Firing back at Israel certainly makes Palestinians feel good, but doing so has allowed Israel’s powerful worldwide supporters to portray the Gaza siege as a battle between equals, rather than what it really is – Israel shooting fish in a barrel.
“Israel has the right to defend itself,” goes the pro-Israel mantra – one even repeated by US President Barack Obama.
It matters not that Israel is violating US law – the Arms Control Export Act – by using US weapons against Gaza’s civilians. Nor that the assault on Gaza violates international law and the Geneva Convention. Or that much of the world sees the assault on Gaza as a crime against humanity. US elections are on the horizon and the US/Canadian government and media have taken Israel’ side.
Hamas rejected the fraudulent US/Israeli engineered truce presented by Egypt, Israel’s new best friend. On Thursday night, Israel launched a major ground offensive into Gaza, strongly backed by Washington. Palestinians have been starved and denied basic materials for years by the Israel-Egyptian siege of Gaza. The 1.7 million Gaza inhabitants live in a giant open air concentration camp on the verge of malnutrition.
The current Israeli attacks have shut down Gaza’s sewage, water and power grid, a tactic the US used in Iraq in 1991 that caused the deaths, according to the UN, of 500,000 Iraqi children. These attacks are designed to break the will of Gaza’s people, and cause them to overthrow Hamas.
It’s worth recalling that Israel helped give birth to Hamas. Israel security forces turned a blind eye to Hamas activities, and may have secretly funded it, in hopes the Islamic movement would split the Palestinians (it did) and rival the PLO. This was, of course, before PLO chief Yasser Arafat was murdered and the current PLO leadership brought under US and Israeli control.
Today, Israelis can’t even say the word ‘Hamas” without scowling and making a spitting sound…hhhhhhhhhhhamas.
Hamas has played right into Israel’s hands by launching its rocket barrages, which have proven worse than useless. Israel will now receive a half billion dollars more from the US to acquire more of its excellent Iron Dome anti-missile systems.
Meanwhile, PM Netanyahu has managed to portray Palestinians as rabid terrorists with whom no negotiations are possible. Any Palestinian state next to Israel, warns Netanyahu, would become another Gaza, shooting rockets into peaceful Israel.
Netanyahu used the Gaza crisis to repeat he would never accept even a Palestinian mini state on the West Bank. Israel must forever control the eastern border of Palestine – the Jordan River Valley. Palestinians will be left with self-governing tribal reservations. To many Israelis, Palestinians are simply wild animals who must be caged up.
By again attacking Gaza, Netanyahu has made any Israeli-Arab peace deal all the more impossible. He has also shown that his patron, the United States, has little say in the matter. Ever-timid President Obama offered to mediate between Israel and the PLO (not Hamas) while the world was waiting for him to order Israel to cease fire.
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copyright Eric S. Margolis 2014
Ashkenazim are not Jewish genome. they are converts approximately 1200ad
David and goliath…good analogy, Eric. They fought at Gath (near Gaza). “Goth’s” migrated to Italy, then Germany, where they converted to Judaism. About 1200ad they moved to Turkey and prospered before their more recent return to Israel, and the story continues. Ashkenazim are not Jewish genome.
“Meeting in an emergency session today, the Council adopted a resolution agreeing to send the investigative team by a vote of 29 countries in favour, with 17 abstentions and a sole negative vote by the United States, in which it strongly condemned the failure of Israel to end its prolonged occupation of the area.”
Interesting that the US was the only country to agree with what Israel was doing… Time the UN Charter was re-written to correct some of the current errors.
To me this is the equivalent to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising with Israel ironically playing the role of the Nazis and Palestine is the Jews. The world did nothing to help the oppressed then either.
The whole world is up in arms about that Malaysian plane having been shot down over the eastern Ukraine, while Israel invades the fishtank called Gaza. How many are being murdered in cold blood every day by Israel and how often do you see any mention of it in a western paper belonging to the mainstream consortium?
Do any news outlets discuss the fact, that shortly after that plane was shot down, Vladimir Putin was on his way home from a BRICS meeting in Brazil in a plane, that looked very similar to this airliner? And that this airliner was off its regular course because of a storm?
Considering the fact, that Putin is not exactly a friend of either Israel or the US can make one legitimately wonder, who could have fired that missile; the well equipped US backed Ukraine, the dearest present ally of Washington, or a bunch of ill equipped rebels, who do not even have the expertise to fire such a missile, if indeed they had one.
When I check some very well known historical facts of false flag operations by the US, then I don`t have to go back too far in history to find examples.
The US admitted to at one time having shot down an airliner from Iran, claiming that they mistook it for a military plane. So much for sophisticated technologies they like to brag about. Then the hoax of the WMD`s in Iraq, that has turned that once prosperous country into a less than third rate country. Let`s not go to the bay of Tonkin, because it also was a precursor to a mass murder of countless thousands of innocent civilians.
If we had a prime minister in Canada, who truly represented the majority of Canadians and not less than 40% of the popular vote, which was made possible by an outdated and undemocratic voting system, we would not be tied to our southern hegemon. I openly reject our present government for several reasons, but especially for leading us down the same kind of totalitarian fascist police state, that the vast majority of clear-thinking Americans suffer under. I found the writings of Dr. Paul Craig Roberts so interesting and fascinating, that I subscribed to his very informative newsletters. As an important functionary in the Reagan administration, he has a keen view on the world of international politics. I find him a very courageous man, just like Mr. Margolis for daring to exercise their freedom of speech and bring facts to light, the bought and paid for mainstream reporters would not dare to even consider.
So who did really shoot down Malaysian airliner MH-17?
Eric gives us another stark and grim assessment of the reality behind the Gaza massacre. The Zionists have created a ‘black hole’ which consumes Palestinian lands while in the process episodically killing the dispossessed people of Palestine. Meanwhile disinterested nations say all is as it should be and stand aside around a moral vacuum.
Even though the one sided killing of Palestinians seems senseless and their sacrifice pointless and futile one must admire their tenacity, resilience and their spirit of resistance. One should also ponder how easy it is for a perennially oppressed people like the Jews have now become the ruthless oppressors of today.
It’s obvious that there will be no real peace in my lifetime (I’m now 60) between the Israelis and Palestinians, or between Israel and its Arab neighbors. For now, Israel seems content to clamp a lid over a boiling pot, with the continuing risk of the water and steam seeping out from time to time. Or maybe someday it will see the pot will blow up in its face.