When talking about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, which every few months brings another thousand or so of Palestinian, civilian casualties (as Israeli call it: ‘mowing the lawn’), every one, including the Israelis, loose completely in their minds, the ‘cause and result’ chain of events.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Bibi Netanyahu - Israeli Prime Minister, has had a lot of air time on CNN and other channels of the American Television recently. Every time he complains about Hamas threatening the normality of life of the Israeli citizens, with their rockets, and promising the escalation of campaign to rid Gaza of the Hamas, its militants, and its arsenal.
We hear about thousands of the crude rockets sent into the Israel by Hamas, and we sympathize with the people, who are subjected to such a thread. It’s inhumane. That’s right.
But we, and even the UN, center on the recent action-reaction cycle. We have been manipulated by said Bibi Netanyahu into forgetting, that the recent rockets sent to Israel, and more than thousand of dead on the side of Palestinians is just the recent manifestation of the conflict - the recent reminder of the underlying issues.
The issue is that Israeli have converted the Gaza Strip into the OPEN AIR PRISON decades ago.
The Hamas was born to give some organized form to the resistance of the Palestinians - after the Second Intifada (1987). However despicable practices they may employ, they are just the Israeli creation.
As a result of the Olso Accords (*) in 1993/1995 the borders of Gaza strip were closed. The Palestinians who lived within these borders lost the main source of their income - day jobs in Israel. The whole generation or 2 generations of young Palestinians never held a normal job, never had a normal life, never had the hope…
Let me repeat - as much as Hamas is wrong and their practices despicable - Israel is on the wrong side of HISTORY. There is no way of wining with the ‘oppressed nation’. Israeli may kill as many Palestinians as they succeed, and the remaining population just gets stronger.
Hamas has to accept that Israel is there to stay. Created in 1948 as a result of a real, and overdue need of the ‘homeless nation’ - is there to stay. But all have to remember, and constantly bear in mind, that to create this state, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been removed from their (for centuries) land and packed into a small strip of land called Gaza. As if it, alone, was not enough, Israeli occupation and later the complete ‘blockade’ ruined the life of many generations of people whose only guilt was, being Palestinians.
When a couple of days ago, secretary Kerry on a ‘hot mike’ stated “Hell of the Pinpoint Operation…” the whole conservative media in the States, and Israeli press exploded. But let’s look at it as it is: When 90% of the dead and wounded are civilians, and the number of the dead exceeded already 1100, it is a heavy handed, vicious attack on the population - and not a Pinpoint Operation.
The artillery rounds which fell on the courtyard of the UN led school, and today on the playground of the refugee camp, killed people, but almost didn’t make any dent in the pavement. These rounds weren’t designed to destroy hard targets - infrastructure or tunnels, stockpiles of weapons - they were designed as ANTIPERSONNEL weapons. This is why the only effect was thousands pieces of shrapnel flying around any killing people who tried to find some haven under the roof of the school.
Let’s face it. Using the anti-personnell on a civilian population is not a legal form of the war conduct.
The UN is creating another fact-finding commission, to determine the abuses of the rules of war, on both sides. Until the United States accepts that the findings may be quite damaging to the image of the occupant, there is no possible solution to this conflict. After the ‘Cast Lead’ campaign the findings of the Goldstone Report was rejected by the US congress, although it accused both sides, not only Israelis, of the atrocities.
We went too far already with the unfeathered support for the punishing campaigns of the IDF, instead of trying to influence our best Middle East friend to ease the blockade, and start building the conditions for the normal (as close to normal as possible) coexistence of the two peoples - within the same borders, or accepting two state solution.
Something has to be done. Something has to be done NOW. And our country - the USA - the leader of the Free World, has the moral obligation to lead this process, and finally bring the PEACE to the tormented people.
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* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
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