[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Wrong Side of History

[Bill Totten]

Gaza Slaughter Exposes Truth About Zionism

by Mark H Gaffney

Information Clearinghouse (January 12 2009)


The reason given by Israel for its massive assault upon Gaza, which
continues as I write, is to halt the Qassam rocket launches into
southern Israel staged by Hamas. But even the Israeli military admits
that its ongoing operations will not necessarily halt the Qassams. The
only way Israel could militarily do this would be to permanently
reoccupy all of Gaza: lock it down. But this alternative has no support
with the Israeli public. Permanent military reoccupation would expose
thousands of Israeli soldiers to continued guerrilla attacks from Hamas.
Over time, Israel would take unacceptable losses. Indeed, the Israeli
army ended its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 for this very
reason, because it sustained heavy losses from Hezbollah fighters. This
means, quite simply, that there is no military solution to the Qassam
rocket attacks.

The Qassam is not a guided missile. It is a crude device, a kind of
homemade weapon, something you might fabricate in your garage or
basement. The rockets often misfire, are wildly inaccurate, and
sometimes injure other Palestinians. In fact, from a military standpoint
the Qassam is a nearly useless weapon. Over a period of years the
Qassams have killed only a handful of Israelis. So, why do the
Palestinians lob useless weapons at Israel? It is an important question,
and one the western press has not honestly addressed.

The answer is that the Qassams have become a symbol of Palestinian
resolve. The launches show defiance at Israel's siege of Gaza, which has
continued over many years and which greatly intensified after Hamas
swept to victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections. At the time, the
Israeli government was incensed that its preferred candidate, Fatah
chief Abbas, went down to defeat. Among Palestinians Abbas is widely
regarded as an Israeli collaborator.

Israel's Blockade of Gaza

By most accounts, the 2006 election was a fair one. Yet, Israel's
leaders refused to accept the outcome. This is strange and repugnant,
given Israel's reputation as a democracy. But evidently Israel (and the
US) apply a double standard when it comes to Arabs. In any event, Israel
reacted by imprisoning and even assassinating the elected Hamas
officials. Israel also collectively punished the people of Gaza by
curtailing all disbursements of Palestinian taxes for public services.
As a result, civil servants in Gaza, including local police, worked
without pay for many months. Why did Israel withhold these civil funds?
Obviously, to disrupt Palestinian society and foment chaos by
undermining law and order. Israel also tightened its military blockade.
Israel controls the border crossings into Gaza and for years had
arbitrarily blocked shipments of food, fuel, medicines, and other
essential commodities from entering. By one report, even shoes and
clothing are among the forbidden goods.

Israel's decision to intensify its blockade after the Hamas victory
caused great suffering. What remained of the Gaza economy collapsed and
many Palestinians became destitute. For the first time malnutrition
became a serious issue. Many Gaza residents now live just one or two
meals away from starvation. Indeed, this was the plan: to starve the
people of Gaza into submission. The Palestinians refused to be broken,
however. Hence the Qassams.

Collective punishment is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In
fact, Israel's siege was a belligerent act of war. But the western
press, including the US media, failed to report it honestly and now they
blame the victims. The Palestinians, we are told, are responsible for
Israel's attacks upon them because of the Qassams. Of course, due to the
media filter the average American probably has never heard of the siege,
and doesn't even know it happened.

If the goal were truly to end the Qassam rocket attacks, Israel could
have done so, at any time, simply by sitting down and negotiating with
Hamas. Such is the view of Neve Gordon, chair of political science at
Ben Gurion University. Professor Gordon has been following the Gaza
situation for years from Beersheba, located just down the road, and he
even authored a book upon the subject. His analysis is undoubtedly
correct. But evidently this is too simple for Israel's leaders, who deem
Hamas an unsuitable negotiating partner.

In fact, Israel's military operation in Gaza probably has as much to do
with political expedience as halting the Qassams. Israel's leaders have
resorted to violence in the past for temporary political gain: to boost
their standing with voters; and the present Gaza offensive appears to be
another case. It was in the planning for months and probably became
inevitable after far-right Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu moved
ahead in the polls. With Prime Minister Olmert's Kadima party facing a
tough uphill fight in the upcoming February 2009 elections, Olmert no
doubt hoped to recoup Kadima's chances by showing toughness. It is
telling that Israeli voters will choose between the right and the
far-right, another inconvenient truth ignored by the western press,
which sees only Arab extremism.

For the record, I do not support the firing of Qassam rockets by Hamas
into Israel. It is wrong. But on a scale of violence it is a mere
pin-prick compared with the wholesale terror being unleashed against the
Palestinians, who are almost defenseless. A comparison of the casualty
figures shows that 99% of the violence is being directed at the
Palestinians; and the numbers do not lie. Unfortunately, due to the
media filter their significance has been lost. The US media always
portrays Israel in the best possible light and the Palestinians in the
worst. It is a formula that distorts real events beyond recognition. As
a result, most Americans do not understand what is happening.

The Critical US Role

Indeed, it is remarkable that even though the US Senate just voted
unanimous support for Israel many Americans probably still think the
United States is not directly involved in the Gaza violence. Nothing
could be further from the truth. The US is deeply involved.

On December 28th, the US government used its UN Security Council veto to
block the international community from ending the bloodshed. From that
point the US was officially on record: openly supporting Israel's
attacks. But US support long predates the recent crisis. Israel's
refusal to negotiate with Hamas was only possible because of US
diplomatic and military support dating back over many years. The US has
used its UN veto on forty occasions, spanning almost four decades, to
shield Israel from accountability. But for this the UN would have
intervened to resolve the conflict, long ago. In which case Hamas would
never have come into existence and there would be peace in Palestine, today.

US military assistance is also crucial. Israel is slaughtering the
people of Gaza with US-made F-16s, US-made helicopter gun ships, and
US-made bombs and ammunition. Other US-made equipment includes enormous
Caterpillar bulldozers which the Israeli army uses to flatten
Palestinian homes, often arbitrarily, even entire neighborhoods. During
Ariel Sharon's 2002 offensive in the West Bank these bulldozers were
used to level wide swathes of urban real estate in Jenin and other
towns. No doubt, the dozers are being put to similar use in Gaza as I write.

Most of the violence directed at the Palestinians is being kept from
American eyes. Israel has barred the western press from Gaza because
what is happening cannot stand the light of day. But the truth is
reaching the world anyway via the Arab press, which is covering the
attacks in graphic detail. Although Americans are not seeing the grisly
reality, elsewhere in the world people are watching the uncut unedited
version of events, including gruesome videos of dead children, body
parts, smoking ruins and starving refugees. Surely the world is no less
aghast by the mendacity of America's political leaders, who continue to
mouth transparent lies about Israel defending itself when the whole
world can plainly see that Israel is engaging in near-genocidal attacks
against a civilian population.

To describe all of this as a public relations disaster for the US fails
to capture the reality. The international community was already
alienated from Washington because of President George W Bush's
self-proclaimed right to treat the world as a US free-fire zone.
Continuing US support for Israel's state terrorism is like throwing gas
on this fire, and the temperature is rising.

The nature of Zionism

But the slaughter of more than 800 Palestinians, as I write, in addition
to more than 3,000 injured, has had one positive effect: It has brought
the deeper issue, the nature of Zionism, into sharper focus. The
question that Americans should be asking is how 1.4 million Palestinians
came to be crowded into Gaza in the first place. After all, the length
and breadth of Israel/Palestine is the homeland of these Palestinians,
no less than the home of the Jews. Both peoples have an equal claim to
the land. Why, then, are Israelis free to fulfill their dreams and lives
in the greater part of Palestine, I should add, a right they take for
granted, while these 1.4 million Arabs are confined to a tiny coastal
Gaza strip that is essentially a prison? Some aptly compare it to the
Warsaw ghetto of World War II.

The answer is that these Arabs are unwanted people. The Israeli
government regards them as surplus humanity. They are the descendants of
the original flood of at least 700,000 Palestinian refugees ethnically
cleansed by Israel during its 1948 war of independence. The shocking
fact is that these Arabs remain incarcerated in Gaza today for the same
reason they were driven from their homes in the first place. In Israel
this is euphemistically referred to as the "demographic problem", a
polite way of saying that in 1948 the Palestinians stood squarely in the
path of the Zionist plan to settle all of Palestine with Jews. For this
reason they had to be made to disappear. This is why the Palestinians
were herded into refugee camps at that time and it is why they continue
to be incarcerated in Gaza today. Israel will not incorporate them
because their sheer numbers would pollute the ethnic/racial purity of
the Jewish state.

This is the deeper issue, and it brings to mind the Apartheid "solution"
cooked up by the racists in South Africa, where unwanted blacks were
segregated into separate Bantustans to keep them out of sight (and out
of mind) of the white minority rulers. Fortunately, the people of South
African dismantled their Apartheid system years ago. But it survives
today in Israel/Palestine in an even more pernicious form. In fact,
Israel is probably the last of the settler colonies that were common
during the heyday of colonialism, in the 18 and 19th centuries, when
Europeans lorded over the rest of humanity. Britain, for example,
financed its industrial revolution with wealth stolen from India, at the
time the jewel in the British crown. Nor was that stolen wealth ever repaid.

My point is that in 2009 this hierarchical way of organizing society is
far out of step with present-day standards of morality and justice.
Uncritical US support for Israeli-style Apartheid has thus placed the
United States on the wrong side of history, an ugly reality that ought
to be a source of concern, indeed, of alarm, for each and every
American. At issue is the racist nature of the Zionist enterprise, and
it's long past time that we call the thing by its true name.

_____

Mark H Gaffney's first book was a pioneering study of Israel's nuclear
weapons program. His latest, The 9/11 Mystery Plane, explores whether
9/11 was an inside job. The 9/11 Mystery Plane: And the Vanishing of
America - Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes: The Initiatory Teachings of
the Last Supper

Visit his web site at www.the911mysteryplane.com  Mark can be reached
for comment at markhgaffney at earthlink.net

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