By Robert Fantina
Dec. 6, 2014 (TSR) – It is sometimes difficult the fathom the reasons for the extent of Israel’s influence over much of the world. Recently, the European Union was scheduled to discuss the issue of Palestinian recognition, but that debate has been postponed, due to pressure from Israel. The United Nations, which could, theoretically, alleviate the horrific Israel-inflicted suffering on the Palestinians, stands aside and occasionally throws a worthless diplomatic bone to Palestine, but, in effect, does nothing. And the United States, which insists, through its military might, on the right of self-determination of all peoples throughout the world (except, of course, those that choose a leftist government, or that somehow seem to impede U.S. corporate trade, or in some other, often inexplicable manner, behave in a manner that displeases the U.S., or are not sufficiently important from a strategic or financial standpoint for the U.S. to bother with), which could easily provide relief to the Palestinians, establish a Palestinian state beside Israel, and end Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestine, looks instead to the donations politicians receive via AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee), and endorses and finances this genocide, with the shop-worn excuse of Israel ‘national security’. This writer does not believe he has ever heard a U.S. politician discuss Palestinian ‘national security’. But then, what are such mundane considerations as human rights and self-determination, when financing is needed for the next election cycle?
The near hysteria that erupted when four people were killed in a Jerusalem synagogue only highlights the international hypocrisy that surrounds apartheid Israel’s occupation of Palestine. In the last several weeks, at least 15 Palestinians have been killed around the sacred Al Aqsa mosque, but the news media and world leaders have paid no attention. Settlers living illegally on stolen Palestinian land have intentionally hit with their cars and killed children coming home from their kindergarten class. Young men have been shot by IDF (Israeli Occupation Forces) terrorists with high-powered, U.S.-provided rifles, for throwing stones at tanks.
In 2003, U.S. President George Bush, feigning a sense of righteous anger that Iraq dared to defy one United Nations resolution, cobbled together an international force, over 63% of which were U.S. soldiers, to invade Iraq, overthrow the government and occupy that nation. Yet Israel has violated dozens of U.N. resolutions, and the U.S. not only restrains itself from invading it, but also provides it with more foreign aid each year than it provides to all other countries combined.
Circumstances today in the Gaza Strip are dire. Israel is not currently dropping U.S.-made bombs there, but the illegal blockade continues, and very few materials, desperately needed for rebuilding, are allowed in. Due to heavy rains, there has been extensive flooding, adding to the misery the Palestinians are already suffering. Hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless, crowded into the homes of friends, or living in tents. Food and potable water are scarce. All this, because of Israel’s illegal blockade, a blockade so severe that the United Nations considers that the Gaza Strip, like the West Bank, is occupied.
This writer is in occasional contact with several people in the Gaza Strip. Contact is occasional and sporadic, because people living there only have electricity for a limited time each day. They also have to scrounge for food, water and shelter for themselves and their families, families which often consisting of aged parents and/or young children. The demoralization they feel is acute, and is all part of Israel’s plan to eliminate the people of Palestine from existence.
Conditions in the West Bank are not much better. Constant, middle-of-the-night house raids are common, terrorizing innocent families. Checkpoints, arbitrarily closed at the whim of the terrorist soldiers manning them, make what should be a short and simple trip from home to school, work or the market, an hours-long ordeal. Settlers burn homes and olive trees, and brutally assault Palestinian men, women and children while protected by heavily-armed IDF terrorists. Settlers and these IDF terrorists kill Palestinian men, women and children with complete impunity. Whenever there is any international comment on some horror perpetrated by Israel, the Israeli government says it is ‘investigating’, but there is never any resolution to such investigations.
This writer has commented previously on the resiliency, courage and strength of the Palestinian people. Against one of the most brutal and powerful military operations the world has ever known, which is backed by the most brutal and powerful, and having no army, navy or air force, Palestinians continue to resist. Stones thrown against tanks have no physical impact, but they represent a will that cannot be broken, and a determination to live in dignity against the most oppressive conditions.
One hears little today about ‘negotiations’ between Palestine and Israel, which have been a farce from the start. Sweden, at least, sees this fact. When recognizing Palestine a short time ago, Sweden’s spokesperson said that international recognition of Palestine would help to level the playing field. Such recognition is a great step for Palestine, but as long as the U.S. brokers negotiations, and as long as the U.S. government remains beholden more to the Israeli lobby than to human rights and international law, negotiations will continue to be worse than a waste of time.
There are rumblings coming from Palestine’s weak, spineless president Mahmoud Abbas, and even some whisperings from the international Arab community, that a timeline for Israeli departure from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will soon be demanded. Even a mention of this upsets the carefully constructed U.S. and Israeli apple cart, balanced precariously upon the precipice of human justice, and looking for all the world as if it is about to tip over. Such discussions, coupled with international outrage and horror over Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, which targeted families, children, hospitals, mosques and the media, all in violation of international law, have Israel in panic mode, manifested by increased brutality against Palestinians in Israel and Palestine. The proposal of laws that would enshrine apartheid as government policy, racist articles in Israeli publications originating in the United States, and Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu’s increased belligerency all signal the desperation that Israel is feeling as the world community increasingly turns against it.
As the world removes the rose-colored glasses through which it saw Israel for generations, it is likely that Palestinian suffering will increase. Any predator will fight to hold onto its prey, and efforts by others to free the victim will be met with increased brutality. Yet that brutality in and of itself will further motivate the world community to act, to grant Palestine the basic dignity of self-determination, and allow that nation to take its rightful place in the world, on its ancestral land, as it deserves.
Robert Fantina is writer for The Santos Republic.
