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Israeli aggression against Gaza

Regardless of the supposed provocation, Israel’s brutish military onslaught on the Gaza Strip marks a new low even by the Zionist state’s habit of using disproportionate and lawless force against the people of Palestine. To understand why Israel is politically and morally wrong in the present case, one need not go back as far as its 1967 invasion and occupation of Palestinian territory, an original sin that has yet to be reversed despite United Nations resoluti ons and more than a decade of the ‘Middle East Peace Process.’ The events of the past few years — the failure to accept the victory of Hamas in a democratic election, the inhuman blockade, frequent air strikes, and the expedient violations of the ceasefire — provide sufficient grounds to condemn Tel Aviv for the tragedy that is under way today in the glorified penal colony known as Gaza. Israeli air strikes have already claimed the lives of more than 300 women, children, and men. There is talk of a ground invasion as well. To be sure, the firing of rockets by Palestinian militants into Sderot, Ashkelon, and other Israeli towns near the border with Gaza was an act of mindless provocation that fed neatly into the aggressive mindset that was building up inside political Israel. The country will soon go to the polls and the leadership there knows that the best way to burnish their credentials is war. The probable goal is the pipedream of destroying Hamas, not just weakening it. That is why Gaza has been put to the sword. The rocket attacks, which claimed their first Israeli casualty only after the air strikes began, were an excuse. With Hamas calling for a third Intifada, including a return to ‘martyrdom’ operations, against Israeli occupation, the stage is set for further bloodshed.

The latest Israeli war crimes come at a time when the Palestinian movement itself remains divided and the Bush administration is on its way out. Barack Obama initially held out the promise of a more even-handed American approach to Israel but his presidential campaign saw him embracing the same kind of amoral support for Tel Aviv that U.S. politicians invariably display. Nevertheless, it is possible that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided not to take any chances and to use the interregnum to present the incoming Obama administration with a fait accompli. Either way, it is unlikely that Washington will use its considerable influence to get Tel Aviv to back off and end this bloody assault. True to form, the United Kingdom finds itself out of sync with France and the European Union, which have condemned the disproportionate use of force and the “unacceptable toll on Palestinian civilians.” The Manmohan Singh government has done well to oppose the Israeli aggression. But what Israel needs to be told by India and the civilised world is that so long as it denies the Palestinians the right to exist as a nation, a people, and as human beings, it cannot hope to secure itself.

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