Israel Rains Death and Destruction over Gaza

By Daniel Pines

The Israeli army launched a massive strike against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. So far nearly 300 Palestinians have been killed and many more have been wounded. The Israeli government says they are executing this deadly invasion because of missile strikes from areas in the Gaza Strip. But let's look at what preceded these missile strikes from the Gaza Strip which landed in empty fields and caused no casualties.

A truce was signed several months ago between the Hamas government and Israel. Hamas agreed to rein in the militants in the Gaza Strip. They were very successful. Israel agreed to relax the military blockade, which was instituted because Hamas won a majority of the parliamentary seats in a free and fair election. Hamas was trying to transform itself from a militant group that had used armed resistance to free itself from a 40 year occupation to a political party that would use diplomacy to do it. The leadership even declared publicly that it was going to adopt a path of diplomacy rather than armed resistance. Unfortunately the powers at be (in particular the United states and Israel) were intent on making sure that the Hamas party would not play a major role in Palestinian government and successfully played their rival political party, Fateh against them, culminating in a civil war that left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. They used tactics like specifying that any money going to the favored political party would be in jeopardy if it was shared with the Hamas party to help with their humanitarian aid programs. One really despicable act that I was told of was shown on the show Mosaic on Link TV. On an oversees trip to Africa a Hamas leader was given several million dollars for humanitarian aid programs. At the Gaza Strip boarder crossing an Israeli soldier and a person from Fateh, the rival Palestinian party confiscated the money. The people who would have have been helped by this humanitarian aid were left out in the cold again.

Let's also look at the hypocrisy of this stance. Leading up to the establishment of Israel Jewish militant groups engaged in terrorist acts. The British government, who controlled the area defined these militants as terrorist and even Rabbi Michael learner called some of these militant groups "terrorist groups." Learner is a devoted Zionist who does not believe that any peace can be achieved through continued blood shed and violence on either side. Despite thier violentce, these groups were able to take an active role in the new Israeli government.

But let's get back to the truce that Hamas and Israel agreed to. The militants stopped firing rockets and held their end of the bargain. The Israeli government kept the extremely restrictive blockade that was decimating the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, violating their end of the bargain. Needed humanitarian supplies still were only coming in at a trickle. Sometimes they only came after much pressure on the Israeli government from international and Israeli human rights groups. Hospitals did not have the supplies they needed. Palestinian who were critically ill and could not get get the treatment they needed in the Gaza Strip were not given permission by the Israeli government to leave the Gaza Strip. Young people who had been awarded scholarships where not given permission by the Israeli government to leave the Gaza Strip to take advantage of the scholarships. Palestinians who tried to go farther then 6 miles out in the the Mediterranean to fish were shot at by Israeli naval ships. Their boats were boarded and they were forced to jump into the water and swim to shore. Their boats were sunk and sometimes confiscated and destroyed by the Israeli navy. This is why they call it a giant prison. One Palestinian argued it was a tiny prison. Recently, a Jewish Israeli women was indicted for visiting the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government does not want their citizens to see the humanitarian crises that the Israeli government has created in the Gaza Strip. Unless they are right wing Zionists who support the abusive government policies. A blockade of a country is an act of war. Israel attacked Egypt decades ago and claimed they had justification because Egypt was blockading Israel.

Then there was the attack on a couple Palestinians in the Gaza strip who were digging a hole near the border that killed the Palestinians. They were not firing into Israel. They were just digging a hole. This was on the same day Americans went to the polls to decide who would be the next President of the United States and this was getting a lot of international attention. This is typical that when all eyes are off Israel, they engage in a military attack on some Palestinian target.

Richard Faulk, a Jewish professor of International Law at Princeton University who was appointed Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories recently said, “Recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life endangering conditions of utmost cruelty”. On a visit to Israel he was detained at the Israeli airport and deported out of Israel.

Who violated the truce first? Israel violated the truce first. Who's getting blamed in the mainstream media for violating the truce? The Palestinians of the Gaza strip are. This is unfortunately the usual discourse in the mainstream media.