GAZA:SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL—EMBARRASSING

GAZA: 

ON BANTUSTANS, SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL, BLOCKADES AND BOYCOTTS

The Benjamin Netanyahu government is at it again— brutally shooting and gassing  Palestinians trapped behind the Israeli fence of the Gaza ‘bantustan” created by the Israeli government.  

 In the process, the Israelis again expose themselves to legitimate criticism from the world at large and at the UN.  In the UN, our embarrassing hypocrite, US Ambassador Niki Haley has (again) cast a security council veto to prevent rightful UN condemnation of Israel—while just minutes after using her position to condemn other nations for alleged similar crimes.  But having no internal restraint for the use of blatant double standards, —-she remains embarrassingly  mum on Israel’s brutality.  The Netanyahu government’s actions at the Gaza fence, characterized accurately by some as “shooting fish in a barrel”  are indefensible.  Since 2007, the Israelis have continued an illegitimate and brutal blockade of Gaza.  Their  policy prevents the  Gazans from leaving or entering the tiny, poverty-stricken territory, resulting in horrible, inhuman, living conditions, scarcities of food and water, limited health care, and only a few hours of electricity a day.  

The demonstrations in Gaza are the legitimate right of an oppressed people.  The demonstrations  also bring attention to the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank  and in Israel proper and remind the world of the Nakba (exodus) of 1948 when hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes in what is now Israel.

It is essential to understand  that these demonstrations are taking place WITHIN the fenced borders of the Gaza territory—where the captive Palestinian population is confined in essentially an outdoor prison.  The demonstrators have been attacked by Israeli snipers, and by troopers  lobbing canisters of tear gas into crowds of protestors.  The protestors are located within the fence.  Over the last few days,  the Israelis  have killed twenty-nine  Palestinian demonstrators (men women and children) and gravely wounded 300 others.   All the killed and wounded were participating in demonstrations, not in Israel, but  behind the Gaza fence and on their own farms and roads.  

The US press should be reporting this story—but the Gaza saga remains in the journalistic stage of rough AP  ticker tapes —-abandoned on newsroom floors .  Here in the USA, there is little knowledge of and sympathy for the besieged Palestinians. And massive perverse restraint in newsrooms limits the knowledge in the USA concerning the gross misuse of force by the powerful Israeli army against a group of trapped civilians armed only with rocks and primitive slings.  Just like the rope sling used by the biblical David in his attack against Goliath.  Today the Israelis are the Goliaths.  The tables have turned.

It is worth noting that the Netanyahu government is always ready to remind the world (when it suits its purposes) of the true and tragic history of the Jewish people at the hands of other even more vicious and brutal regimes.  One wonders how, with the sad history of injustices and brutality the Israelis have experienced over the years, that they can stand mute in the face of the tragedy of other people, and elect and reelect the brutal Netanyahu government—which habitually engages in  atrocities such as we are witnessing now at the Gaza fence line.

One is forced to the conclusion that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum is an economic one.  The Netanyahu regime  would abandon its brutal “rules of engagement” which permit  Israeli snipers to shoot innocent unarmed people trapped behind a fence 

—within 24 hours —- if the world’s nations supported the  the several  divestment and boycott movements growing in strength in certain religious groups and on college campi.  We know form the history of the South African Africanns Regime that bantustans, brutality and blockades can be countered effectively with economic boycotts.

We here in America are eager (some are almost gleeful) to “send a message” in the form of bombs or economic sanctions to nations, which in pursuit of their national aims go beyond the pale of the acceptable, but our close ally Israel always escapes our corrective measures and our “messages” to Israel only encourage self defeating and destructive behavior.

 Our failure to act as  “honest-broker” demeans both nations.