Israel: Settler, Colonialist, Apartheid State
Six years ago, when Israel launched its blitzkrieg against Gaza, it left only after some 700 Gazans—men, women and children—were dead.
This occurred under George W. Bush; with the U.S. neocon administration winking, nodding and blowing kisses of approval.
Today, under neoliberal rule, we see that something indeed has changed under President Barack Obama: It has gotten worse.
For, this time, Israel may double the death toll from July 2008. It’s already close, with 1,350 deaths of Palestinians.
When one looks at the news, one must remember the old adage that, “In war, the first casualty is truth.” For despite the P.R.-war that projects Israel as “avoiding civilian casualties” in their battle against the government of Hamas, the fact is Israel intentionally targets civilians, which is a war crime.
Don’t take my word for it.
Zeev Schiff is Israel’s preeminent military analyst, and he has stated in Ha’aretz newspaper, “…The Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations.” Schiff added that they did so “purposely and consciously.”
Schiff explained that the Army “has never distinguished civilian (from military) targets… (But) purposely attacked civilian targets.”1
One wouldn’t know this listening to U.S. news coverage, which makes Palestinian suffering virtually invisible, while privileging Israeli voices and perspectives, even when absurd.
Lost too, is the real source of this carnage; over half-a-century of Israeli violations of international law, by massive land theft, water theft, and the imposition of a cruel military occupation by a settler, colonialist State, which had no use for the indigenous peoples of Palestine, and yet lusts for its lands.
Gaza has become an open-air prison—the largest on earth, presided over by an apartheid government that kills its inhabitants like it’s killing chickens.
Obama, echoing his predecessor, Bush, talks about Israel’s massacres by saying, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
But, one wonders.
Doesn’t Palestine have the same rights, as well?
—PrisonRadio.org, July 30, 2014
1 Chomsky, Noam and Ilan Pappe, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians, Chi. IL: Haymarket, 2010, 82