[Note: This article was first published in Street Roots, a newspaper whose sales helps empower the homeless, check them out at www.streetroots.org]

The Tragedy of Gaza

American citizens must force our politicians to change U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine.

January 6, 2009


As I watched the reports of mounting civilian casualties in Gaza and saw the photos of the frightened children, mangled victims, grieving parents and the bodies of infants drained of blood, I came across Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement that Israel, in pursuing its devastating attack on Gaza, would treat the population of Gaza "with silk gloves."   The disparity between his words and the brutal reality of Israel's attack couldn't be greater. It is similar to the disparity between the reaction around the world opposed to Israel's attack on Gaza and the universal support for it by U.S. members of Congress.

In order to punish Hamas because of their disregard for Israeli lives, the Israeli and U.S. governments have demonstrated an even more profound and encompassing disregard for Palestinian lives, attacking people who are under already living under a cruel siege, living with sewage and digging through garbage. Many of the dead, dying and injured are children and the hospitals are unable to help them. This means that injuries that could have been easily treated are killing many Gazans or leaving them mangled by the hundreds and the end is not in sight.

Before this latest fighting, Gaza has already been under an Israeli blockade for the past eighteen months.  The collective punishment is so severe and indiscriminate that one U.N. official described it as a "crime against humanity" and demanded that Israel be tried in international court.  Even before then, 40 years of Israeli occupation had reduced Gaza, the most densely populated place on earth, to abject poverty. Now the siege has forced a draw down of Gaza's infrastructure and remaining reserves of property and wealth as Palestinians sold off their family heirlooms and jewelry and belongings to buy the basic necessities of life.

When the six-month truce ended and Hamas fired some rockets, the Israeli government was ready.  It had been planning its attack for all of those months, not only the military campaign, but the propaganda campaign to convince the world, most especially American politicians, of the righteousness of their cause.  Part of this campaign is the restriction of journalists and human rights workers from Gaza so that their actions and their impacts are reported as little as possible, though this has proved difficult for Israel in this internet age.  But Hamas only broke a truce that was already broken.  Hamas had violated the truce in two out of the six months with no Israelis killed, but Israel had violated the truce 153 times resulting in the deaths of 34 Palestinians. Not only that, but Israel had promised, as part of the truce, to ease the siege of Gaza so that Palestinians could begin to live a more normal life.  This never happened.  Faced with a desperate population and a truce that had never been fully implemented, Hamas took the foolish actions that triggered the awaiting Israeli attack.

So how about the Palestinian moderates in the West Bank like Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, who has tried to negotiate with Israel? While Hamas, though democratically elected, has been rejected wholesale by the United States and Israel, Abbas is supposed to be the Palestinians poster child for moderation and reasonableness.  But even for Abbas the situation is hopeless.  As he negotiates, Israel is expanding its settlements.  As he talks, Jewish settlers rampage about the West Bank and harass and beat Palestinians who have no recourse. Israel's military government is still building its wall and trapping Palestinians in little Apartheid Bantustans.  Palestinian houses are still demolished, their crops destroyed, their water taken, and their land is still confiscated.  In short, all Palestinian moderates get for their efforts is more occupation, more settlements, and gross indignities to their freedoms and a personal meeting with Condoleezza Rice.

Many are hopeful that the Obama administration will usher in a new era that repudiates the last eight terrible years of Bush rule.  But on the issue of Palestine and Israel, American political elites are caught up in the spell of the Israel lobby, the U.S. military industrial complex, and the U.S. desire to dominate the oil rich Middle East. Supporting Israel is the default, easy road for American politicians who either give up their moral qualms for political advantage, are dreadfully misinformed by the media and the lobby, or who ideologically support Israel's domination.  Aligned with Israel is the US military industrial system, which benefits greatly by Israel's purchases of U.S. weapon systems using U.S. taxpayer money (at $5 billion per year.)  And conveniently, Israel has a captive population on which to test and perfect America's high tech weapons.  

Both the Palestinians and Israelis are caught in a cycle they are unlikely to break themselves.  Many Israelis would love to be rid of the settlements and the troubles, but Israel is mired in political deadlock and caught up in a tribal, military mindset.  For a way forward, the American people must stand up and challenge this immoral drain of our resources: Our politicians are unable and unwilling.  We must end our military aid to and political support of Israel's oppressive regime while it dominates the Palestinians.  Obama must be held to task to be the change he promised. We are not helping either Israeli Jews or Palestinians in supporting policies that are illegal under international law, are manifestly unjust, and can never result in peace.

For more information, you can visit our website at www.auphr.org or go to the national website endtheoccupation.org



Peter Miller is President of Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights.  He is on the steering committee of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of over 250 organizations nationwide. He has traveled to Israel and Palestine, met with Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists, and witnessed first hand the closures, checkpoints, settlements, and the building of Israel's new system of walls and fences on Palestinian lands. He is a native Oregonian and received a BA in Psychology from Reed College in 1982. He has worked as a software engineer for the past twenty-five years.

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