Israel’s bombing of occupied Palestine
“It is very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective punishment.
The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all sides: End the occupation.
In Gaza, It’s the Occupation, Stupid, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/in_gaza_its_the_occupationg_stupid_20121121/? Nov 21, 2012 By Amy Goodman “The Palestinian people want to be free of the occupation,” award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy summed up this week. It is that simple. This latest Israeli military assault on the people of Gaza is not an isolated event, but part of a 45-year occupation of the sliver of land wedged between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, where 1.6 million people live under a brutal Israeli blockade that denies them most of the basic necessities of life.
Without the unwavering bipartisan support of the United States for the Israeli military, the occupation of Palestine could not exist.
At the time of this writing, the overall Palestinian death toll of the
seven-day assault, dubbed Operation Pillar of Cloud by the Israel
Defense Forces, is more than 116, more than half of them civilians,
including 27 children and 11 women. Hamas has fired hundreds of
rockets from Gaza into Israel, which, to date, have killed three
Israeli civilians.
President Barack Obama said on Sunday, “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So, we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians.”
“No one questions that right,” responds Richard Falk, the United
Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian
territories, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton
University and the author of more than 50 books on war, human rights
and international law. ….. Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines and chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative told me, “It is very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective punishment. We cannot support punishing an entire population because of the policies and attacks of Hamas. It’s illegal.”
The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all
sides: End the occupation. Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines and chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative told me, “It is
very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending
itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective
punishment. We cannot support punishing an entire population because
of the policies and attacks of Hamas. It’s illegal.”
The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all sides: End the occupation.
2 Comments »
Leave a comment
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
A ceasefire is easily won compared with true peace. Who really cares about the emotional history of the Jews or the Palestinians for that matter when it boils down to the present “real” time. If these people really cared about the quality of the future their children will inherit, if they truly believed the teachings of the Qur’an and the Torah, both of which speak of wisdom, compassion, truth and sharing, they would put their bigotry, prejudices, hatred, revenge, jealousies and egos behind them and fight for peace not a ceasefire. As others have said: ‘you make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.’ The conditions are right.
LikeLike
If your neighbor stabs the tires of your car because you’ve been mowing the lawn on the sunday morning he wanted to sleep, you’ll be angry or even furious (depending on how car-passionate you are and the existing relationship you already had) But probably, after a good chat, or a court case, you’ll be able to forgive him, and he you. But probably you’ll keep a grudge for the rest of the time you’re neighbors.
Now imagine the person who stabbed the tires is someone who broke in the house next door, is living there illegally, but accepted by the rest of the neighborhood. It will most likely trigger a reaction of fury and frustration because everybody just let that person live there, illegally, and now he stabbed your tires, for no good reason. But then again, what does the holy book say, yes, forgiveness. So off you go, and you try to forgive. But most likely you’ll keep a grudge for the rest of your life. Because he didn’t even belong there, and the neighborhood doesn’t even seem to care.
Now place this with Palestina and Israel. At one point in time, some nations decided that the best location to give to the Jews as there home was Palestina. It didn’t matter that there were already people living there, with completely different believes and way of life. And then they called it Israel and considered their home and with the full right to do whatever they wanted, completely disregarding, again, the people who already lived there. Because they’ve been given the right by the same nations that are defending their inhuman actions right now.
I’m sure the majority of Palestinians is wishing for peace. But their neighbor isn’t going to allow them, they just want them dead, to finally have their own complete piece of land, as promissed. So how can they stop resisting, if that would only mean that they would have to see how their homes get destroyed, kids killed and whole history bannished out of the books, just so Israel can be happy in their, finally, clean nation.
It is so easy to forgive for others, when you’re not in there shoes. If drowning gives you peace, would you really stop trying to reach the shore?
LikeLike