THE THING ABOUT PALESTINE

By Mahmoud Taji

There are times in one’s life when the official rhetoric no longer satisfies your quest for truth. The overwhelming feeling that you are being duped, tricked, and lied to becomes too insistent to register as merely your day to day paranoia.

As a study of this phenomenon lets take a closer look at the recent “Clashes” between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The word “clashes” in and of itself is misleading. It would give you the impression that these are two armies of equal or near-equal strength deciding to go head to head in a ‘fair’ fight that eventually one of which will emerge as the victor.

Except the Palestinians we are talking about have been under siege in their little 25 mile strip of land by the Israeli government with no Aid, no port, no airport and no permission to go to and from the other part of Palestine, the West Bank.

7 million against 2 million, the 4th most powerful army on earth (that’s what they say… apparently they are a little lower on the totem pole than previously assessed) against a district with no army and the bare skeleton of a police force.

The Official rhetoric says that these sanctions against the 2 million people of Ghaza (that’s actually the proper pronunciation of its name) is because the organization called HAMAS is currently controlling the district, therefore to oust them from Ghaza they will pressure them through the sanctions.  Except that Hamas (which was helped along in its inception by the US and Israel so as to split the Palestinian Liberation Front now known as Fatah into two factions, therefore making it weaker) was democratically elected into power by the people of Ghaza. Their rivals Fatah attempted to incite a revolution and ended up getting kicked out of Ghaza altogether.

Smoke and flames are seen following what police said was an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 8. Israel bombarded dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on, stepping up what it said might become a long-term offensive against Islamist Hamas after a surge in Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters). Courtesy of The Big Picture.

With Fatah out of Ghaza the Israelis and Americans no longer had any control on Ghaza (the overwhelming word on the Palestinian street is that Fatah are traitors and pretty much lint deep in the pockets of the US and Israel). Which brings us back to this fair toe to toe war that is taking place in Ghaza.  According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in an Oct. 3, 2003 report titled “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance“:

“Israel is not economically self-sufficient, and relies on foreign assistance and borrowing to maintain its economy. In addition to U.S. assistance, it is estimated that Israel receives about $1 billion annually through philanthropy, an equal amount through short- and long- term commercial loans, and around $1 billion in Israel Bonds proceeds. Since 1985, the United States has provided $3 billion in grants annually to Israel. Since 1976, Israel has been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, and is the largest cumulative recipient since World War II.

One of those special relationship perks that Israel gets from the US is the use of U.S. military assistance for research and development in the United States, the use of U.S. military assistance for military purchases in Israel, or receiving all its assistance in the first 30 days of the fiscal year rather than in 3 or 4 instalments as other countries do. 

In addition to the foreign assistance, the United States has provided Israel with $625 million to develop and deploy the Arrow antimissile missile (an ongoing project), $1.3 billion to develop the Lavi aircraft (cancelled), $200 million to develop the Merkava tank (operational), $130 million to develop the high energy laser anti-missile system (ongoing), and other military projects. In FY2000 the United States provided Israel an additional $1.2 billion to fund the Wye agreement, and in FY2002 the United States provided an additional $200 million in anti-terror assistance. For FY2003, the Administration requested $600 million in economic, $2.1 billion in military, and $60 million in migration resettlement assistance. For FY2004, the Administration requested $480 million in economic, $2.16 billion in military, and $50 million in migration resettlement assistance.”

A girl cries as Palestinians flee their homes in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City, after Israel had airdropped leaflets warning people to leave the area, July 16. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press). Courtesy of The Big Picture.

So suffice it to say that the Largest Military power on earth has adopted the Israeli army as its kid brother and in so doing has also given it the benefits of its latest military technology. A technology that Israel has not been shy about using on the people of Ghaza, starting with operation Hot Winter in 2008, then Returning Echo in 2012, then Pillar of Defence (also known as Cast Lead) in 2008/2009 and then of course Protective Edge in 2014.
In each one of these except the maybe the last, Israel has pretty much dealing with the Palestinians as one would fish in a barrel, in other words, as easy pickings.

sraeli armored personnel carriers manoeuvre outside the northern Gaza Strip Israel intensified its land offensive in Gaza with artillery, tanks and gunboats on Friday and warned it could ‘significantly widen’ an operation Palestinian officials said was killing ever greater numbers of civiliansPicture: REUTERS. Courtesy of The Telegraph.

With big brother American there vetoing and sending Aid whenever required the operations were usually no more than “suppressing the natives” in fact they even came up with a term for their regular destruction of Ghaza and its infrastructure, they call it “Mowing the Lawn”.

On the 12th of June 2014 three Israeli teenagers went missing while hitchhiking in the West Bank. This event initiated the Israel Defence Forces operation Brother’s Keeper, over a period of 20 days they arrested hundreds of Palestinians in dozens of towns, ransacked and confiscated computers and accused HAMAS of masterminding the kidnapping and killing the teens. HAMAS has never been shy of confirming, what it sees as acts of resistance denied kidnapping the teens. The Israeli Prime Minister along with the Israeli media flamed the fire of racial hate that already burns hot in Israel against Arabs and on the 20th day of the search a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped from in front of his home in the west bank and tortured then burnt to death. It would later on become clear that HAMAS had nothing to do with the kidnapping and that the Israeli PM and his Government had found the teens’ bodies a week earlier but kept the news under wraps so as to increase tensions and legitimize the initiation of what will later on be called Operation Protective Edge.

Smoke trails are seen as rockets are launched towards Israel from the northern Gaza Strip. Amir Cohen/REUTERS. Courtesy of Totally Cool Pix.

At the killing of the Palestinian teen HAMAS did the only thing it could to protest the unjust death of the Palestinian teen and launched their home made rockets at Israel. A purely symbolic move since Israel’s 8 billion dollars Iron Dome defence system would shoot the rockets down before they even had a chance to hit any targets. The fact is that earlier in 2014 HAMAS and FATAH the two Palestinian political faction currently in existence decided to form a unity government. This was a massive blow to the Israeli political narrative as this would give legitimacy to HAMAS and de-boogify them to the world.

Of course that was what Israel was waiting for and on June 29th 2014 Israel started the month long bombardment of Ghaza. To date nearly 1870+ Palestinian civilians have been killed (at the time of writing) because of the seemingly random bombardment of Ghaza. Of that number nearly 400 have been children. The rest are women and the elderly with as little as 15% being actual freedom fighters that belong to the Al-Qassam Brigade.

#ChildrenOfGaza. By Jihad Abdul Haq, on Behance.

To make things worse the Israeli backed Coup government of Abdul Fatah El-Sisi which was placed in power after the forced arrest and detainment of democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi in Egypt closed the Rafah crossing as per Israeli and American orders and have not allowed any medical or humanitarian aid to be let through to Ghaza. Aid groups from several dozen countries as well as refugee Ghazans were not allowed to go back into Ghaza and another humanitarian crisis all of its own.

Continued on page 2.

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