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War on Gaza, Tragedy Replayed

Once again, American bombs rain down from Israeli war planes on Palestinian homes, schools and ambulances. Once again, hundreds of Palestinians are killed, thousands injured, many more displaced.

In its latest show of savagery, barbarity and utter disregard for non-Israeli life, Israel pounds the Palestinian people, day and night.

The justification this time, parroted by American and Western media after every instance of Palestinian suffering, is that Hamas did not abide by the truce, and keeps firing rockets at Israeli settlements.

No mention of course, that during this so called 'truce', Israeli forces killed 23 Palestinians, injured 62 and kidnapped 38. A truce, as far as Israel and its Western allies are concerned, is a period of time in which Israelis are not killed or harmed.

Palestinians are not part of the equation.

Angela Merkel called for a ceasefire under the condition that Israel's security and safety are guaranteed.

The safety and security of the Palestinian people were not part of her worries.

The fact that Israel continued to bomb the Palestinians during six months of 'truce' wasn't important enough to mention either.

Israelis have lost any respect for human life or international law.

Through their vetoing of decisions at the security council, and the watering down of resolutions, states like the USA and the UK have created a monstrous power in the region. A power above international law. Above human rights, above morality.

Peace ceases to become interesting in an environment where one side can do whatever it wants and not fear any consequences.

Under such circumstances, land can be grabbed, walls built, farmland stolen, civilians killed, hospitals fired at, ambulances blown up, towns converted in to prisons, human rights denied and people kidnapped.

This environment of abuse and dehumanization against the Palestinian people has been going on for 60 years.

The Palestinian struggle against this occupation is dissected, sterilized and then reported about only outside the orbit of this conflict.

As far as mainstream press is concerned, the rape of the Palestinian people plays no role in the formation of Hamas and other groups. Only Israel is allowed the words "retaliation" and "defense". Yet a people living under occupation and the denial of statehood are labeled terrorists, criminals and instigators of war.

Israel's behaviour is a rape in broad daylight.

This does not mean that Israeli citizens do not equally have a right to live in peace and security, but twenty dead Israelis around Gaza in 10 years does not constitute a threat to the existence of Israel that warrants one massacre after another.

Robert Fisk writes:

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

...

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

Watching the media push Israel's side of the story, and politicians drag their feet while they make a joke of international law, one cannot help but become cynical.

Israel will continue to massacre civilians, the media will continue to refer to any Palestinians who dare to oppose the occupation as "radical islamists" and in the end we will have a watered down security council resolution that causes no change, holding only the weaker side accountable and making peace even less interesting to the Israelis.