Only One Palestine, One Country Part III

Three days before the Obama inauguration on January 20, 2009, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire and military withdrawal from Gaza. This lends credibility to the early speculation that bombardment and invasion of Gaza was more about crushing Hamas before President Bush left office than about security for the population in southern Israel. Other speculations about invasion motivations dealt with the February Israel elections and rebuilding the reputation of the Israel Defense Force(IDF)severely tarnished in the 2006 Lebanon debacle. Hamas("zeal" and an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement)now claims victory in Gaza as Hizbullah did in Lebanon! Few objective observers would refute the assessments. Hamas requires an end to the 18-month(and running)Israeli Gaza Strip Blockade. The siege was intended to bring down the freely and fairly elected Hamas regime. The late 2008 Gaza invasion has actually strengthened Hamas. Since the blockade had failed, Israel decided to destroy both Hamas and Gaza itself, and in a manner, stated Ali Abunimah, not seen since Guernica and the Warsaw Ghetto, and with full support of the United States. He goes on to say that Israel is massacring a captive population. The Palestinian casus belli behind the Kassam rocket launches against southern Israel are: 1) the Zionist conquest of Palestine in general and, 2) the 41-year-long occupation of Palestinian Territories, in particular. Gaza is still occupied even without the presence of Israeli settlements, by blockade and sanctions.Refuges comprise 80-percent of Gazan population! The Gaza Strip is probably the World's most densely populated space. Hamas emerged from the First Intifada; since winning the early 2006 elections it has been targeted by Israel and the United States, enlisting Mahmoud Abbas(Fatah) and creating a "Palestinian Contras" opposition to Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza. But, that scheme failed through swift Hamas preemptive measures. What dismays and bewilders this observer and political science student is Israel's success at defining situations and determining majority public opinion parameters!(The Israel lobby is skilled in controlling Congress, as well.)At the height of IDF atrocities in the Gaza Strip, the US Senate voted unanimously in favor of Israeli actions. Then, the House of Representatives voted 405-to-5, also in favor. And Secretary of State nominee, Senator Hillary Clinton has ruled out talks with Hamas. Although Obama once said he was open to low level talks with Hamas, he now mentions only the Palestinian Authority in the context of talks. There is one bright spot in the House of
Representatives: Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio, is an out spoken critic of the Gaza invasion, basing his negative vote on Israeli illegal use of US-supplied weaponry to attack Gazan civilians. Interestingly, he suggests that the insensitivity toward the Gaza massacre is conditioned by the protracted slaughter in Iraq. The US population is apparently gripped in a collective numbness toward the suffering of Palestinian Arabs; and this condition could have overtones of racism and religionism. There is condemnation arising from the United Nations: The Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockman of Nicaragua and, in a rare occurrence, a strong denunciation from UNICEF on behalf of the huge number of children killed and injured in the invasion of Gaza. Mainstream US media furthers the Israel claim that the assaults on Gaza Strip are in self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks; and, the print media devotes considerable coverage to Israeli justifications and rationale. But when placed in perspective with the dead and injured on each side, Israel spokespersons and apologists are seen for what they are: fabricators and spin doctors, to put it politely. With two major invasions in less than three years, against Lebanon and Gaza, Israel must be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity! The Palestinian National Committee for the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions calls upon nations to levy these actions against Israel as was done to apartheid South Africa. Israel has been granted extraordinary impunity from the injurious consequences of its wide-ranging misconduct toward Palestinian Arabs over many decades. The Fourth Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law, the Nuremberg Principles, United Nations resolutions can be violated and ignored because Israel has carte blanche support from all recent US administrations and congressional entities. This will not change to any significant degree in an Obama administration. He is on record honoring and steadfastly committed to continuing the special relationship between the two nations. By his silence on the Gaza invasion and his unwillingness to criticize the brutality exercised throughout the 22-day assault, he is condoning the operation. Why would he nominate Senator Clinton if he planned a new policy for the Middle East? His prolonged silence has been called "bizarre" by one commentator. The selective use of "one president at a time" when asked to comment on the invasion is a failure of nerve, and a troubling omen, perhaps, of grave portent for Palestinians and us all. No doubt, Obama's first major foreign policy debacle will be his handling of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. No US administration has been an honest broker in Middle East negotiations. Also, authoritarian Arab states(Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria)will tacitly side with the United States and Israel because they do not want a democratic state in the Middle East! It would encourage unrest among their populations, which are already restless. Barack Obama will exercise some hype and spin and claim peace in the Middle East. But the impasse will continue on until demographics resolves it. (drafted Jan. 19, 2009)