Monday, January 21, 2008

Collective punishments


The Israelis have said they will allow power plant fuel and medicines into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, easing a blockade imposed after rocket attacks.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak agreed to ease the curbs for one day hours after the territory's sole power plant shut down, plunging Gaza City into darkness. ...

EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner spoke out against "this collective punishment of the people of Gaza" and called for an end to the blockade

BBC News

While folks in the U.S. are properly distracted by Presidential follies, the Israelis have been beating up on the 1.5 million Palestinians locked down in the prison that is the Gaza Strip. They are "answering" home-made rocket attacks on Israel launched from Gaza. Let's see: Israeli policy seems to be to use vastly disproportionate force to punish all the unfortunate, trapped inhabitants of Gaza. It can, so it does.

None of the U.S. politicians currently chasing our votes is likely to do anything to oppose this behavior.

When collective punishments were meted out to resisting citizens of German-occupied Europe during WWII, occupiers' behavior was considered monstrously barbarous, clear evidence of the uncivilized character of the Nazi regime. When the U.S. Army leveled most of the Iraqi city of Falluja in late 2004 for the crime of serving as a center of resistance to U.S. occupation, the attack was simply a military operation.

At root, we either think other people are people -- or not. Nazis knew that untermenschen, especially Jews, were subhuman. Israeli authorities know that Palestinians, especially those associated with Hamas, are just cockroaches obstructing the Zionist project. U.S. commanders in Iraq know they confront only hajis, whose lives and country require no respect. When the enemy is not human, any atrocity goes. Not a pretty picture ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You write: "None of the U.S. politicians currently chasing our votes is likely to do anything to oppose this behavior."
I write from Beirut:
So the Zionist Lobby is indeed powerful and unite the candidates.
And good people will vote for a politician knowing in advance what you stated. It is very sad. It has indeed become embedded in US culture that Arabs are fair game!