(posted on Newsvine on Sun Dec 28, 2008)
It has been now almost 48 hours since Israel launched it's attack on Gaza. It is the end of 2008. A year in which the world economy has collapsed on the one hand, and the first African American President has been elected within a sea-change of hope, on the other.
Is it possible that Israel can continue perpetrating these crimes against the Palestinians?
As an expatriate, and still very much an Israeli at heart, it shames me that Israel can - without blinking an eye - carry out a blitz on Gaza while the world tsuk-tsuks its disapproval.
The official version is that Hamas undermined the truce (Hudna) talks, and when the truce ran out began an onslaught of rocket firings at Southern Israel, wounding several and killing one. Israel, exercising it's "right to protect itself" responded by launching a "military operation" targeting Hamas installations.
Of course reality is much different. "Surgical attacks" are impossible in one of the most densely populated regions in the world. The number of dead will rise precipitously as wounded die for lack of medical care at bankrupt and ill-equipped hospitals. After months of an economic siege imposed on Gaza has crippled any remnant of civil society already teetering on the brink of collapse due to the economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU.
No doubt there is plenty of blame to go around. Whether it is the US setting the tone for refusing to negotiate with "terrorists", through Egypt closing its border to starving Palestinians, to the Fatah lead Palestinian Authority letting Israel do its bid by removing their political rivals. The Hamas too have made all the mistakes in the book in failing to bridge the gap within Palestine and with the world.
But it is Israel is the one with blood on its hands.
Sometime in the future we will be sitting at a memorial of these days, talking about the horror of being attacked from the air with nowhere to go; of carrying a dying child in arms to a collapsing hospital. There will be monuments and museums to remember the victims, to remind us how extreme disparity in military power corrupts and hardens hearts.
We will look at these images, our children will look at them and ask - how could we have let this happen? How could we have been silent?
Ilana Hairston
Ann Arbor, MI
It has been now almost 48 hours since Israel launched it's attack on Gaza. It is the end of 2008. A year in which the world economy has collapsed on the one hand, and the first African American President has been elected within a sea-change of hope, on the other.
Is it possible that Israel can continue perpetrating these crimes against the Palestinians?
As an expatriate, and still very much an Israeli at heart, it shames me that Israel can - without blinking an eye - carry out a blitz on Gaza while the world tsuk-tsuks its disapproval.
The official version is that Hamas undermined the truce (Hudna) talks, and when the truce ran out began an onslaught of rocket firings at Southern Israel, wounding several and killing one. Israel, exercising it's "right to protect itself" responded by launching a "military operation" targeting Hamas installations.
Of course reality is much different. "Surgical attacks" are impossible in one of the most densely populated regions in the world. The number of dead will rise precipitously as wounded die for lack of medical care at bankrupt and ill-equipped hospitals. After months of an economic siege imposed on Gaza has crippled any remnant of civil society already teetering on the brink of collapse due to the economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU.
No doubt there is plenty of blame to go around. Whether it is the US setting the tone for refusing to negotiate with "terrorists", through Egypt closing its border to starving Palestinians, to the Fatah lead Palestinian Authority letting Israel do its bid by removing their political rivals. The Hamas too have made all the mistakes in the book in failing to bridge the gap within Palestine and with the world.
But it is Israel is the one with blood on its hands.
Sometime in the future we will be sitting at a memorial of these days, talking about the horror of being attacked from the air with nowhere to go; of carrying a dying child in arms to a collapsing hospital. There will be monuments and museums to remember the victims, to remind us how extreme disparity in military power corrupts and hardens hearts.
We will look at these images, our children will look at them and ask - how could we have let this happen? How could we have been silent?
Ilana Hairston
Ann Arbor, MI
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