Tonight for the first time in
my life I was so repulsed by the news I had to turn it off. I wanted to watch
Chris Hayes as I occasionally do, but when it began by our best known senile
warmonger claiming there is no moral equivalence between Israel and the
Palestinians who have dastardly attacked Israel I thought I might throw up.
John McCain needs to be retired before he kills again. Of course there is no
moral equivalence, the Israelis have long since abandoned any evidence
whatsoever of morality. If McCain’s absurd view of morality was not bad enough,
both the House and the Senate passed resolutions approving of Israeli’s current
actions in Gaza. They do this under the guise of Israel’s right of self defense
(as if any nation does not have the right of self defense). In fact, in my
opinion, these endorsements are nothing short of approving Israeli genocide.
The ostensible reason for the
Israeli attacks on Gaza have to do with the kidnapping and killing of three
Israeli teens. Israel immediately blamed Hamas for this criminal behavior even
though Hamas denied it and there was no evidence they were involved. Israel
knew the teens were dead but began their revenge attacks on Gaza as if they did
not, bombing innocent civilians, destroying Palestinian homes, killing innocent
women and children. Then some Israeli citizens kidnapped and burned alive a
Palestinian teenager in revenge. These horrible criminals were not
representatives of the Israeli government but just extremists acting on their
own. This horrible act of revenge did nothing to make the situation better. So
even though neither of the parties were representing their governments, but
were extremists acting on their own, Israel decided to hold the entire population
of Gaza responsible and began an all-out slaughter of Palestinians living
there, holding, that is, the entire population of Gaza responsible for the acts
of a very few, an obvious war crime.
Yes, Hamas did send lots of
rockets into Israel. So far, as far as I know, not a single Israeli death has
occurred. Yet the Israelis have killed hundreds of Palestinians, including many
women and children and have displaced many thousands more. This has been an
overreaction of no small proportions, targeting the million plus trapped in
Gaza who are basically defenseless, “shooting fish in a barrel,” so to speak.
It is as far as I know a fact that Palestinians have no army or military even
remotely able to engage Israel, they have few if any tanks, no air force, no
sophisticated U.S. weaponry, virtually nothing but some rockets smuggled in
from somewhere. They have no way to respond to Israeli aggression and abuse other
than by using rockets. Israel is in complete control of the Gaza strip,
monitoring everything that enters, controlling their economy, even limiting the
number of calories per person they are allowed. While I hesitate to say it, I
have come to believe that if they thought they could get away with it they
would not hesitate to annihilate all the Palestinians. They would not, of
course, consider this genocide, rather ridding the world on nonhuman “vermin”
and such (where have we heard this before). I say this because it appears their
only solution to the “problem” is to bomb and kill the Palestinians into
submission, to reduce them at best to second class citizenship in an apartheid
state (if they cannot otherwise get rid of them). It is clear Israel does not
want a Palestinian state, does not want to give up the lands they are illegally
occupying, and prefer an ongoing status quo in which Palestinians are divided
and powerless. The campaign to bomb them into submission, to bully them and
humiliate them, even with U.S. support, is doomed to fail, unless, in the end,
they can be made to disappear entirely. This
is an absolutely shocking situation with only a “permanent solution” possible, a
solution now fully endorsed by the United States, a solution that will “live in
infamy” forever if allowed to continue. Israel has to be forced, however “kicking
and screaming” into abandoning its current strategy and acknowledging the full humanity
and legitimate rights of the Palestinians. If no solution can be found to this
racist, colonial anachronism, the road ahead will inevitably lead to disaster.
I do not mean to demean or
denigrate midgets, merely to point out the smallness of thought and morality in
relation to the size of the problem. I have no doubt that a Congress of Midgets
could do much better.
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