Originally posted on
http://www.meldroc.com/?p=178 (I know, shameless self-blog pimp...)
I should have written this days ago. Not that a blog by yet another random guy on the Internet will help, but I have to say something. What Israel is doing in Gaza is out of line. Sure, Hamas is a big problem, but Israel can only make the problem worse with their current strategy.
So far, the Israeli military has killed over 400 Palestinians. Many of those killed were Palestinian civilians, including children. During the attacks, Israel has struck mosques, and a university. Just today, 13 people were killed when a missile hit the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque right in the middle of evening prayers.
I’m not opposed to Israel defending itself. I don’t have anything against the people of Israel, nor do I question Israel’s right to exist. I do have a problem with war crimes. Israel’s attacks are not a measured surgical response to Hamas attacks. They’re way out of proportion to anything Hamas has done, they’re intended as much to terrorize as to fight terror, and too many innocent people have died.
When one’s homes are bombarded and destroyed, when one’s land is taken a piece at a time by settlers in violation of treaties, and when family members are lost to bombs, bullets, starvation, lack of medicine and loss of hope, is it any wonder that many of them become angry and turn to groups like Hamas? Not that Hamas is led by anyone with a shred of decency - they attack Israel with rockets and suicide bombers that kill Israeli women and children. This isn’t a tactic that will win them hearts and minds. But in the face of Israel’s destructive campaign against the Palestinians, I can understand why that organization has popular support.
It’s all just completely senseless. Well, if you’re twisted enough, there’s plenty of sense to be made. Is it coincidence that Israel’s elections are just around the corner? Just as the U.S. has malevolent politicians like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Israel has their own malicious personalities, like Ehud Olmert and Benjamin Netanyahu. They operate in the same way - they whip up their base by stirring up fear of the Other, and will use every tactic they’ve got from propaganda to starting wars with invented provocation. Hamas too operates this way - they whip up Palestinians with fear of Israel. Let people like this have their way, and before long, everybody is hating and fearing each other and is frothing at the mouth, itching for a chance to kill each other.
The problem isn’t with regular Palestinians. The problem isn’t with regular Israelis, or with regular Americans, or with regular anybodies. Most people in any of these countries are just ordinary folks, trying to make a living, feed their families, send their kids to school, live their lives. The problem is with the sociopathic leaders. The problem is with people like Bush, or like Olmert, or like Hamas’s leader Khaled Meshaal. They like war. They crave war. It gives their lives purpose. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t have anyone they could attack. War is profitable to them - they and their cronies can engage in war profiteering and trade weapons (and you wonder why folks in the Middle East don’t like the U.S. very much - the cluster bombs and missiles that keep blowing up their kids all say “Made in the USA.”) These people take advantage of the shortages, and the displacements and the misery created by war to exploit people. Why sell loaves of bread at $1 a loaf when you can sell it at $100 a loaf? Stir up chaos in the Middle East, and instead of selling oil for $40 a barrel, you can sell it for $160 a barrel. Notice that Bush isn’t lifting a finger to deal with this latest crisis. It’s not in his interests, or in the interests of his war-profiteering cronies. As Randi Rhodes puts it on her radio show, “In chaos, you can steal.”
Fundamentally, what is war? In the words of American general Smedley D. Butler, “War is a racket!” War is a giant sociological mugging. Ordinary folks do not want war, and for good reason. When Bush sent Americans to war in Iraq, the Iraqis got mugged. Ironically, the Americans got mugged too, along with the rest of the world - Bush and his cronies spent trillions of dollars in Iraq, and now we’re looking at the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. We were all mugged. In the same way, the corrupt elites in the Israeli government and in Hamas are mugging the people of Israel and Palestine.
If we want to put an end to all of this senseless violence, it is the rest of us, the ones just trying to make a living and help our families, who have to demand an end. Our politicians won’t act on their own volition - too many moneyed interests want the violence to continue. We need to demand peace, and make it clear that if our elected officials want to keep their jobs, and remain in power, they need to work for peace.
I call on President Elect Barack Obama to take immediate, decisive action and call for an end the violence between the Israelis and Palestinians. Since President Bush is unwilling to take action, Obama should make an immediate condemnation of both Israeli attacks and Hamas’ attacks. Obama should call for both sides to come to the negotiation table and come to a cease fire, so the people in Gaza can rebuild their lives, and the people in Israel can also live in peace. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing pictures of children wounded by shrapnel.
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