False Equivalency

Gaza – 2014

I have been listening to all of the words used by Republicans, Democrats and the MSM to describe Israel’s current assault on Gaza; the worst since 2014. lasting 51 days, killing over 2,200 Palestinians including 551 children.

The words are the lie of false equivalency.

Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, anti-aircraft missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder.

Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison, where more than 2 million Palestinians exist on the edge of starvation, struggle to find clean water, get perhaps 4 hours a day of electricity  and endure constant Israeli artillery and air strikes.

What are the crimes of the occupation?

Food shortages caused by the Israeli blockade, (calories are measured)  the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the near-constant electrical outages due to the Israeli targeting of power plants, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair.

Gaza is a ghetto, surrounded by walls on the Israeli sides and a border with Sinai which is closed by Egypt.  The Gaza shoreline is blockaded by the Israeli navy.  Casualties are usually 25 Palestinians to 1 Israeli.  Lacking a military, air force, navy or anti-aircraft weapons, the only resistance comes from the streets.

If Gaza is not a ghetto, I don’t know what is.

Israel’s indiscriminate use of modern, industrial weapons to kill thousands of innocents, wound thousands more and make tens of thousands of families homeless is not a war: It is state-sponsored terror; in spite of the words coming out of Jerusalem and Washington.

We should all oppose the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinians into Israel and suicide bombings as war crimes, We should also be aware of a huge disparity between the industrial violence carried out by Israel against innocent Palestinians and the minimal acts of violence capable of being waged by groups such as Hamas.

It is the height of false equivalency.

Those who are not Jewish in Israel are either second-class citizens or live under brutal military occupation.  The separation of the Palestinians into separate occupied land looks a lot like South Africa in the days of Bantustans.  Israel has never supported a two state solution.  It clearly wants if all as demonstrated by “settlers” moving  on to “Palestinian” territory on the West Bank.

Is this not colonialism?

Indeed this latest bombardment of Gaza began when settlers insisted on evicting 7 families from their homes in East Jerusalem where they  had lived for 70 years.  Israel doesn’t want any Arabs in Jerusalem.

Israel’s once-vibrant peace movement and political left, which condemned and protested against the Israeli occupation when last I visited Israel is dead.  It died with the murder of Yitzak Rabin by a right wing settler.

And so there isn’t a shred of difference between Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz concerning Israel’s “right to defend itself.”  Both parties are bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby in America.

As for Bibi he is still running for his political life.  What better way to get votes than to appear as the strong man.

One would think Israelis would recognize a ghetto when they see one.   If they do, they should hang their collective heads.  If they don’t they really need to get out more.

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