Speaking to the Palestinians in the language of death, but still there is hope

  …by Alan Hart

When Israel rained death and destruction on the Gaza Strip four years ago, Chris Hedges wrote the following.

“Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and Naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks mosques and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armour, no command and control, no army and calls it a war.

It is not a war. It is Murder. Images of dead Palestinian children lined up as if asleep on the floor of the main hospital in Gaza are a metaphor for the future. Israel will from now on speak to the Palestinians in the language of death.”

How right he was! What we have been witnessing since the targeted assassination of Hamas’s military leader is the proof (if more was needed) that the language of death is the only language Israel’s leaders have for speaking to the Palestinians. (In the Jerusalem Post, Gilad Sharon, Ariel’s son, wrote the following. “We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too).

Though not quite as savage as its 2008/2009 blitzkrieg, Israel’s current offensive is murder; and all Western leaders, taking their cue from President Obama, are complicit (by default if not design). All of their statements that Israel has a right to defend itself ignored the fact that Israel is a brutal, occupying power, and that its occupation (on-going colonization and ethnic cleansing by stealth), plus its blockade of the Gaza Strip, plus Israeli provocations, were the cause of the incoming rockets to which the Zionist (not Jewish) state was exposed.

At a bare minimum Obama could and should have expressed concern about the grotesquely disproportionate nature of Israel’s response to the rockets but he chose not to do so. Instead he fully endorsed Israel’s attacks with these words: “Let’s understand that the precipitating event here … was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated, and there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.”

And he seemed to be indicating that he wanted a reason to exclude Israel from any blame for future failure to get a real peace process going with these words: “Those who champion the cause of the Palestinians should recognise that if we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza then the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future.”

To judge from its latest statement even J Street, the “progressive” Jewish lobby group, is now critical of Obama’s do-nothing approach. In a letter titled “Enough of silence”, J Street’s head, Jeremy Ben-Ami, called for “greater leadership from the White House” in bringing an end to the current fighting and advancing peace talks with the Palestinians.

We reject the argument that the United States cannot want peace more than the parties themselves,” Ben-Ami wrote. He added: “We call on the president to step forward in his second term with a bold new effort to resolve this conflict. Without a serious effort promoted by the president to achieve two states now, we may well witness the end of our dream for Israel to exist as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.”

My regular readers know that I still have a small (very, very small) investment in the hope that in his second term, perhaps not until the last year of it, Obama will use the leverage he has to oblige Israel to be serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept, if only to best protect America’s own interests. The reason why I believe this might be more than wishful thinking on my part is that there’s a case for saying Israel’s psychopathic leaders may actually assist Obama to do what is right and best for all. What do I mean?

Two things are predictable.

One is that Israel will go on living by the sword, defying international law and ramping up its  efforts to force the Palestinians to surrender to Zionism’s will.

The other is that the Zionist state’s criminal behaviour, together with its sickening self-righteousness, will add waves to the already rising, global tide of anti-Israelism.

It could be that the time is coming when Israel’s policies and actions will cause it to be loathed, even hated, by most people on earth.

If this happened there could be something very close to a universal demand from the peoples of nations for governments to confront the Zionist monster, a demand that governments, including the one in Washington D.C., would be unable to resist.

As for Israel’s Jews themselves, it’s worth noting that in his call for greater leadership from the White House, J. Street’s Ben-Ami also said this:

“Sadly, too few in Israeli politics today are willing to say that the strategic threat to the survival of Israel is not the rockets from Gaza, but the failure to achieve two states before it is too late. Even more sadly, there is apparently little audience in Israel for such a message. We are told the Israeli people have given up on peace, that we shouldn’t talk of peace, that it’s a dirty word today.”

The truth is that the rockets from the Gaza Strip have only strengthened support for Netanyahu and his policy of talking to the Palestinians in the language of death, and that might well be why he provoked the escalation by ordering the assassination of Hamas’s military chief.

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Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

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