Two points of view on the Occupation and the appalling life conditions in Gaza.
First Yacov Ben Efrat in Challenge:
Who bears the main responsibility for this state of affairs?
When we raise the question of responsibility, we don’t refer only to what Israel could have done and failed to do in the past. We also ask what can be done today, at once, before the tanks break through the fence and sow more destruction. We demand of Israel that it make an express commitment to withdraw from all the territories that it took in 1967, as well as announce its readiness to talk with every Palestinian and Arab factor that is willing to end the conflict.
The moment Israel commits itself in this way, the Hamas regime will lose its public support — unless, of course, it drastically changes. Such a commitment from Israel’s side will enable the Palestinians to elect a leadership with a mandate to enter peace talks. The separation barrier will fall, and the distorted relationships between the two peoples will be transformed into normal relations between two states.
However, as long as Israel refuses to commit itself to such a program, as long as it seeks to strengthen its hold by hook or crook on the West Bank and Gaza, as long as it controls the gateways and prevents the establishment of a port or airport, as long as the Shin Beth runs life in the Territories by remote control, Israel has no moral right to massacre Palestinians. It has no right to defend its sovereignty while denying the sovereignty of the people next door. What’s worse, the bloodshed is for nothing. As long as the Occupation lasts, resistance will last as well. This is the lesson which Israeli governments have obstinately refused to learn. – Link
Daniel Breslau in Occupation Magazine also speaks to the need for a re-writing of the script*, or as he puts it: “Changing Israel’s equation”:
Through its refusal and inability to effect a political discussion with the Palestinians that amounts to anything more than managing and pacifying the occupied population, Israel has limited its options in confronting force from Gaza to an escalation of force. If, as Israeli leaders must say to parents of the youth sent to kill and be killed in Gaza, there was no choice, this is true only if one ignores the very deliberate and chosen way that Israel has narrowed its choices. Israel had no choice only if we accept as inevitable its refusal to negotiate with Hamas, its choice to impose a siege on the Gaza Strip, and its choice to rule the lives of 3.5 million Palestinians for the past 41 years.
All of this points to the importance for concerned citizens around the world to engage in an algebra of peace. Given the current political situation within Israel, it is much easier for a politician to pursue the harshest military approach toward any resistance to occupation than it is to make the first modest step toward restoring the national rights of the Palestinians. Only a concerted, forceful, and international movement to pressure the US and Israel can change this equation. – Link
* borrowed from a column posted at Prospects for Peace, dealing with the same issue.
Cross-posted @ Filasteen
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The World is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
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