I’ve intended to write on the massacre in Gaza but can’t stop reading long enough to write. It’s late, and the best I can do is pass along a few posts on the U.S. role in this tragedy, one from Mondoweiss.net and the other from Truthdig.com, both of which are providing solid coverage.
First, Jonathan Cook at Mondoweiss, in US plays decisive role in Israel’s attack on Gaza. Cook discusses two recent investigations by the Israeli media, one involving the contrived nature of the recent Egyptian ceasefire proposal and the other involving U.S. complicity in the expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
On the ceasefire proposal:
The reality, according to Haaretz, is that Kerry secretly dispatched to Cairo peace envoy Tony Blair, who in turn lobbied the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to coordinate the ceasefire’s terms with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sisi is currently waging an all-out war against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ ideological ally. He has harshly punished Hamas too by tightening the siege on the shared border with Gaza. Like Israel, Sisi’s Egypt is a major beneficiary of US aid.
In short, Sisi and Netanyahu share a keen interest to weaken and humiliate Hamas. And yet, the US encouraged them to negotiate a ceasefire over Hamas’ head. Since then, Washington has rebuffed an alternative proposal from Qatar and Turkey, who are more sympathetic to Hamas.
It was a foregone conclusion that Hamas would reject the Egyptian offer. It failed to address key concerns, not least that the suffocating siege be ended and that Israel honour earlier agreements, particularly on prisoners.
The ceasefire proposal was nothing more than a trap – one whose purpose was to elicit a Hamas rejection and thereby provide Israel with a pretext to launch its ground invasion.
On the settlement expansion:
The second investigation comes from journalist Raviv Drucker, this time concerning the peace talks that collapsed in April. Washington officials have told him that US negotiators spent the talks’ key phase coordinating positions exclusively with Netanyahu. Abbas was then presented with a fait accompli of hardline Israeli demands.
Despite its public pronouncements, Washington was also secretly conspiring with Israel on a huge expansion of settlement projects. These were announced – to loud condemnation by Kerry – each time a batch of Palestinian prisoners was released, a condition Abbas had set for his participation.
But US opposition was feigned, writes Drucker. In reality, Washington was “informed of the [settlement] tenders in advance”.
Then there’s Chris Hedges at Truthdig, The Palestinians’ Right of Self-Defense. Hedges:
Israel has not only violated the tenets of Article III but has amply fulfilled the conditions of an aggressor state as defined by Article 51. But for Israel, as for the United States, international law holds little importance. The U.S. ignored the verdict of the international court in Nicaragua v. United States and, along with Israel, does not accept the jurisdiction of the tribunal. It does not matter how many Palestinians are killed or wounded, how many Palestinian homes are demolished, how dire the poverty becomes in Gaza or the West Bank, how many years Gaza is under a blockade or how many settlements go up on Palestinian territory. Israel, with our protection, can act with impunity.
The unanimous U.S. Senate vote in support of the Israeli attacks on Gaza, the media’s slavish parroting of Israeli propaganda and the Obama administration’s mindless repetition of pro-Israeli clichés have turned us into cheerleaders for Israeli war crimes. We fund and abet these crimes with $3.1 billion a year in military aid to Israel. We are responsible for the slaughter. No one in the establishment, including our most liberal senator, Bernie Sanders, dares defy the Israel lobby. And since we refuse to act to make peace and justice possible we should not wonder why the Palestinians carry out armed resistance.
The Palestinians will reject, as long as possible, any cease-fire that does not include a lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. They have lost hope that foreign governments will save them. They know their fate rests in their own hands. The revolt in Gaza is an act of solidarity with the world outside its walls. It is an attempt to assert in the face of overwhelming odds and barbaric conditions the humanity and agency of the Palestinian people. There is little in life that Palestinians can choose, but they can choose how to die. And many Palestinians, especially young men trapped in overcrowded hovels where they have no work and little dignity, will risk immediate death to defy the slow, humiliating death of occupation.
I cannot blame them.
I can’t either.
The reality here is that we’re witnessing genocide or something bordering on it. And your tax dollars are funding it.
The solution for gaza is simple ;but not cheap pay egypt to take it over so their soliders and police will keep it under control. Egypt doesn’t want it so the price to get them to take it will be high. everyone has their price lets find out what the egyptian militaries price is and make them an offer they can’t refuse!
And continue to subjugate 2 million human beings? They’re not animals, you know. They’re people, just like us. How would you feel about a “solution” that confined you to a 140 square mile area, for life, to be “managed” by a military force?