Israel's war of frustration [View All]

[DogPoundPup]

The Israeli assault on the Palestinians pitted one of the most powerful armies in the world against a political movement with a crude military organisation. Yet, Israeli leaders have discovered that wiping out Hamas is not an easy task if only because Hamas's significance lies in what it symbolises - the resistance to occupation and dispossession.

Israeli leaders have already admitted after 23 days of punishing assault that they had not been able to wipe out Hamas. The assault was not a war against an army; it was a war of punishment and frustration against a people; punishment for the Palestinians for democratically electing Hamas in 2006, and frustration that repeatedly inflicting punishment has not subdued the Palestinians.

Consider the massive use of force against a vastly inferior enemy, and the killing of innocent civilians which the Israeli leaders claim is not deliberate but which they ought to have known would be the inevitable result of their massive violence. This comes on top of a siege which amounts to a campaign of starvation and the imprisonment of 1.5 million people.

Richard Falk, UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories, called for protective action for the Palestinians against "the persisting and wide-ranging violations of the fundamental human right to life".

Christopher Gunness, a spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, told the Public Radio programme Democracy Now that the situation in Gaza was "absolutely horrifying. The people of Gaza are terrorised. They're traumatised. And they are trapped".

more ... http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10278831.html