The spectacle of US-armed ($3 billion annually) Israeli snipers and mobilized IDF troops picking off unarmed protestors day in and day out is infuriating. The orchestrated campaign inside the US to dehumanize the victims and defend the criminals is despicable. This week, while American royalty toasted Israeli war criminals in Jerusalem, and Christian Zionists anointed the next step toward the End Times and the Second Coming, the butchers murdered in just hours at least 61 unarmed people (including an eight-month-old baby) and injured 3000 more. Israel routinely murders civilians, and then scrambles for a justification. For years the propaganda held that Palestinians were all terrorists engaged in armed struggle, and that was meant to justify extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansing; when the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement found traction internationally, the propaganda cried anti-semitism and claimed BDS was helping “the terrorists;” this week the propagandists are working overtime to convince Americans that they should not believe “their own lying eyes” or hearts or common sense, but should listen instead to the US ambassador to the UN who called the Israeli war crimes “restrained.” Thousands of people rushing at a fence (it’s not a border by the way) and being mowed down by automatic fire is somehow understandable to the New York Times, NPR, and other powerful media outlets. Note to Tom Friedman and Brett Stephens: Looking up from your roast beef and red wine for a moment, how would you advise the prisoners of Gaza to raise their voices and be heard?Armed struggle, no. BDS, no. Demonstrations at the fence, no. I guess your advice is simple: shut up and die.
Gaza is an “Occupied Territory,” or more accurately the world’s largest open air prison, a concentration camp, a manufactured ghetto to enclose, control, and target the Palestinians trapped there.
Two million Palestinian civilians are inmates in that prison—over half of them children. People are not allowed to leave, and last year scores of people died of treatable medical conditions—several women with breast cancer—because they could not secure permission form Israel to leave the prison for treatment.
Let’s stay with “Occupied Territory” for a moment. Supplies allowed to enter Gaza are strictly controlled by the occupier, and the occupier is responsible by law for the well-being of the population. Israel restricts the import into the prison of concrete, steel cables, epoxy, shipping containers, baby chicks…the list is lengthy and mind-boggling. 95% of the water Israel supplies is polluted.
What is to be done?
Raise your voice. End US military aid to Israel. Support BDS.
Stand with Palestine.
Bill Ayers 