Israel, with the unconditional and approving support of the United States, has made it dramatically clear to the entire world over and over and over again, repeating in action after action that it will accept no viable Palestinian state next to its borders: Jennifer Loewenstein / Middle East Studies expert / Univ of Wisconsin
Think Warsaw Ghetto when you visualize Gaza and you're on the right track. Myself and the world have a hard time buying Israel as the victim in this latest assault on Gaza . It's becoming more and more obvious that the Palestinians are an inconvenient truth to the hard line Israeli right who are also getting political points in their upcoming election.
Was it not the Jews who were an inconvenient truth for the Nazi during WWll ~ thus the FINAL SOLUTION by attempting to eliminate them. Unfortunately, the ongoing assault on Gaza spanks of the same horrifying final solution and apparently the vast majority of the world agrees.
Israel's use of American-made weapons in attacking Gaza has been a matter of official concern for years ~ and makes us an accomplice in Israel's latest crime against humanity. In 2002, the State Department announced it was monitoring possible violations of the Arms Export Control Act after the Israeli military used an American-made jet to drop a laser-guided bomb that killed a Hamas leader and 14 civilians in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood. These weapons are only supposed to be used for defensive purposes and certainly not for killing innocent civilians.
Just last September, Congress approved a $77 million dollar deal to sell a thousand Boeing GBU-39 bunker-buster "smart bombs" to Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that these small, GPS-guided missiles have now been used on underground tunnels and launchers in Gaza as well as specific targets such as the recently assassinated Hamas leader.
In contrast to the high-tech US-manufactured arsenal generously provided to Israel courtesy of American taxpayers, Hamas uses outdated and ineffective Katyusha and Qassam missiles. The Russians developed the Katyusha in 1941 as an un-guided artillery shell sometimes described as a multiple rocket launcher. The Qassam is a crude and inexpensive, home-made unguided rocket or ‘missile’ from 3-7 feet in length bearing a small explosive charge that works like a fourth of July rocket from a Chinese fireworks factory.
Four Israeli citizens have been killed by these rockets fired from Palestinian positions since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on Saturday versus 395 Palestinians killed and over 2000 wounded. Hamas rocket attacks are in fact acts of defiance against an illegal American supported and supplied Israeli occupying force ~ who has no intention of leaving.
Mads Gilbert, a doctor from Norway details the sad reality of the effects of Israeli attacks on Gaza in one of the first interviews allowed from within Gaza and calls it " A Human made disaster of great proportions where one out of six of the 395 killed are women or children and 40% of the over 2000 severely injured are women or children ." Here is his 4 minute video interview from Gaza ~ http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21612.htm
But Jennifer Loewenstein nails down the real issue when she writes that Israel has no intention of allowing a viable, sovereign Palestinian state on its borders; " Let us get one thing perfectly straight. If the wholesale mutilation and degradation of the Gaza Strip is going to continue; - if the cowardly, obsequious and supine Arab States are going to stand by watching their brethren get slaughtered by the hour while the world’s bullying Superpower eyes them threateningly from Washington lest they say something a little to their disliking; then let us at least tell the truth why this hell on earth is taking place. "
