DUE TO TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES BEYOND THE CONTROL OF THIS AUTHOR, WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO POST SINCE OCTOBER 16, 2009. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INTERRUPTION!
THE RECENTLY RELEASED BLACKSTRONE REPORT BLAMES BOTH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND HAMAS FOR THE EXTENSIVE DEVASTATION INFLICTED UPON GAZA DURING THE RECENT ISRAELI INVASION
ISRAEL’S NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT REJECTS OUT OF HAND THE BLAME HOISTED UPON THEM.
MANY AMERICAN JEWS FEEL STRONGLY THAT THE NETANYAHU EMPLOYED “DISPROPORATIONATE FORCE” THEREBY EXCESSIVELY DESTROYING GAZA’S INFRASTRUCTURE, INNOCENT GAZANS HOMES, HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS AND COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS.
EVEN TODAY BECAUSE OF BLOCKADES IMPOSED BY ISRAEL THOUSANDS OF GAZANS ARE PREVENTED FROM REBUILDING THEIR DEMOLISHED HOMES, THOUSANDS MORE ARE WITHOUT WATER, OTHERS HAVE ELECTRIC POWER FOR ONLY 10 HOURS A DAY—ALL OF WHICH HAS PLACED AN ALREADY DISTRESSED PEOPLE MORE DEEPLY INTO THE DARK HOVEL OF DESPAIR.
The whole world knew that with the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s Prime Minister the promise of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement would be jeopardized if not completely shattered. The reason is simple: Netanyahu is an Orthodox Jew who believes that all of the land between the Euphrates and the Nile is their “promised land.”
He will never support the establishment of a Palestinian state and will never relinquish one foot of the land he and his Orthodox brethren believe was given to them by Yahweh as the Holy Land for his Chosen people.
I was one America who was extremely pleased that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appealed to Netanyahu to refrain from building new settlements on the land that the U. N. in 1948 designated as the home of the new Palestinian state. There are roughly 130 settlements already constructed in each colony with a cadre of military and police protection surrounding them. There are an estimated 276,440 Jews presently residing in this West Bank conclave right in the midst of what one day will be the home of the Palestinians.
Obama is the first president since George H. W. Bush’s administration that has made an overture for Israel to cease and desist the construction or even the expansion of these communities. The fact of the matter is that the first settlements were built with the authorization of the Labor government between 1968 and 1977. Later, the Likud government began offering stipends to encourage more settlers and their families to reside in this newly established land of “milk and honey.”
The second surge of settlements “[was] the first of the ideological settlers who believed that Israel’s victory in 1967 was an act of God and indicated divine providence that the historic Land of Israel should be restored to the Jewish people…” When Menachem Begin took power, “his government and subsequent Likud governments provided what I earlier defined as financial incentives for Jews to move to parts of Judea and Samaria…Their purpose was to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory that was part of the biblical and historical Palestine/Israel [minus the nearly four-fifths of Palestine Great Britain severed in 1921 to create Transjordan] and preempt the creation of a Palestinian state.” [Wikipedia].
A third swell of settlements “moved to the West Bank primarily for economic reasons, that is, the government provided financial incentives to live there [primarily because] the towns were close to their jobs.”
I visited Jerusalem in 1960 and could see widespread evidence of the implied threat that Orthodox Judaism posed for the already impoverished and politically impotent Palestinians. There were large signs attached to the side of buildings and stretched across the streets of cities flaunting the ancient adage that the Holy Land incorporated everything from the Euphrates to the Nile and was the property of the “chosen people” of Israel.
The Palestinians and the entire Arab world were fearful of both the political and financial support coming into Israel from Europe and the United States. They looked on in dread from afar as the millions, even billions, of U. S. dollars poured into the country. Israel was planning to repossess all of the territory their widely advertized declarations incorporated and the final result would be the end of the dream for a United Nations promise of a Palestinian state.
The American people and its politicians have all been blind supporters of Israel primarily because of the very large, well-funded and extremely effective Israeli lobbying efforts in the nation’s capital.
It is commonly said that Israel is America’s only democratically elected ally in the Middle East and that because of the treaties between the two countries, the massive amount of aid the U. S. has poured into Tel Aviv [Israel’s capital] from the U. S. government, contributions from the religious right and individual members of American Judaism that they had or would soon have enough money to wage a war to end all wars between these two ancient friends who now were enemies.
The U. S. gave Israel atomic bomb and provided them with the wherewithal to build one of the most impressive armies in the world.
Meanwhile, over the 60 years that Israel was becoming a very powerful and financially robust nation, the Palestinians lacked the leadership necessary to build a nation, the money to build an army and the financial wherewithal to develop their territory commercially.
Netanyahu’s invasion of Gaza and its massive destruction of Gaza are costing Israel a much larger price than the loss of life and the loss of its military machinery. It is beginning to lose one of what has been its most dependable supporters since 1948, the undying backing of American Judaism, the might of the U. S. government and the financial support that has been invested in the nation’s commercial and industrial base.
The Israeli armed forces pounded Gaza from the last part of December, 2008, through January 17. 2009, causing many throughout the world and even some of its most devoted supporters in the American Jewish community to denounce the government in general and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu in particular, for using “disproportionate force.”
I have been receiving a regular email from a group of Israelis who are fighting for peace. Sydney Levy of the Jewish Voice for Peace has been sharing with me and hundreds of others around the world who seek peace in the Middle East the story of the Shministim. This is a dedicated group of young men and women who are refusing to serve in the military service and are being sent to prison for their tenacious refusal to fight in a war in which they no longer believe. They want peace. They want a real Palestinian state and they are willing to spend time locked in a damp, musty prison cell where they are forced to sleep on a concrete floor to prove the depth of their commitment.
I read few articles that applauded the Israeli invasion. One was Andy Ostroy, a political analyst from New York who wrote a piece for The Huffington Post entitled, “Why Israel was Right to Invade Gaza.”
The questions that haunt many the world-over is why did Israel’s physically and overwhelming powerful military forces remain so long in Gaza against an enemy that while a nuisance in no way endangered their army’s might? Why did it destroy so much of the public and private property? Why did they kill or injure so many Gazan people who reside in the territory and are already on the brink of national and personal annihilation?
Dan Lieberman of the web site, the CounterCurrent.org wrote the following:
Although casualties are always disputed, most reports indicate that the inability to deter Israel’s attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1300 Palestinians, wounding of more than 5400, damage to more then 22,000 buildings, including United Nation’s structures, mosques, universities, a medical school and almost every police station. Predictions have Gaza's flimsy gross domestic product being reduced by 85 percent or almost to nothing.
The alleged reason articulated by the Israeli government and echoed across its land, America and all other nations that are its supporters by newspapers and other media [none of whom pretend to hide their prejudice in favor of Israel and against the duly elected government that came to power out of the pressure the Bush administration placed on the PLO to hold democratic elections], was the persistent launching of rockets by Hamas into the periphery of Israel’s borders.
Nobody in Washington, nobody anywhere else in the human world thought that Hamas would be the victor in the democratic election that George W. Bush and his neo-conservative colleagues were convinced would bring peace and order to this mutinous part of the world.
The election of Hamas, an Islamic faction devoted to the destruction of Israel and a consistent opponent of the U. S. Unfortunately, that only illustrates to all of us how very little we know about the actual conditions under which the Palestinian people reside and have resided for the past sixty years; and how little the neo-conservatives know of the real dilemma virulently facing the region.
The people turned to Hamas not because they believe in their fanatical form of Islam, but because Hamas had played the game of “all politics is local” to the hilt. They provided food to those families who were hungry, medicine to those who were sick, water to those who were without water and shelter to those who were homeless just like the political bosses of old in the U. S. took care of “their people in the days when Tammany Hall in New York and the Pendergast machine in Kansas City, MO from 1890 to the 1930’s.”
Hamas provided the necessities of a very marginal life to those who were prisoners of the squalor and disgust of the sordid ghetto. Unfortunately, the Fatah and the PLO [the other political enemies of Hamas and the beneficiaries of the West’s backing] just never got around to taking care of all of the years they were in power. The people of Palestine voted for Hamas because they served them and fulfilled their basis human needs.
Dan Lieberman of Counter Current goes on:
They attacked a largely innocent country that is more or less defenseless against some of the most well equipped military in the world. Now there is a massive humanity tragedy in play. Israel has the rights to self defense but I think to bring the military offensive so widespread into innocent civilian areas are a crime against humanity. I do not understand Hamas, the rocket attacks on Israel really does nothing significance, but Israelis' response was extremely damaging especially to the innocent and helpless Palestinian civilian population. It is best for both sides to stop their acts of aggression and talk peace on the tables. They may hate each other but for the sake of the innocent civilians, please talk rather than fight.
Another writer who traveled to Gaza following Israel’s pull out on January 17 came away with these comments:
Digging through the pulverized ruins of Gaza revealed the extent of damage to the Palestinian community. Still not revealed are exact reasons for Israel’s attack, its sudden willingness to halt the damage and what awaits a shaken Middle East in the future. Clues that contradict the given reason for the attack - rockets hitting Israeli soil – are: (1) rockets have been hitting southern Israel since 2002, (2) the initial rocket barrage caused no casualties, and (3) the intensive emphasis on the rocket attacks as the reason for Israel’s overly aggressive counterpunch, with almost all Israelis and foreign newspapers reciting that theme, seemed too arranged, more like concerted propaganda, and an attempt to divert attention from more valid explanations.
Rabbi Brant Rosen, a well known and widely heralded supporter of the Palestinian cause wrote in an article in the Chicago Tribune on September 27. 2009 entitled “A call to moral accounting? Yom Kippur is far more than a day of physical discipline for Jews.” The Rabbi at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL believes that many Jews are more than ready to look at the good they do, but fail to repent of the harm they do. The Gaza invasion and the terrible harm Israel propelled upon the unknowing heads of the Palestinian people requires a deep and solemn repentance by the Jewish people.
Rosen reminds his readers that in Isaiah, we find the words of the prophet that must act as the guide for kind of conduct Judaism must employ as a means to their repentance during Yom Kippur; that Yahweh requires of those who would dare call themselves the “chosen people” of their God:
“Is such the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies? No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free.”
He went on, “Let this be the Yom Kippur on which American Jews choose not just to starve their bodies, but also to unlock the fetters and untie the cords—let this be the Yom Kippur on which we act on the Scriptural imperative to ‘seek peace and pursue it,’ by calling ourselves and Israel to account.”
In Deuteronomy 13: Moses who is considered by all Jewish people as the hero of the Exodus said, ‘He would bless the Jews if they showed their love for him by accepting the “prophet” whose teachings would be required of them.’
There is a great deal for which the Israel people and its elected government should repent. They have failed to live up to 90% of all United Nations resolutions concerning affairs of its relationship with the Palestinians. In nearly all of these instances [very close to 300] the United States in both Democratic and Republican administrations have used the “power of the veto” to kill these resolutions from going to the General Assembly or Security Council of the U. N. America has repentance to perform due to its unending support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians and the many Christians who reside there.
It is shameful for the U. S. to unequivocally back Israel when it is wrong and simultaneously, shameful for Israel to persistently violate international law at the expense of the Palestinian people. Less-partisan governments are able to comprehend when is has crossed the bounds of law and their moral imperative and appropriately react by voting against Israel. But it appears that the United States is blind to the facts and far often—silent to Israel’s infringement upon the people of Palestine.
During the recent invasion of Gaza, Israel allowed only 80 trucks with food, fuel, medication and other supplies for over one million people to enter Gaza. Not only did Israel nearly destroy the whole of Gaza with bombs and tanks, and kill thousands of its people, but it apparently attempted to starve most of those that were left behind in dust and dirt of its shambles.
There is little electricity [approximately 10 hours per day], little uncontaminated water and the absence of shelter for thousands has left them homeless and will continue to leave them homeless for a very long period of time.
It has been estimated that for every Israeli that was killed in this incursion over 150 Palestinians are dead. According to some international organizations the Israeli have killed the largest number of civilian people in the shortest period of time by another government’s war machinery--even more than all terrorists acts put together.
And the U. S. Senate passed a resolution supporting Israel. “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken America’s legislature?”
THE ENTIRE U. S. CONGRESS, THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT AND THE WHITE HOUSE STAFF MUST READ THE BLACKSTONE REPORT IF THEY HAVE NOT. WE CANNOT CONTINUE OUR POLICY IN THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT FOR THE BETTERMENT OF OUR OWN FOREIGN POLICY GOALS FOR THE REGION.
JOE SHERIDAN’S BOOK—
JESUS WAS A LIBERAL/A BLOGGER’S BOLD OPIINIONS ON POLITICS AND RELIGION –
IS AVAILABLE FOR HIS READERS
AMAZON.COM & AUTHORHOUSE.COM HAVE ALL VERSIONS OF THE BOOK IN STOCK OR IT CAN BE ORDERED FROM BARNES AND NOBLE, BORDERS, WALDEN, BOOKS-A-MILLION AND OTHER LEADING BOOK STORES
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