What kind of victory has the Israeli government just declared? They have wrecked Israel's reputation around the world; the brutality of their army has been evident on countless millions of TV screens, anguished protests have gone up to God from a thousand million throats - and for what?
Surely Israel cannot be proud of what their armed forces have just done? What kind of bravery is involved in dropping one ton bombs on a people who have no anti-aircraft guns and no air force? What kind of insecurity complex is Israel suffering from? Is it that they know in their hearts that they are living on seized lands?
Why have the Israeli forces suffered relatively few deaths? Because they adopted a strategy of destroying the homes of the Palestinian families in front of their tanks, sometimes with the families still inside them as TV journalists have extensively documented, so Hamas soldiers could not ambush the Israeli troops, could not kidnap them.
Heeretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, has just reported: " The IDF is proceeding in Gaza in a slow, orderly, efficient and very destructive manner. During 2002's Operation Defensive Shield, in the Jenin refugee camp, disagreements developed among the different units as to how much force should be applied. A battalion of the 5th Reserve Infantry Brigade, which employed relatively humane operating methods, suffered 13 casualties in one single day from an ambush and roadside explosives. After those incidents, everyone took up the "Buchris method," named after the commander of the 51st Golani battalion, Lt. Col. Ofek Buchris (today a brigade commander in the reserves): Forceful entry with "Akhzarit" ("cruel") armored personnel carriers, which demolished houses' walls before the soldiers entered them, leaving them a relatively protected corridor."
Israel's spokesmen make feeble excuses. "Hamas is hiding among civilians." What is Hamas? It is not only an elected government. They are the husbands, boy-friends, sons, grandsons who fight to protect their families, who guard their families' doors, who fight against a military occupation that has cruelly ruled them for 60 years and starved them, ever since the Israelis seized their lands, driving them from their farms and towns into exile in Gaza - and then occupying Gaza itself for 40 years, regulating their every movement.
Israel says they left the Gaza strip two years ago. Yes, the prison guards decided to operate from behind the walls in which they had imprisoned one and a half million Palestinians. That is no liberation.
They say they allowed the Gazans the chance to develop the Gaza strip. What development when Israel stopped them from having an airport, drove thousands of fishermen from their seas, held up their exports of fruit and vegetables so they rot at the border, so their sick and pregnant die at the gates, prevent them from repairing water pumps and sewage works, reduce them to third world status while the Israelis live in US style comfort and are allowed to compete in Eurovision unlike their Arab neighbors?
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