Thursday, June 29, 2006

Gaza

Difficult to be surprised by Isreal actions but I still am. How can they get away with such brazen disregard for the rights of others? How can they get away with completely ignoring international law. From the horse’s mouth himself –

Mr Olmert said the destruction of Gaza's only power station and three of its bridges was meant to pressure, not punish, ordinary Palestinians. "Our aim is not to mete out punishment, but to apply pressure so the soldier will be freed. We want to create a new equation - freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians."

That’s utterly and completely against all the rules of engagement, international law and the Geneva convention. You can’t collectively punish civilians, you can’t go around blowing up civilian infrastructure. Especially you can’t just cut off water supplies. Although America did similar things in Vietnam the last group pf people to happily commit such brazen acts were the third reich and stalin’s boys. Not good company to be in.
Although I suspect their justification would be that by voting for Hamas they were all complicit in the abduction, which is the kind of logic I bet US right wing pundits will use, not realising the same logic could be applied to them. In that the whole of the US could be held responsible for America’s actions abroad, which was the justification used by Al qaida on September 11th. Again, not good company to be in. Perhaps bin laden sought to pressure, not punish Americans.

The whole situation stinks, plus it will not work. Think of the blitz, did that make Londoners think they should welcome Hitler? Did 9/11 make most Americans want to join alqaida, or even pressure their leaders to be more lenient in the middle east? This will only make support for Hamas grow, and will raise the tide of fury in the middle east.

Interesting little coda to the Guardian article –

Gazans have not begun to think how they are going to get through the coming weeks and months without electricity. The wrecked plant was only fully on line for three years and it will cost about £8m to buy and install new transformers.
There may be an interim solution. Israel provides about 40% of electricity in the Gaza Strip. It used to supply it all and may do so again, meaning that Israel's electricity company could make a handsome profit from the army's destruction.
Nice to see they’re learning from the Americans.

Oh and they’ve just arrested the Palestinian cabinet. Tell me now how Hamas recognising Israel would help things? Israel wants to destroy the idea of Palestine, it wants at most a captive prison population of cheap migrant workers, at worst it would settle for Genocide and forced deportation. It has not and never will recognise a Palestinian state, though you’ll hear fuck all about that on the BBC.

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