It’s been 70 days since I first wrote about the Israeli genocide in Gaza. And since then, it got much worse than anyone could have predicted or imagined.
Israel dropped more bombs on Gaza than in an entire year in the Ukraine-Russia war! And the majority of them were dumb bombs, meaning that they were not laser-guided to specific targets. Instead, they were used on civilian hospitals, schools and residential buildings, because the Israelis claim that Hamas members “like” to hide in these places.
The result has been over 23,000 Palestinians brutally killed in three months of war. The majority of the victims women and children. Whole families have been wiped out: Mothers, fathers and children. The United Nations has lost the highest number of its workers in its history in this one conflict. Most of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, destroying buildings into piles of broken concrete and cutting off water, electricity and gas supplies. It’s been the total annihilation of Palestinians and their lives in Gaza.
The West and Israel have looked on impassively, insisting that Hamas has to be eradicated once and for all. If the Russians had done the same thing in the Ukraine there would have been a world outcry against such barbarity. But more worryingly, most Israelis don’t realize that their decades of repression, killing and torturing of Palestinians is what set off the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. As Gideon Levy, the Haaretz columnist, said this week to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, most Israelis have no interest in knowing their Palestinian neighbors, who live only a few kilometers away in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is an expert in supporting the genocide in Gaza and then giving statements full of false platitudes saying the United States has asked Israel to moderate their attacks in Gaza, and that the US government regrets the murder of the children of Aljazeera journalists in Gaza. It is such stomach-turning hypocrisy and dishonesty that I change the channel whenever he appears on television.
Americans are almost as bad as the Israelis in supporting the slaughter in Gaza. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the growing death toll of Palestinians in Gaza to my Republican cousins, and they just brushed it off, doubting the accuracy of the Gaza Ministry of Health casualty figures, even though Israel has said they are accurate. The cold emptiness in my cousins’ eyes was shocking and disappointing.
The South African government is a firm supporter of Palestinians and their desire to have an independent country in the West Bank and Gaza. Pretoria has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, accusing the Israelis of committing genocide in Gaza. The first hearings begin this week on Jan. 10 and 11, 2024. Hopefully, SouthAfrica will be able to get a ruling condemning Israel’s actions.
Comments
Leave a comment