When is the legitimate right to self-defense against a mighty military machine by a defenseless people called ‘terrorism’? The answer, a puzzling one, is that it is called ‘terrorism’ by most media in the West whenever Palestinians exercise that right. It is also called ‘terrorism’ by most Western Countries or any country allied with the USA.
Meanwhile, Israel is allowed to kill, to maim, to collectively punish, to abduct, to imprison, to defy International Law, the Geneva Conventions and every International ruling that was created in order to protect the human rights of all peoples in the world, especially in times of conflict – Israel is allowed to do all this with absolute impunity..
One could not help thinking, if one were exposed only to main-stream media, especially in the United States and Canada but in Europe as well, that feeble Qassams are as deadly as the latest high-tech instruments of death that rain down on civilian Palestinian populations, or that what is happening between Israel and the Palestinians is a war between two equal military forces.
As Ali Abunimah, the founder of the Electronic Intifada, points out, racism is clearly on display in the Israeli reaction to the capture of its soldier in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian resistance. Racism is displayed, but also displayed is the cynicism and the complicity of Western governments and their embedded media who parrot the language and propaganda of the Israeli government.
Abunimah, while interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now Radio, asks the question, "Is it not astonishing that the entire world knows the name and face of the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, while the hundreds of Palestinian children held in Israel’s dungeons, not to mention 10,000 adult prisoners, thousands held without charge and trial, abducted from their homes in the middle of the night by Israeli occupation forces, remain nameless and faceless before a silent world?"
Interviewed on the same program, Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician in northern Gaza, and a health development consultant for the Union of Health Work Committees in Gaza, stated,. "Regarding the Qassam rockets, I would like to know how many people really were injured by these Qassam rockets. As I told you before, the balance of power is towards Israel. These Qassam rockets and the other rockets are very primitive devices. It is just a show of — protesting against what’s happening here. But seriously, it doesn’t hurt Israeli security".
The answer to Dr. El-Farra’s rhetorical question is that in 5 years, 8 people have been killed by Qassams.
At this moment, there is continual shelling and sonic bombing against the Gaza Strip. But the Israelis’ first and main target of their reinvasion of Gaza, was the electrical power plant with the result that two-thirds of the populace are with no electricity and very little water, this, in the sweltering, crowded streets of Gaza, the most densely populated area in the world. Gazans can now add this cruelty to the long list of their sufferings, most lately caused by the economic blockade imposed on them since they elected Hamas to govern them. Again we should remember too that the blockade was enthusiastically embraced by so-called civilized, democratic countries.
Can Israel do anything it wants? Does Israel never merit severe condemnations, UN resolutions, boycotts, and sanctions? Apparently not in this upside-down world which at the moment is anxiously waiting for news of the ‘kidnapped’ soldier, whose name it knows.
