ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 01 (IPS) – The rule at Pottery Barn is “You break it, you purchased it.” It must be for Israel as properly. The Netanyahu authorities’s eight-month lengthy bombing marketing campaign in Gaza, almost half of the strikes by 2,000 lb. “dumb” or unguided bombs, has destroyed a excessive proportion of housing models within the territory.
Hospitals, universities, faculties, vocational coaching facilities, mosques, and one church and a Christian hospital have been bombed intentionally. If—and when—the battle is over, who pays for the harm to Gaza’s infrastructure? The reply is that Israel should pay.
The demise toll amongst Palestinian civilians is horrific—as all people is aware of—over 37,000 by now in accordance with UN information, one third of them youngsters, with many corpses nonetheless below the rubble. Not one of the youngsters killed within the Netanyahu battle cupboard’s genocidal assaults ever voted for HAMAS or had something to do with the October seventh bloody razzia by Yahya Sinwar’s minions.
Lengthy after the hated title HAMAS is expunged from historical past, Israel’s far larger barbarity will stay, having stained the nation endlessly.
This battle must cease. If the phrase “inhumane” not has that means, we’re all in bother. Regardless of warnings by President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken to not give option to rage and maintain killing civilians unnecessarily, US funding for the battle has continued and even elevated by lopsided congressional votes.
Whereas the almost 1.5 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah huddle of their tents ready the bombing that’s certain to return, the hypocrisy of US leaders is clear and galling—“Don’t kill civilians—however right here’s loads of cash and bombs to do it with.”
Most commentators say Netanyahu is headed for the political scrap heap and presumably to jail when this battle is over. He subsequently has an incentive to maintain the battle going so long as doable. And Biden’s “pause” in sending extra 2,000 lb. bombs to Israel is a joke—all people is aware of they’ll get there ultimately.
What is going to even be left of Gaza’s infrastructure in one other few months? Wanting ahead, who will construct properties for the greater than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million dispossessed people who find themselves now residing on the streets or below plastic sheets with summer time’s raging warmth persevering with?
Why ought to US taxpayers pay for Israel’s ammunition that’s even now killing multitudes of harmless individuals, after which pay to rebuild their properties? Why ought to the Arab Gulf states, as they’ve been doing for many years. pay for the harm?
No–Israel should pay. They broke it they usually should repair it. That doesn’t imply that they will colonize and maintain it to compensate themselves. Expulsion of the Arab residents and annexation and colonization of the territory could be one other worldwide battle crime on prime of those already dedicated.
It’s true that HAMAS began the battle with its obscene killing and capturing of civilians. However no person alive on planet earth for the final 75 years actually believes that the clock began Oct. 7. The actual fact is that this mad and bloody Arab-Israeli battle started over a century in the past. Over half of the households now in Gaza have been forcibly evicted from their properties and villages in southern Palestine within the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe).
The tragedy is that two of the world’s most high-sounding religions, Judaism and Islam, have stooped to such inhumanity and have belied their rules, making each HAMAS and hyper-Zionist Israel international bywords of scorn for his or her inhumane actions.
Netanyahu and the Israeli management have for many years implement a really intelligent plan: switch the prices of working the West Financial institution to Arab allies, the US and the worldwide neighborhood, and the eternally hopeful PLO-led Palestinians—and, after 2007, to HAMAS in Gaza, however by no means with any intention of permitting something close to full statehood to develop.
The Palestinians, the UN, the Arab States, and the world neighborhood have been duped for many years, paying for upkeep of the West Financial institution quasi-government and the reconstruction of South Lebanon and Gaza following the numerous wars with Israel. Who paid for all these Israeli jet fighters, tanks, and bombs? The ever-gullible US voters.
The Arab World, the US taxpayers, and particularly the Palestinians nationwide leaders, have been suckers, paying for false Israeli guarantees of Palestinian independence, solely to be occupied militarily, whereas being repeatedly and intermittently bombed into submission. American politicians are simply waking as much as this actuality.
Israel—particularly the Netanyahu authorities—has by no means had any intention of permitting a very unbiased state on the West Financial institution and in Gaza. The US and the Gulf States, together with quite a few worldwide organizations, have supported Palestinian life and livelihood for many years, however that ought to finish. Israel ought to both put up or shut up.
Is the “Two-State Answer” a chimera or a mirage? Will Israel assume its full obligations below worldwide regulation? What’s the level of making a Bantustan on the West Financial institution, and presumably one other one in Gaza, as in the event that they signify actual international locations with real statehood, borders, and independence?
Because the occupying energy controlling life on the West Financial institution for 56 years ever for the reason that 1967 Conflict–and now for Gaza because the blockading energy and besieging entity, Israel is legally accountable below worldwide regulation.
Each areas are the duty of Israel. It’s time they began paying their very own payments and never seeking to US residents or the Arab States to choose up the examine. Israel should pay. You broke it—you repair it.
James E. Jennings, PhD, is an advocate for Palestinian Human and Civil Rights and for larger understanding of the Center East by Individuals. He has delivered humanitarian support in Palestine, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran for over half a century, receiving amongst others, an award from the Union of Palestinian Medical Reduction Committees. Jennings has appeared on CNN, FOX, al-Jazeera, and different media within the US and overseas. He’s president of the help group Conscience Worldwide www.conscienceinternational.org and director of its US Lecturers for Peace program.
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