[Peace-discuss] Juan Cole - Ten myths about the Israeli attack on Gaza

Wed Nov 28 04:50:11 UTC 2012

I like the Juan Cole article, too, for all the reasons stated, including the map going from white to green, extremely effective -- it's like the US going from all white (indigenous) to all green w/ a very few white streaks (non-indigenous w/ reservations).

--- On Tue, 11/27/12, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com>
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Juan Cole - Ten myths about the Israeli attack on Gaza
To: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 8:35 AM

    At AWARE on Sunday we talked about having a flyer for this
    Saturday's demonstration which talked about Israel/Palestine.

    Carl had found a good one from Max Ajl, but here's another, from Juan
      Cole on 11/17, which may be a better introduction to people
    who haven't been paying close attention to the subject.   (See the
    original article too - there's an interesting map summarizing
    Palestinian refugee migrations.)

    http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/top-ten-myths-about-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html

    Top Ten Myths about Israeli Attack on Gaza

    Posted on 11/17/2012 by Juan

    1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a ‘peace
    process’ with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In
    fact, Israel has refused to cease colonizing and stealing
    Palestinian land long enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with
    them. Tel
      Aviv routinely announces new, unilateral house-building on the
      Palestinian West Bank. There is no peace process. It is an
    Israeli and American sham. Talking about a peace process is giving
    cover to Israeli nationalists who are determined to grab everything
    the Palestinians have and reduce them to penniless refugees (again).

    2. Actions such as the assault on Gaza can achieve no genuine
    long-term strategic purpose. They are being launched to ensure that
    Jewish-Israelis are the first to exploit key resources. Rattling
    sabers at the Palestinians creates a pretext for further land-grabs
    and colonies on Palestinian land. That is, the military action
    against the people of Gaza is a diversion tactic; the
      real goal is Greater Israel, an assertion of Israeli sovereignty
    over all the territory once held by the British Mandate of
    Palestine.

    3. Israeli hawks represent their war of aggression as in
    ‘self-defense.’ But the UK Israeli chief rabbi admitted on camera
    that that the
      Gaza attack actually ‘had something to do with Iran.’

    4. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinians of Gaza as “bad
    neighbors” who don’t accept Israel. But 40% of the people in Gaza
    are refugees, mostly living in refugee camps, from families in
    pre-1948 Palestine that had lived there for millennia.

    They
      were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 Zionist ethnic
      cleansing campaign. Israelis are now living in their homes and
    farming their land, and they were never paid any reparations for the
    crimes done to them. [pdf]
      “Israel’s failure to provide reparations to Palestinian refugees
      over the past six decades is in blatant violation of international
      law.” Israel does not accept Palestine’s right to exist, even
    though it is constantly demanding that everyone, including the
    displaced and occupied Palestinians, recognize Israel’s right to
    exist.

    5. Israeli hawks and their American clones depict Gaza as a foreign,
    hostile state with which Israel is at war. In fact, the
      Gaza strip is a small territory of 1.7 million people militarily
      occupied by Israel (something in which the UN and other
    international bodies concur). Israelis do not allow it to have a
    port or airport, nor to export most of what it produces.
    Palestinians cannot work about a third of its land, which is
    reserved by Israel as a security buffer. As an occupied territory,
    it is covered by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva
    Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by their
    military occupier. Indiscriminate bombing of occupied territories by
    the occupier is clearly illegal in international law.

    6. Israeli hawks see themselves as innocent victims of bewildering
    Palestinian rage from Gaza. But Israel not only has kept
    Palestinians of Gaza in the world’s largest outdoor penitentiary,
    they have them under an
      illegal blockade that for some years aimed at limiting their
    nutrition without altogether starving them to death. I wrote
    earlier:

    “The food
      blockade had real effects. About ten percent of Palestinian
      children in Gaza under 5 have had their growth stunted by
    malnutrition. A recent report
      [pdf] by Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians found
      that, in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over
    two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a
    third of pregnant mothers. “

    If any foreign power surrounded Israel, destroyed Haifa port and Tel
    Aviv airport, and prevented Israeli exports from being exported,
    what do you think Israelis would do? Oh, that’s right, it is rude to
    see both Palestinians and Israelis as equal human beings.

    7. Israeli hawks demonize the Palestinian residents of Gaza as
    followers of Hamas, a party-militia of the Muslim religious right.
    But half of Palestinians in Gaza are minors, who never voted for
    Hamas and cannot be held collectively responsible for that party.

    8. Israeli hawks justify their aggression on the Palestinians on
    grounds of self-defense. But Israel is a country of 7.5 million
    people with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships
    and F-16s and F-18s, plus 400 nuclear warheads. Gaza is a small
    occupied territory of 1.7 million which has no heavy weaponry, just
    some old guns and some largely ineffectual rockets. (Israelis cite
    hundreds of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza in 2012; but until
    Israel’s recent attack they had killed not a single Israeli, though
    they did wound a few last March when fighting between Palestinians
    and Israelis escalated.) Gaza is a threat to Israel the way the
    Transkei Bantustan was a threat to Apartheid South Africa. As for
    genuine asymmetrical threats from Gaza to Israel, they could be
    dealt with by giving the Palestinians a state and ceasing the
    blockade imposed on them, or in the worst case scenario
    counter-terrorism targeted at terrorists rather than indiscriminate
    bombing campaigns.

    9. Israeli hawks maintain that they were provoked into the attack. But
      actually Ahmad Jabari, the Hamas leader the Israelis assassinated
      earlier this week, had been engaged in talks with the Israelis
      about a truce. Assassinations achieved by the ruse of openness
    to peace talks are guarantees of no further peace talks.

    10. Although most American media is a cheering section for the Likud
    Party, in
      fact the world is increasingly done out with Israel’s
      aggressiveness. Boycotts and sanctions will likely grow over
    time, leaving Israeli hawks with a deficit…

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