Israeli Aggression Against the Palestinian People Intensifies

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, in a feat of Orwellian doublespeak, declared December 29 that Palestinians civilians are not the target of the Israeli military aggression unleashed against Gaza since December 26.

In the first 12 hours of the latest Israeli assault on the Gaza strip, at least 200 Palestinians have been killed, with thousands more wounded or displaced. The vast majority of dead are civilians, which leaves one to wonder what level of destruction Israel could inflict if it openly admitted it was targeting civilians. This represents the single largest massacre since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, in violation of international law, in 1967.

According to the commentators, Israel’s goal in its latest campaign of collective punishment is to restore fear of the Israeli military as a deterrent to the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people. The commentators note that after the Israeli military’s humiliating defeat to Hezbelloah forces in southern Lebanon in 2006, Israel needed to do something to re-establish the supremacy of its military.

Such commentators choose to ignore that the Israeli military has waged a continuous campaign of violence against all Palestinians living in Gaza since it “ended” the formal occupation of Gaza in 2005. Having starved and isolated Gazans, creating what international officials have described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the past century, the Israeli army now seems intent on re-occupying the Gaza strip.

Israel claims its latest campaign of violence is in retaliation for rocket attacks launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip following the expiration of an official ceasefire agreement. Few commentators have mentioned that during the “ceasefire” period, the Israeli military enforced a siege against Gaza, restricting food, medical supplies, fuel (including last winter, when Gaza experienced its first snowfall in three generations) and humanitarian aid.

A demonstration against the latest Israeli aggression will be held at the Manitoba legislature at 2:00 p.m. on January 3.

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