Prime Minister Harper's humanity shines as he gives a free pass to Israeli aggression. He is alone amongst Western leaders to have remained silent about the horrendous price Palestinian civilians are paying. In spite of the unjustified killing of hundreds of children, Harper has not asked for either a humanitarian ceasefire or for Israel to do more to protect civilians. Given the population density, Gazans have nowhere safe to go, not even the beach, and this explains the high death toll amongst civilians. Harper is therefore blaming the victims for circumstances that are imposed on them through no fault of their own:
"Obviously no one likes to see the suffering and loss of life that has occurred.... That said, we hold the terrorist organization Hamas responsible for this. They have initiated and continue this conflict and continue to seek the destruction of the state of Israel
Long before Hamas came into existence, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir set the standard for deflecting Israeli responsibility for killing children on Palestinians in 1969: "...it will be harder for us to forgive [Arabs] for having forced us to kill their sons."
Harper
starts with false premises. Hamas has done a lot of wrong things, but
they had dropped the "destruction" sentence from
their
charter
before the 2006 election.
In fact,
the elections were held under the Oslo process, which means that
Hamas had tacitly accepted Oslo.
True to the founding fathers' overall plan and the Likud platform that rejects an independent Palestinian state, Netanyahu strives to retain a free hand to continue dispossessing, subjugating and keeping separate those Palestinians who refuse to go away. Some say they want to "push all the Jews into the sea", a highly unlikely scenario. On the contrary, their disappearing land and the extreme restrictions imposed on them make Palestinians feel that they are the ones being driven into the sea.
Temporary ceasefires
give brief respite to Gazans, but they have no control over their
land, sea or air. Israel offers them a choice between recurring
deadly attacks or crippling siege;
Likud
MK Moshe Feiglin,
Deputy
Speaker of the Knesset, proposes sending them to the Sinai. None of
these is an option for a people who have already suffered so much.
Ultimately, Gazans and all Palestinians need their freedom.
The first step is to lift the Israeli siege and allow the movement of
goods and people in and out of Gaza through Israeli and Egyptian
border crossings. The stranglehold that both states exert amounts to
immoral collective punishment.
For over 60 years Israel has
expanded by force of arms. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett recently
said that Israel is not interested in a peace settlement based on a
two-state solution. Netanyahu confirmed in a speech in Hebrew
that he will not allow an independent, contiguous and, most
importantly, sovereign
Palestinian state. Consequently, a growing number of
Palestinians are abandoning the land for peace charade and seek to
secure their rights and freedoms by other means, including the
growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) international movement.
The
military occupation, the siege and the settlement policies are coldly
calculated steps to deny freedom to and make life untenable for a
nation who some still want to believe does not exist. Set this people
free, at last!
Bahija
Reghai is a human rights activist, former president of the National
Council on Canada-Arab Relations (NCCAR).
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