Perhaps ever so slowly the world is waking up that Israel's actions in attacking Gaza was more than anything to "help" the politicians In Israel facing an election next month.
Some perspectives on the attack and putting them into context can be seen from these op-ed pieces:
Marwan Bishara is a senior political analyst for the Al Jazeera English network. His piece, said to reflect his own views, appears in the IHT:
"The failure of the American-sponsored Annapolis framework to bring about a peace agreement has helped bolster Hamas, leaving the Palestinian president ever-more vulnerable. Unless the international community puts a prompt end to Israel's onslaught, brokers an expanded cease-fire and lifts the Gaza blockade, the world will be left with a great humanitarian and strategic mess.
Alas, those who shouted "Obama inshallah" a few weeks ago are today burning U.S. and Israeli flags on the streets of Gaza and in capitals around the globe."
Michael Shaik is the public advocate for Australians for Palestine. He says, writing in The Age:
"When Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israeli officials declared their intention to punish the Palestinians by putting them on a "diet". The diet was intensified in 2007, following the seizure of power in Gaza by Hamas. Imports and exports were suspended and the supply of food, medicine, electricity and fuel has been alternately reduced to a trickle or cut off altogether.
The result, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency, is that Gaza has become "the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and — some would say — encouragement of the international community"."
Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of "Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." In her op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor she says:
"Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable – indeed, for some, it's an act of heresy – to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end.
Israel's victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust?
As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain?"
Some perspectives on the attack and putting them into context can be seen from these op-ed pieces:
Marwan Bishara is a senior political analyst for the Al Jazeera English network. His piece, said to reflect his own views, appears in the IHT:
"The failure of the American-sponsored Annapolis framework to bring about a peace agreement has helped bolster Hamas, leaving the Palestinian president ever-more vulnerable. Unless the international community puts a prompt end to Israel's onslaught, brokers an expanded cease-fire and lifts the Gaza blockade, the world will be left with a great humanitarian and strategic mess.
Alas, those who shouted "Obama inshallah" a few weeks ago are today burning U.S. and Israeli flags on the streets of Gaza and in capitals around the globe."
Michael Shaik is the public advocate for Australians for Palestine. He says, writing in The Age:
"When Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israeli officials declared their intention to punish the Palestinians by putting them on a "diet". The diet was intensified in 2007, following the seizure of power in Gaza by Hamas. Imports and exports were suspended and the supply of food, medicine, electricity and fuel has been alternately reduced to a trickle or cut off altogether.
The result, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency, is that Gaza has become "the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and — some would say — encouragement of the international community"."
Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and the author, most recently, of "Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." In her op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor she says:
"Jewish intellectuals oppose racism, repression, and injustice almost everywhere in the world and yet it is still unacceptable – indeed, for some, it's an act of heresy – to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor. This double standard must end.
Israel's victories are pyrrhic and reveal the limits of Israeli power and our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers. Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust?
As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane? How do we move beyond fear to envision something different, even if uncertain?"
Comments