Why I Will Continue to Protest Israeli Aggression

[DogPoundPup]

excerpt~

The Israelis also left Gaza with damage so severe that Harvard’s Sara Roy refers to it as the “de-development of Palestine.” According to Dr. Roy, “the demolition of homes , schools, roads, factories, workshops, hospitals, mosques and greenhouses, the razing of agricultural fields, the uprooting of trees, the confinement of the population and the denial of access to education and health services as a consequence of Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints—has been ruinous for Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip.”

Gaza may be the 4th most densely populated area in the world after Monaco, Singapore and Gibraltar . Incredibly, 50% of the population is under age 16. A 2004 Harvard study concluded that within a few years, Gaza’s labour force will be ‘’entirely unskilled and increasingly illiterate.” Before the current conflict erupted, the unemployment rate exceeded 40% of the workforce.

Recently, that same aforementioned Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington wrote: “Gaza’s economy had already collapsed long before the current fighting began and now has far greater problems. Its infrastructure is crippled in critical areas like power and water. This war has compounded the impact of a struggle that has gone on since 2000. It has reduced living standards in basic ways like food, education, as well as medical supplies and services. It has also left most Gazans without a productive form of employment. The current war has consequences more far-reaching than casualties. It involves a legacy of greatly increased suffering for the 1.5 million people who will survive this current conflict.’’ http://www.csis.org >

The popular image of Israel as victim has been carefully manufactured and nurtured. As a result, even reasonable, peaceful people might want to shoot back if on the receiving end of the Hamas rockets.

That same Jerusalem Post journalist, Larry Derfner, offers this explanation of Israel’s behaviour: “THIS IS crazy. Israel is the superpower of the Middle East, but because we still think we're the Jews of Europe in the 1930s, or the Israelites under Pharaoh, we spend a lot more time fighting our enemies than we might if we looked at the whole picture, not just our half of it.’’

Read much, much more ... http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0901/S00289.htm