This complements Jerusalem Post's "news" that the sound of sirens causing some pets in Israel to suffer from anxiety. Apparently more than 100 deaths (23 children) and 750 injured Palestinians do not mean a thing. But disrupting Israeli's 1st class way of living and making their pets stressful now that's a catastrophe. This is an in-your-face apartheid.
Like this article, some tries to portray the Gaza aggression as the clashing of two equal powers between Israel and Hamas. But Gaza is (still) officially within the state of Israel so the situation is closer to a colonial power versus it's indigenous people, and there's nothing equal about their powers. Gaza has been shut down from the outside world by Israel since 2006 and been deliberately kept close to malnourishment, while just few miles away Israelis live in a 1st class world. Israel has top class military equipment including nuclear weapons, while Hamas has to smuggle their weapons and small rockets into the open-air-prison of Gaza. Israel has iron dome to shield itself from these rockets while Gaza, as we have seen, can be bombed easily.
And then we have Egypt, a country emerge in the midst of this chaos as a peace broker. Although Muhammad Morsi is a [president] from the Muslim Brotherhood (the godfather for Hamas), with a huge US string behind his country (Egypt is still the 2nd largest recipient of US aid after Israel) Muhammad Morsi can't hardly be the fair peace-broker that he should, can he? And don't forget Israel's big brother, the US, who has vetoed every single UN resolution charged against Israel and has shown its support once again for Israel to "defend itself."
Hence, both on the ground and on the diplomatic battle ground Israel completely dominating the playing field, and no way near equal with Hamas, not even with the more internationally-recognised Palestinian Authority. And it sure apparent in the way the Israeli behave. Killing civilians, bombing residential houses, even targeting the media and killing its journalists without being charged with a single international sanction for its violations. While peace process is ongoing, they keep on bombing Gaza while saying that they won't conduct a ground offensive if Hamas don't escalate their rocket firing. In other words they expect Hamas to take the hit and keep quiet about it.
Some try to quote religion to justify the war crimes Israel are doing and have done so many times in the past, saying it is a Promised Land. Perhaps one word can be a Rosetta Stone for these folks: Nakba. Moses led the Israelites to fled Egypt around 1300-1200 BC, or 3300 years ago. Nakba, on the other hand, happened only 64 years ago, when Israel uniterally claimed independence on 14 May 1948 (one day before the British leave the Palestinian land) and violating the 1947 UN partition Plan. So this has nothing to do with religion.
The British had been supporting the Zionist movement since the Balfour Declaration 1917, in order to gain counter-support from the Jewish community for their increasingly unpopular military actions during World War I. And before Britain left on 15 May 1948 the British brokered a "cease fire" between disputing Arabs and Jews, with only the Arabs who put down their weapons. As a result after UN and the international community shockingly recognised israel's claim of independence, Nakba, a brutal ethnic cleansing of unarmed Palestinians, followed shortly. So a deep-rooted pain, anger and urge for revenge naturally embedded in most Palestinians. But can you blame them?
So the Economist ask where will it end? Can you seriously see the end of this? Not in Benyamin Netanyahu's time, that's for sure. If Israel keep on pushing their luck by violating the likes of Oslo Accord and burning every bridge towards peace, it could end in a dark scenario, considering the huge political shift occurring in the Arab world right now. But perhaps this can eventually end well after all, when Israel can find their own version of F. W. de Klerk and finally reach a fair two-state, or even three-state, solution.
