[WCUSP] A brutal taste of the future

[yvonne simmons]

A brutal taste of the future


The assault on Beit Hanoun is a terrifying example of
what lies in store for Palestinians 

Sami Abdel-Shafi in Gaza City
Wednesday November 8, 2006
The Guardian 


The initiation of Avigdor Lieberman - widely regarded
as an outright racist - into Ehud Olmert's Israeli
government seems to have already brought a taste of
things to come. For the past week, the Gaza Strip city
of Beit Hanoun has been made a ground zero by the
Israeli army. By yesterday, more than 260 Palestinians
lay dead and injured, with 53 fatalities - women,
children and ambulance drivers among them.

Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Israeli army had vowed to end the firing of
home-made rockets towards southern Israel. Many
Palestinians disagree with the use of these makeshift
rockets, but regard Israeli offensives as flagrantly
disproportionate. Beit Hanoun was left with no men
between the ages of 16 and 45 in the wake of a massive
forced round-up by the Israeli army last Thursday
night amid helicopter gunfire, tanks and artillery
shelling. Women and children in the city sent urgent
calls for help through Gaza's radio stations. To these
jobless women, losing their men meant breakdown in
their households.
On Friday morning, scores of women marched through
Beit Hanoun in a spontaneous rush to aid friends and
loved ones after hearing their pleas. Unarmed, they
were shot at by Israeli soldiers from their tanks; two
women were left dead and others severely injured.
These women were said to have been heading to a mosque
to free armed men who took refuge there. Television
footage and interviews with witnesses show these women
posed no military threat, but they were treated as
such by the Israeli army without warning.

Meanwhile, Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beiteinu
("Israel is Our Home"), envisages expelling
Palestinians or subjecting them to such misery that
they are forced to leave. The party's spin doctors
state it more mildly, saying that it proposes to
relocate Palestinians to areas under the Palestinian
Authority's control. The Beit Hanoun offensive offers
an example of what lies in store for them.

Today, the Palestinian Authority tries to govern a
besieged Gaza Strip and a West Bank with disconnected
cities and villages. The 1.4 million Palestinians in
the Gaza Strip are imprisoned by closure policies,
impoverished and without any hope of a dignified life
or economic development. The 1.5 million Palestinians
in the West Bank are quickly catching up in a collapse
created by the dozens of Israeli military checkpoints
and the separation wall which make their lives
impossible. Israeli restrictions on movement have made
the Palestinians of East Jerusalem look as though they
live in a faraway country, from the point of view of
West Bankers and Gazans.

The present subjugation of Palestinians to siege,
poverty and confinement - in addition to continuing
Israeli military attacks - can only make it easier for
our people to slip into infighting and tragedy. Both
the international community and peace-loving Israelis
and Palestinians will inevitably face ever more
criticism for their failure to stem this tide of
misery. Even to those who never supported Hamas, it is
impossible to ignore such a huge double standard: the
outside world accepts Lieberman's appointment as
deputy prime minister, despite his extreme views,
while it boycotts the Palestinian Authority's elected
Hamas administration.

One can only wonder at Olmert's insistence that his
deputy will not diminish whatever prospects remain of
peace. Israel's offensives against Gaza punish an
entire population. Bulldozing the area's water and
sewage systems, including those built with
international donor funding, killing civilians and
subjecting tens of thousands of residents to
oppressive military measures represent the reality of
Israel's policy, whatever its stated objectives.

· Sami Abdel-Shafi is senior partner at Emerge
Consulting Group, in Gaza City
sami.abdelshafi at emergeconsultants.com




 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com