Bloody History

Bob Marley once said in a famous song of his:

If you know your history,
Then you would know where you coming from,
Then you wouldn't have to ask me,
Who the 'eck do I think I am.

2008 ended with the non-renewal of the truce between Israel and Hamas. Why it wasn’t renewed? I don’t know. Are there any political agenda behind this? I don’t know, any hidden plans behind the walls ? I don’t know either.

All I know is that Hamas refused to renew the truce, right after they restarted launching rockets on the south of Israel giving the Israeli government a strong reason for “self defense” retaliation backed by the American government.

What is the outcome? a few rockets launched on one side causing 4 deaths. On the other side, bombs falling everywhere on Gaza causing 430 deaths so far and over 2000 wounded and counting. A balanced outcome, if we consider the 1 to 100 usual ratio, (don’t shoot me I’m being sarcastic here)

Again, the reactions are way unbalanced between the Arab world and elsewhere, in the news, popular demonstrations, people reactions on social websites… In the Arab world, all blame is on Israel. The streets are heated up to the number of deaths and injured as they watch the destruction of Gaza take place. Al Jazeera is keeping a dynamic banner on its website updating the number of deaths and injured live.

At the same time, Hamas and its leaders are intending to gain support of the Arab masses through a populist and zealous speech yet dreamy and unrealistic delivered by Ismael Haniya and Khaled Machaal and echoed by the Arab news networks who carefully choose their vocabulary to galvanize their radicalized audience. Who talks about Hamas’s responsibility in what’s happening ? no one !

What the Hamas and the “romantic” people in the Arab countries (who are still waiting for another Saladin to come and save Palestine) forgot is that Israel is not willing to give up this time, the way they did in Lebanon 2 years ago before reaching their objective.

The objective was to finish up with Hezbollah once and for all, but they didn’t and they pulled out after causing more than a thousand deaths. This pull out and Hezbollah’s resistance was considered by many Arabs as a success. What is the success in there? I don’t know… maybe someone can tell me.

This time Israel is decided to finish up with Hamas once and for all as declared by Tzipi Livni the Israeli Minister of foreign affairs. According to Israel, the blame for the death toll is all on Hamas.

Israel’s excessive military operation on Gaza is officially legitimized by the American government and by the media as self-defense measures. Israel has the right to self-defense, since Hamas rockets can now cover up to half the area of Israel.

The situation in Gaza is disastrous, disastrous not only because of the Israeli bombing on civilians motivated by the fight against Hamas. Disastrous not only because of Hamas mixing with the population and using it as human shields while keeping launching rockets on the south of Israel and refusing truce talks.

It is disastrous because it is the result of over 60 years of mistakes on each side.

It is disastrous because no one knows how to correct these mistakes and save what’s left.

It is disastrous because the people in Palestine are the only ones paying for all these mistakes.

It is disastrous because people in front of their TVs and computer screens are calling for war and resistance while comfortably seated in the first lines of their living rooms.

I’d like to listen up to what Bob Marley said and take a look back at some history and ask a question: What if peace voices were louder than the drums of war in 1948, 1963, 1967, 1973, today?

Pax
A.

Useful material to understand the fucked up situation in the middle east:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab-Israeli_War 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_Conflict 
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/210072/The-50-Years-War-Israel-and-the-Arabs/overview