Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Collective punishment in Gaza
[First posted 6/28, 9:00 a.m.; updated and bumped]
Israel turned up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive soldier Wednesday, sending its warplanes to bomb a Hamas training camp after knocking out electricity and water supplies for most of the 1.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip.Not that Israel is doing anything the United States didn't perfect in its bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq (notably the first Gulf War; by the time of the 2003 invasion there wasn't much left). Attacking civilian targets is, of course, a war crime.
Without exception as far as I've seen, the media reports that the current Israeli attacks are a "rescue attempt." This is nonsense. Their chances of rescuing the captured soldier alive are as close to nil as can be imagined. This assault is, as the actual actions cited above demonstrate, all about collective punishment of the Palestinian people, and has little if anything to do with attempting to save the life of Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
Update: "Collective punishment" may be a bit too abstract. Let's make it concrete. Last month, 3-year-old Mariyah Amin was left paralyzed and on an artificial respirator for life. Without electricity, Mariyah Amin, and many others in similar circumstances, will die. Or, to be more accurate, will have been murdered by the Israelis, as were her brother, mother, and grandmother.
