Left I on the News

"The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective."

Who said this? Some rabid right-wing Israeli like Avigdor Lieberman? No, as exposed by Uri Avnery in a column today, this quote is taken from an official legal document filed in court by Israeli Ministry of Justice lawyers (hence it represents the official position of the Israeli government), in a case involving a racist law which prohibits the wife of an Israeli citizen to join him in Israel if she is living in the occupied Palestinian territories or in a "hostile" Arab country.

As Avnery notes, this "philosophy" means that every Palestinian, anywhere, is an enemy of Israel who Israel is justified in killing. And clearly, the actions of the Israeli state demonstrate that isn't just a paper philosophy. See, for example, Amira Hass' column today in which she writes of the Israeli "rules of engagement" which encourage firing on rescuers, i.e., medical personnel. During the assault on Gaza, 16 Palestinian medical personnel were killed by Israeli fire; another 25 were wounded. Add on to that the number of wounded victims who died because they couldn't receive medical attention because their rescuers had been killed.

I want to quote one more thing from the article, because it expresses so well the nature of the ongoing struggle:

The inherent aim of the Zionist enterprise was and is to turn the country – at least up to the Jordan River – into a homogeneous Jewish state. Throughout the course of Zionist-Israeli history, this aim has not been forsaken for a moment. Every cell of the Israeli organism contains this genetic code and therefore acts accordingly, without the need for a specific directive.

In my mind I see this process as the urge of a river to reach the sea. A river yearning for the sea does not recognize any law, except for the law of gravity. If the terrain allows it, it will flow in a straight course, if not – it will cut a new riverbed, twist like a snake, turn right and left, go around obstacles. If necessary, it will split into rivulets. From time to time, new brooks will join it. And every minute it will strive to reach the sea.

The Palestinian people, of course, oppose this process. They refuse to budge, set up dams, try to push the stream back. True, for more than a hundred years they have been on the retreat, but they have never surrendered. They continue to resist with the same persistence as the advancing river.