I’ve been asked numerous times on my opinion on what is going on in Gaza right now and how Israel should ‘respond to Hamas’. I strongly believe that Israel knows that a military response to an already shattered population is futile. It is no coincidence that all hell broke loose (the kidnapping of three Israeli boys, mass arrest of Palestinians, the revenge murder of Palestinian teenager, and now the airstrikes on Gaza) all came after Hamas and Fatah started negotiations on a unity government. Israel is making it clear its objective is not to stop Hamas, or to defend its people from them, but to destroy any chance of a unity government forming between the West Bank and Gaza, and thus any chance of a functioning Palestinian State emerging. Israel are doing everything they can to stop this and to bring back Gaza back to a point of rebuilding itself rather than thinking of the future of a larger Palestinian State. I just finished the book ‘I saw Ramallah’ by Mured Barghougthi, and he talks about how as Palestinian refugees we imagine Palestine the way it was when our fathers left it. We keep saying that the occupation stole from us all that they enjoyed, all what we should be enjoying today. However, the reality of what the occupation really robbed us from us isn’t our past, but our future. If you visit Nablus, Ramallah and all the Palestinian cities today you’d find large similarities between the way they are now and the way they were back then. More than 66 years of living under military occupation has left most of Palestine’s cities under a stand still. What the occupation stole form us is the future, a chance to see our cities grow, our economies flourish and our people strive. This is what Israel is doing now, by targeting and bombing houses, hospitals and schools in Gaza they are robbing Palestinians once again of their futures.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 14:35:13 +0000
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