NOVEMBER WAS A funny month to be a Palestinian, to put it mildly. Beginning with the assassination of the Palestinian Hamas Party military chief on the 14th, the latest Israeli offensive into Gaza started in brutal earnest, ending 162 lives until the following Wednesday’s ceasefire. Near a quarter of those dead Palestinians were children. As the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, it would have been impossible for the Israeli bombs to avoid civilian slaughter, even if that was the intention.
Immediately following this butchery came the inevitable wave of protests, with hundreds of demos held globally against the attacks, and a 15,000-strong Stop The War Coalition march in London on the 24th. In the southwest, Bath saw 20 out in protest the same day, and daily vigils stood their ground in Bristol centre. Elsewhere in the U.K., companies dealing with illegal Israeli settlements or supplying the I.D.F. weapons were also struck that week, with direct action, occupations, noise demos, and phone/e-blockades of Barclays Bank, G4S and even the Israeli state-sponsored Batsheva dance troupe!
Palestinians in the West Bank also carried out solidarity demos, to be met with typical Israeli oppression. Demonstrators were shot dead in Nabi Saleh and in western Hebron. A baby in Qalandia refugee camp was also killed, by Israeli tear gas: maybe it was a terrorist or something?
Alongside these intensifications of the 65-year occupation, since Hamas were voted in back in 2006, the Israeli government has punished the people of Gaza to an unimaginably barbaric degree. Medical aid and food shipments are regularly stolen by border guards, alongside necessity building materials and machine repairs parts. As a result, children are malnourished, hospitals are overstretched, sewage stays untreated, and poverty flourishes.
And then, just as trigger-happy Israel was busy breaking the ceasefire, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Thursday 29th to approve Palestine’s ‘upgrade’ to a sovereign ‘non-member observer state’, 138 votes to nine. The jury is still out on what this bit of paperwork means in practice, but this does mean access to various international agencies, treaties and the ability to take Israel to the International Criminal Court in the Hague over its war crimes. Whether or not the change in status will bring actual change, it does offer some hope. And it’s pissed off Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no end!
Straight away, as well as America helpfully offering to punish those uppity Arabs by withholding U.S. financial support, Netanyahoo and his ultra-right friends responded by first of all withholding £75m in tax rebates to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority; secondly, Ben the Builder has just announced new plans to build another 3,000 illegal homes, and to use development to cut off Palestine’s planned new capital of East Jerusalem.
So, whilst the Israeli P.M. is embarrassing even long-term collaborators like his British and U.S. allies, Hamas (one half of Palestine’s government) – just as murderous towards everyday civilians as the I.D.F. – are coming across smelling like roses, especially to their Muslim neighbours. You could say these are interesting times…
http://angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/israeli-premeditated-offensive-against.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/un-palestine-recognition_n_2217165.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/29/us-palestinians-statehood-idUSBRE8AR0EG20121129
http://www.thenewfederalist.eu/EU-and-the-Palestinian-UN-vote,05413
http://www.bikyamasr.com/81776/israel-breaks-gaza-ceasefire-repeatedly/
