The next "war" in Gaza

It would appear that another Israeli slaughter in Gaza is in the offing with a leading article in today's 'Independent' stating, "Gaza again on the brink" and with yesterday's bombing of civilian infrastructure this is anything but fanciful thinking. The only thing fanciful and, indeed, offensive is the way the approaching indiscriminate murder of men, women and children is reported in the mainstream media.

For instance, the 'Independent' comment begins by reporting the Israelis as saying "its latest air strikes on Gaza were a response to the proliferation of rocket attacks in the past month." This would appear to suggest, once again, that the Israelis have, at least, in their eyes, sufficient reason to once again pound Gaza ostensibly because they themselves are being attacked but really in the hope that the last glimmer of resistance can be extinguished. Furthermore, should the less discerning among us be unable to distinguish between Israel's excuse and the real reason, we should consider the rocket attacks that they are talking about.  When we do so we will discover, for instance, that the most recent "attack", which was used as a pretext for the bombing yesterday, came on Thursday and that it caused no damage and that "attack" appears to be representative for all but one of the forty attacks in the last month that they talk about. Moreover, as nobody has claimed responsibility for almost all of the "attacks", .... well, you wouldn't put it past Israel itself to have fired the rockets, would you?

Yes, while such an assumption is purely speculative, it is not exactly far-fetched. After all, we might ask ourselves the question, who actually benefits from these rather hopeless efforts to resist?  Moreover, Israel is hardly averse to acting covertly like this. Nevertheless, it really could on the other hand be just one more  desperate attempt from the Palestinians in Gaza to say, "look you are depriving us of food, materials and our freedom, but you cannot take our dignity, you cannot break our resistance."  That is, indeed, a very real possibility and it is that which gives us a very real indication of what is happening in Gaza and what is going to happen in the next few weeks. We should be concerned for that really is what this is all about; Israel wants to break not only all Palestinian resistance but also the spirit that produces that resistence.

However, this resistance, even if only of a symbolic nature is bound to continue. This means that the  the Israelis will, at first, continue bombing from the air and content themselves with only doing that. Nevertheless, while this is bad enough for the suffering people on the ground, they will only content themselves with doing that until they believe it is tactically opportune to go in on the ground again with all guns blazing. It is that prospect which should worry us, for while the resistance is not broken, and cannot be broken, the fact is that this is something the Israelis are not prepared to accept and in not being able to accept it they are ultimately prepared to slaughter thousands while pointing to the handful of dead IDF soldiers, probably caught mostly in friendly fire, as proof that they are at war, that they are being attacked, that they are only defending themselves. Of course, if Israel wanted, this is a "war" which it could end tomorrow by simply leaving all of the occupied territories, lifting the blockade of Gaza, and trying to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians. Unfortunately, the evidence would seem to suggest that Israel naively thinks that this is not necessary and that it can indeed achieve an uncondtional surrender of the Palestinian people. We might expect further mass murder in Gaza.