Israel’s core messages, listed below, argue for the justice of its invasion of Gaza in late December, 2008, cast Israel as the victim and endeavor that its “war on Hamas” not be seen against the background of prolonged occupation, closure and sanctions, but of the broader Western “War on Terror.” The alternative view presented below argues otherwise. As Israelis committed to human rights, international law and a just peace as the only way out of our interminable and bloody conflict with the Palestinians, we contend that security cannot be achieved unilaterally, especially as Israel shows no signs of fully relinquishing its 41 year Occupation so that a truly sovereign and viable Palestinian may emerge. In that context, Israel’s attack on Gaza can be considered merely another attempt to render its Occupation permanent by destroying any source of effective resistance. The immediate pretext of Israel’s attack, rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, does not explain the disproportionality of its attack, especially given the unrelenting sanctions, attacks and assassinations carried out by Israel throughout the cease-fire. Indeed, we argue that Israel could have avoided all attacks upon it over the last twenty years, as well as the rise of Hamas to power, if it had accepted the PLO’s offer of a two-state solution proffered already in 1988 and has entered into negotiations in good faith. Instead, Israel, the strong party in the conflict and the sole Occupying Power, chose to dramatically increase its settler population, construct a permanent infrastructure of separation and control, remove “Greater Jerusalem” from Palestine and encircle the West Bank with its expanded borders: that of the Separation Barrier incorporating Israel’s major settlement blocs and the “security border” of the Jordan River. Israel is not a victim; it is the active perpetrator of a permanent apartheid regime over all of Israel/Palestine. It is toward that goal that Gaza is being violently pacified today, Israel’s killing with impunity scores of Palestinian civilians constituting nothing less than State Terrorism.
The following pages present the essential elements of the Israeli government’s framing of its assault on Gaza, followed by a critical re-framing that introduces context, policies and aims which the government’s version purposely omits…..to read further follow download link above