NOT ABOUT TUNNELS OR ROCKETS, NEVER WAS
I’m not sure how many commentaries I have read about the genocidal project in Gaza, but none have made the connections to the true aim of Israel. Sure, some have discussed targeting civilians, infrastructure and so on, but not the real goal. Israel cannot any longer claim it is about rockets – their main airport was shut down and they wept and wailed about how safe it is to fly into it. It can no longer claim it is about tunnels, since all the targets have been civilian and above ground. It isn’t about a political party, Hamas, either. It is also not just about domination, revenge or oppression. It cannot actually kill every Gazan, nor can it deport them. But it can make Gaza utterly irreparable, unable to support the almost 2 million souls who live there.
A simple review of the targets that have been chosen and attacked bear this out: power grid and fuel tank, water system including lines and pumps and sewage treatment, government ministries, hospitals and clinics and other medical facilities, and more than 7500 homes as well as a lot of agricultural lands, and various factories (that weren’t destroyed in 2009).
A few days ago, it was mentioned that if Israel stopped bombing on that day, it would already require over $6 billion just to repair what it had already destroyed. That was before the fuel tank for the only power plant was bombed. The authorities in Gaza said it would take over 1 year to repair just that alone. But Israel hasn’t stopped bombing, has it?
It is impossible to look at the totality of destruction and particular targets and reach a different conclusion: Gaza is not really able to ‘come back’ in the short term and house, feed and care for all 1.8 million souls.
Gaza has been in a humanitarian crisis since before this latest war: the water was undrinkable, fuel was always short, the power plant limped along and couldn’t provide electricity consistently or fully, the sewage treatment plant was limping along as well. The blockade (or siege if you prefer) ensured that vital supplies of medicines and associated necessities were always in short supply, as well as other consumer items. A high proportion of the population relied on food aid.
That Israel claims to be magnanimously providing fuel and other items to Gaza while it makes war on it, is disingenuous, to say the least. As the occupying power, it is required to do so. And what it allows in is hardly adequate.
That Israel cannot deport or kill the entire population is a source of frustration. The Jewish settler-colonists who were repatriated from their colonies still harbour a burning hatred and desire for revenge.
The majority of the Jewish Israeli public fully supports not only the war on the occupied, but also the slaughter itself. It is a source of perverse and demented joy to them. But the impatience and frustration at not being able to commit an Amelekite genocide is a bit depressing and annoying. The world, they believe, is against them and is holding back their brave “soldiers” from “finishing” their genocidal campaign. This won’t be another Purim-style holiday for them.
But they can make Gazans suffer not only in the here-and-now, especially at night when they intentionally terrorise the public with light bombs/flares and missiles from F16s, relentless shelling from gun boats and tanks, but in the future. It can deepen the poverty, the misery and the humiliation.
It can create a condition in which preventable diseases spread quickly and kill even more. It can ensure that many more Gazans die of cancer, induced by using the banned DIME weapons. It can maim thousands upon thousands, and having destroyed the healthcare system, ensure they die of complications soon, or are at least miserable and disabled later, if they survive.
The Jewish population in Israel (and don’t mistake the ‘peace camp’ as it is small, has little voice and is mostly to assuage its own conscience while they still live on stolen land) wants to punish every Palestinian in Gaza as much as possible, for not being allowed to kill them all right now. For not being able to deport them all and take over Gaza – all of it – and Gaza City, that major city on the Spice Road, that ancient and beautiful city. For not just all leaving on their own and allowing Jews from Brooklyn some nice flats on the Mediterranean, after all, they believe they deserve it.
No, the goal of the rogue nation, the Jewish military state is to make Gaza unlivable because if they can’t have it, then Gazans cannot either.
Cintayati 