First there is the all too familiar contention that “the political and historical conflict causing this violence is centuries old and far too complicated to address….” We are supposed to believe that the situation is so complex the average person can’t be bothered to try and understand it. So the only reasonable thing to do is to accept the sound bite version offered to us by the media. This is usually some form of pro-Zionist rhetoric centered around an Israeli perspective.

In reality, the conflict causing this violence is not centuries old. Nor is it too complex to address. Prior to 1900, Jews and Palestinians lived together in Palestine for generations without the extreme levels of hatred and violence which now exist. With the advent of Zionism, the political movement to establish a Jewish state in all of historic Palestine, tensions began to escalate. The leaders of the Zionist movement sought to control more and more of what they considered to be land promised to them by God. In 1947-48, the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland by Zionist militias and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel began the conflict in earnest.

Since then, Israel’s continued seizure of Palestinian land through the establishment of illegal settlements in the West Bank has accelerated the aggression. In addition, Israel has refused to abide by UN resolution 194 which guarantees Palestinians the right of return to or compensation for lands taken from them during the war in 1947-48. As a result of that war and the 1967 war Israel expanded well beyond the borders allotted to it by the original partition of Palestine and has been in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as the terms of the original United Nations partition plan since its inception.

Though rarely if ever spoken about in any media source, the real reason for the conflict in Palestine is not Jews or Palestinians, it is the Zionist colonization of Palestine. Zionism, a virulent form of ethnic nationalism, fosters a culture of exclusivity and entitlement within Israeli society. Jews are “The Chosen People” living in “The Promised Land.” These inherently racist attitudes create an atmosphere which legitimizes collective punishment and human rights abuses against Palestinians simply because they are not Jews. Jewish lives are valued more than Palestinian lives. This attitude was epitomized by the statement of extreme right wing Israeli Rabbi, Eliyah, in April of 2008. “The life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs.”

The stated goal of Zionism has always been and continues to be the expulsion of the Palestinians and the colonization of all of Palestine, not just the area which currently is Israel. This is a fact, not idle supposition. In his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe, an Israeli Jewish historian, gives a well-documented account of the brutally orchestrated removal of Palestinians from their lands and the systematic plan for the ongoing colonization of Palestine. Pappe uses Israel’s own archives to support these facts. For those pro-Zionists who consider Pappe to be too much of a “self-hating Jew,” a term often used to slander any Jewish scholar who attempts to expose the dark underbelly of the Zionist movement, they can read essentially the same history in Benny Morris’s writings. Morris is a fervent Zionist historian who has fully acknowledged the facts of Zionist history. But he sums up his findings by saying, in effect, the ethnic cleansing was a necessary evil and his only regret is that Israel did not complete the job back in 1948.

The second and more subtle misconception reinforced by the promoters of the petition calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is contained in the statement, “All sides of the conflict will continue to act as they have in the past if they believe the world will stand by and allow them to do so.” Indeed, the world has stood by for the last 60 years and allowed Israel to aggressively colonize Palestinian lands in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. But the implication of the statement is that somehow the Palestinian people need the approval of the international community to engage in resistance to Israel’s illegal actions. This is like suggesting that if a family were to move into your home and occupy your living room, you would need to ask permission to take any action against them.

The Zionist narrative attempts to portray Israel as a victim of unprovoked Palestinian violence. But Palestinian resistance to the colonization of their land is recognized as a right under international law. The widely accepted and vociferous contention that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” is a bizarre transposition of the rule of law. It is like saying the family that occupied your home has a right to defend itself from your actions to remove them. Israel does not have any right under international law to “defend” its ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation of Palestine. The attack on Gaza, and indeed, any Israeli action taken against Palestinian resistance, whether that resistance be violent or nonviolent, is not an act of self defense. It is an act of aggression against a legitimate resistance movement. Israel is not defending itself, it is defending its illegal colonization of Palestinian lands.

From a purely moral perspective, it is absurd to suggest that the monstrous assault being unleashed against the captive and defenseless people of Gaza by the world’s fourth largest military is in any way justified by the firing of crude homemade rockets into Israel. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza. They have no army, no navy, no air force. More than two thirds of the population is comprised of women and children. After having the nerve to conduct democratic elections in January, 2006, the Palestinians have had their elected officials imprisoned and assassinated. Their government has been removed in an administrative coup and replaced by the quisling Fatah party in the West Bank. When Hamas resisted this coup and reclaimed control of the government they were freely and fairly elected to lead, it was Hamas who was considered the aggressor, not those who removed them from power in the first place. Again, the rule of law was transposed and used to justify the demonization of Hamas.

To make matters worse, in an attempt to coerce the Palestinians in Gaza to abandon their legitimately elected representatives, Israel, with the help of the international community, has kept Gaza under siege for most of the last three years. Gazans have been denied many of the basic necessities of life, including such things as paper and pencils, school books and even sanitary napkins. Israel recently added shoes and clothing to the list of forbidden imports. They claim Hamas might use them to make military uniforms. This, despite the fact that Israel often justifies its killing of civilians in Gaza by asserting that the Hamas militia can’t be distinguished from civilians because, yes, you guessed it, they don’t wear military uniforms.

The main power plant in Gaza has also been bombed, severely limiting the amount of electricity available. This electricity is necessary for water and sewage treatment along with the more obvious aspects of normal daily life. Fuel supplies have been restricted. Importation of cement has been curtailed preventing necessary repairs to civilian infrastructure. The Israeli Air Force has used F-16 Fighter Jets, supplied by the U.S., to make frequent low level super sonic flights over Gaza creating massive sonic booms which, according to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, “are having serious effects on children in Gaza, including anxiety, panic, fear, poor concentration and low academic success.” The sonic events are also suspected of inducing miscarriages in Palestinian women.

These are just a few examples of the war of collective punishment and terror being waged against the civilian population in Gaza. These tactics have increased in intensity over the last three years, culminating these last six weeks in the nearly complete denial of food, medicine, electricity and fuel to the million and a half people living in Gaza. So why would Hamas be engaging in resistance to Israel, anyway? One can only imagine.

This back story to the devastation in Gaza is completely ignored by our corporate media and by most so-called progressive media. It’s as if history began just a few months ago. Out of the blue, those crazy terrorists started firing rockets into Israel for no reason at all. How dare they? And this assumption goes largely unchallenged. There is much angst and hand wringing in the so-called alternative media about how disproportionate Israel’s response has been. Outrage is expressed at the suffering of the Palestinian people. But there is little discussion of the fact that Palestinian militants actually have a reason to be firing rockets at Israel.

Over the last 60 years, there has never been a sincere effort on the part of Israel to avert conflict with the Palestinians. On the contrary, conflict has been continuously inflamed in order to facilitate and legitimize the colonization of Palestine. Regardless of the repeated empty rhetoric on the part of Israel about wanting a partner in peace, since 1967, when the illegal settlement campaign was begun, there has not been a single Israeli administration which has not expanded the settlements in the West Bank. This is in direct violation of the Geneva conventions, not to mention the many so-called agreements Israel has entered into over the years promising to halt the expansion of settlements.

Simply put, Israel is colonizing Palestine. Its Zionist founders always intended to achieve this end, and the current regime has no intention of sidelining that plan. Any other claim made by the government of Israel is pure guile. And this deception has been perpetrated with funding and encouragement from successive United States administrations since 1947. Indeed, none of Israel’s current illegal aggression would be taking place without the approval of the United States along with the massive amounts of military aid we provide. This is the history of the current conflict which we are not allowed to hear. Not because it is too complicated for us to understand, but because it is too offensive to the sensibilities of those who blindly support Israel.

As the horrors unfold in Gaza, how should we respond? Other than giving direct physical and emotional support to the people in Gaza by donating money to relief organizations and speaking out against the war crimes being committed there, not much can be done in the short term to rectify the situation. We know from attempts to derail the war in Iraq that no matter how many voices are raised in protest, the international stage is set and the usual actors will play out this disaster as they see fit regardless of our efforts to stop them.

And what about over the long term? The situation is dire. Our public discourse is a cornucopia of lies, obfuscation and denial. Facts are considered irrelevant. Reality is turned upside down and language has become meaningless. Imperial and colonial violence is defined as righteous self defense. Resistance to that violence is defined as terrorism. The United States and Israel, two of the world’s most celebrated so-called democracies, are in reality rogue militarized nations engaging in collective punishment, torture, wars of aggression and criminal foreign policies which flagrantly disregard even the most basic concepts of fairness and human decency.

The so-called Left in the United States decries each successive atrocity either committed or supported by our government. Israel assaults Gaza using our money and weapons, so we sign petitions calling for an end to the violence. We engage in a flurry of political activism every four years and vote in sham elections which only legitimize the actions of the ruling elite. What we should do instead is boycott these fraudulent elections and engage in direct action in order to facilitate a popular uprising against the existing structure of our government. We need a nonviolent social revolution to create a new political paradigm. Under the current system, the perpetuation of empire is institutionally preordained. We are permitted to reshuffle the cards and deal a new hand now and then, but always from the same stacked deck.

The situation in Palestine, along with many of the violent conflicts in the world, is nothing more than a symptom of the disease that is U.S. Empire. Gaza is just one more bloody scene in an ongoing imperial nightmare of death and destruction. If we want to stop the senseless killing taking place in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many the other places, we must stand up and say no. Not just to the acts themselves, but to the fetid imperialist juggernaut which exports and cultivates them. Until we disrupt this cycle of corporate power mongering and violent militarism by refusing to participate in it, we have only ourselves to blame for the deaths of the innocent men, women and children who are the targets of our bombs. The blood is on your hands and mine. We are all war criminals now.

Israel claims to be defending itself against the crude, often homemade rockets which militant factions in Gaza fire randomly into southern Israel. Though it may be considered politically incorrect, this writer refuses to precede his remarks with the requisite, “It’s wrong for militant Palestinians to be firing rockets into Israel.” The ethics of Palestinian resistance to the Zionist colonization of Palestine and the dispossession of the Palestinian people is a subject for another article. The issue at hand is one of collective punishment. Regardless of the actions of certain factions in Gaza, the fact remains that Israel (with the approval of the U.S.and the world community) is depriving an entire civilian population of food, medicine and clean drinking water in response to the violent actions of a few among that population. By any civilized standard this behavior is wrong and should be condemned vociferously. To paraphrase the words of an alien from another planet in a not-so-great Hollywood movie of some years ago, every sentient being knows the difference between right and wrong.

Apparently not. Israel’s Foreign Minister and likely future Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, recently dismissed the notion that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to collective punishment and claimed those actions were a justifiable response to the rocket attacks on Israel. She stated, “The international community must be more decisive in making itself heard and in using its influence in the face of these attacks.”

To suggest that the international community should condemn “these attacks” by militant Palestinian factions, yet ignore the humanitarian disaster being imposed on Gaza by the government of Israel demonstrates a nearly incomprehensible level of hypocrisy. But more importantly, the fact that Jews are the ones perpetrating these unconscionable actions in Gaza is a tragedy of historic proportions. The Geneva Conventions, particularly those articles addressing the collective punishment of civilian populations, were largely crafted in response to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Has the sense of exclusivity and entitlement created by the Zionist experiment in Israel become so great that people there no longer see themselves in the mirror of their own history? The irony of Jews, among the most egregiously persecuted and maligned people in history, denying food to hundreds of thousands of children in order, allegedly, to insure their own security, is breathtaking. Who could ever have imagined such a thing?

As people of Gaza suffer, here in the U.S., the vast majority of so-called progressives continue to revel in the recent election of the first Black man to the Presidency. While Obama has garnered a great deal of political and financial support by pledging his unconditional support for the Zionist regime in Israel, he remains completely silent on the plight of the children of Gaza. Our first Black President not only refuses to speak out against the collective punishment of an oppressed people, he actively supports and encourages the regime responsible for this behavior. This too is a tragedy of historic proportions. Have we come this far in the struggle against racism in our country only to see Barack Obama put a minority face on U.S. support for violations of international law and essential human dignity by Israel? Again, one has to say, who could ever have imagined such a thing?

Each morning I peruse the alternative media online and hope to see at least some minor degree of outrage at the situation in Gaza. A small but courageous handful of progressive web sites dare to criticize Israel and speak out against the abuse of the Palestinian people. But for the most part, the glorious and powerful “NetRoots” movement is too busy congratulating itself on the so-called victory it has achieved in the recent elections, too busy celebrating the illusion of change which Barack Obama represents, to admit the absence of any indication of substantive change in U.S. foreign policy in Palestine or the Middle East under his coming administration.

Does it ever occur to those who so blindly and passionately rallied ‘round their candidate for the Presidency that they might now use their voices to encourage him to oppose the human rights abuses being orchestrated in Gaza? The sad reality is, not even a chorus of such voices is likely to alter the course Obama appears to have taken. He has surrounded himself with a familiar cast of armchair militarists, corporatists and hard core pro-Zionist zealots who will continue to give their unconditional support to Israel regardless of what barbaric tactics the government there uses to advance the colonization of Palestine. He is choosing to turn his back on the men, women and children in Gaza and the West Bank who suffer chronic malnutrition, desperate poverty, dispossession and daily humiliation at the hands of the Israeli military.

We should stand up in opposition to instances of human rights abuses whenever and wherever they occur. The situation in Gaza is only one on an unfortunately long list, locally, nationally and internationally. And U.S. government (that means you and me) support for and complicity in many such instances is no secret. If each of us were to do just one thing per week to address these issues, the result might surprise us all. Take a minute out from the long and endless chatter of day to day living and speak to a friend about the idea of social equality. Write one letter to the editor of your local paper in support of human rights. Spend just one percent of your online hours learning the truth about our complicity as U.S. citizens in the exploitation and degradation of other people and their cultures. Turn off your television. Go stand on a corner with a sign to protest war. Wear a button promoting peace and justice. One small thing at a time.

To those who became politically active, possibly for the first time, and expended their valuable enthusiasm and energy in order to see Barack Obama elected: thank you for being a part of history. Now why not try on the mantel of social activism? Write our President-elect a letter and suggest that he at least acknowledge the suffering of the people in Gaza. It is doubtful it will change him or his policies, but it may change you. And that truly is “change we can believe in.”

Every sentient being knows the difference between right and wrong. The question is, why do so few of us act on that knowledge?

I awoke this morning to exciting news. Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Yippie! The blogosphere is all atwitter. Our guy has worked hard, taken solid positions on all the most important progressive issues and managed to convince the exalted Mr. Powell to throw his support our way. Celebrations are in order. We’re one step closer to the Oval Office thanks to this latest breaking development. Oh, and for those of you who may have forgotten who Colin Powell is (history is so boring, isn’t it?) let’s take a moment to highlight some of his stellar qualifications as a supporter of the Left.

Powell is the guy who, as a bright young 31 year old Army Major, did his level best to keep information about the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam from becoming public. Specifically, he was charged with investigating a letter from a whistle-blowing soldier giving detailed accounts of many of the atrocities committed by U.S. military personnel in Vietnam under the auspices of the Phoenix Program. That program was a lovely little package of war crimes intended to “identify and neutralize (via infiltration, capture, or murder) the civilian infrastructure supporting the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (the Viet Cong).” In other words, it was a U.S. and South Vietnamese death squad operation which rampaged through the country side slaughtering civilians and burning down entire villages. You know, capturing the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. Powell summed up his investigation of the whistle-blower’s accusations by saying, “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”

Well that’s enough for me. If Powell endorsed the rousing success of the Phoenix Program, what more do we need to know? Queried about his participation in the attempted white wash of My Lai, some 40 years later Powell said, “I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again…” Personally, I think he sounds really sorry. And he’s seems to be bashing Republicans these days, so I like him a lot.

Fast forward to 2003. Then Secretary of State, Powell, made a triumphant speech to the United Nations outlining the urgent need for us to invade Iraq in a war of aggression in order to eliminate the massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein was going to use to invade and destroy the United States. Thank Buddha that Powell was able to use his dignity and gravitas to convince the world of the imminent danger. Imagine where we might be today without his steadfast endorsement of that magnificent war crime. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t into wearing a turban and having Saddam Hussein’s picture on the one dollar bill. I shudder to think of Brittany Spears in a burka. Of course, it’s a bit unfortunate that Powell’s speech to the U.N. was a pack of outright fabrications and lies. But I’ve forgiven him by now, especially since he’s decided to come out in favor our Our Guy Obama.

And while we’re at it, let’s catalog of few of Barack Obama’s progressive qualifications to be next President of the United States of Imperialism. Well first, there’s his adamant condemnation of the war in Iraq. Why, he was against it from the very start. Of course, that hasn’t prevented him from voting continually to fund the Occupation. But hey, he has to get elected before he can implement all his wonderful changey policies, right? You know, like maintaining a presence of 50,000 to 80,000 troops in Iraq, along with a dozen or so permanent military bases and the world’s largest foreign embassy. Then there is his pledge to escalate the “good war” in Afghanistan. We’ve only killed about 10,000 or so innocent civilians there in the last few years. I won’t feel safe until we can push those numbers much higher. And Pakistan? Sending robot drones out to drop bombs on people is my kind of progressive war. Obama has assured us he’ll continue that policy and actually increase the number of illegal violations of that country’s sovereignty. Right on.

But let’s not stop there. The list of Oboma’s support for progressive issues is a long one. For instance, he endorsed immunity for the Telecoms. It’s a good thing, too. We can’t have corporations facing legal action or law suits for spying on us. After all, they are only trying to protect us from terrorists. And Barack is a true friend to the Zionist regime in Israel. He’ll do everything in his power to prevent those nasty Iranians from destroying Israel and driving them into the sea. Israel’s apartheid colonization of the West Bank, in direct violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions is inconvenient for the Palestinians. But what the heck. They don’t have much of a Lobby in Washington. And you hardly ever have to read about their suffering, not even in the so-called Progressive media. Why, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything at all about the suffering of the Palestinian people on Air America. So who needs to worry about them? We can still hear and read non-stop Obamadulation, no matter how bad things may be in Gaza. What’s wrong with that?

The prospects for the progressive agenda in an Obama administration are bursting out all over. Obama will make sure we don’t have National Health Care. We have to keep our insurance companies in the loop so they can stay strong. And clean coal! Finally an intelligent advocate for that fantasy technology. I was worried that one of the most toxic forms of energy production in operation today might be hindered. Not under an Obama reign. Along with more Nuclear Power plants, which Obama favors, we should be able to stave off the threat of clean energy technologies for years to come. Well, okay, we can throw the environmentalists a few bones, but let’s not get carried away. We need to hold a few promises of a greener world in reserve to toss around during the midterm elections. And we’ve got 2012 to think about.

Besides, it’s about the economy, stupid. Speaking of which, now that Obama has helped usher in the nearly one trillion dollar handout to the banking industry, we should see prosperity on the horizon any day now. Obama has told us he has great faith in Secretary of the Treasury Paulson and his plan to save the American consumer. Just look at what a fine job Paulson did as Chairman of Goldman Saks? They gave him over half a billion dollars in bonuses and compensation when he left to become our Treasury Secretary, just two years before Goldman Saks went belly up. He must have done some great work for them. Why else would he get paid so much?

Well, I could go on and on. There are so many reasons for progressives to rally round Obama. Like his support for the death penalty and the Cuban embargo, just to mention two more. But I need to get busy planning tonight’s party in celebration of Colin Powell’s endorsement of our fine, pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-imperialist, pro-Zionist, pro-military-industrial-complex left wing hero. The future has never looked so bright for progressives. Being for Change has really lifted our spirits and bolstered attendance at our campaign rallies. I’m hoping that sometime in the next few days we’ll get Henry Kissinger to sign on with us. What a boon that would be. Like I always say, if your going to support a candidate who doesn’t represent any of the values you believe in, then you can’t have too many bloodthirsty war criminals endorsing him.

I won’t quote any of the wonderful sound bites he uses. It’s tough to argue against that kind of pablum. Race is bad. Americans are good. And who in their right minds would criticize cute little Ashley and the Martin Luther King references? One sentence (and a bit of a run on sentence at that) provides all the basis we need for analysis of Mr. Obama’s breathtaking moment of historical pandering. In reference to remarks critical of the United States made by his pastor (which, by the way, were accurate assessments of historical fact) Obama says, “They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

Right. First of all, who actually believes that white racism is not “endemic” in this country? And who doesn’t get it that most of what is “right with America” is in fact little more than a series of flowery myths which obscure our deep-seated narcissism and rampant history of imperialist war mongering? But the most “audacious” hypocrisy in the entire speech is the implication that the conflicts in the Middle East emanate from “the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical islam.” Of course, European and Western colonialism and imperialism have no bearing on the discussion and our stalwart ally, Israel, has nothing to do with the situation. Radical islam just popped up out of the fertile sands of the cradle of civilization with no provocation or rational historical context.

Praising Israel in a speech about racism is like praising the history of White South Africa in a speech about civil rights. Has the fact that Israel is a Zionist state completely escaped the minds of all the Obamakins?

For a brief update: Zionism is the political ideology which promotes the exclusivity of Jews in Israel over any other racial, religious or ethnic group. Zionism, by definition, is racism. Israel, with the full support and funding of the United States, flagrantly violates international law and engages in the systematic ethnic cleansing and oppression of the Palestinian people as well as in the establishment of an apartheid system, not just in the West Bank and Gaza, but in Israel proper. The illegal colonization of Palestinian lands is an international crime and a model of institutionalized racism which is without equal any where in the world in that it is so widely ignored and even encouraged by the majority of so-called civilized nations. More importantly, what is largely forgotten in the little discussion there is of illegal settlement activities being practiced by Israel, is that the settlements themselves are racially exclusive. Jews only need apply. Palestinians aren’t even allowed to drive on the same roads as the Israelis in the Palestinians’ own territory. I wonder how Mr. Obama would respond if Canada decided to build huge whites-only cities in U.S. territory. I wonder if he would be willing to refrain from driving on a series of Canadians-only roads connecting those illegal colonies. It would only be a security precaution, after all, and Canada is such a stalwart ally or ours.

So-called liberals should examine their consciences before they bow down at the alter of Obamakinism. He has a lot of wonderful, albeit vapid things to say on the subject of race. Indeed, he has a unique platform and perspective from which to address this and other issues. Unfortunately, he is too busy selling out to the Israel lobby and a vast array of corporate interests to actually rise to the occasion in any substantive fashion.

On the surface Barak Obama may constitute one of the more palatable lesser of two evils we have been offered in quite some time. But he is still only the lesser of two evils. He offers us nothing more than a continuation of the United States’ corporate militarism and imperialist policies as well as the unquestioning support of a racist regime in Israel. For the last 60 years (at least) we have “lesser-of-two-evilled” ourselves into the position we are currently in on this planet. If we want actual “change” in our country and the world, we must move toward a true social revolution and not accept more of the same sound-bite political rhetoric. No matter what color the candidate may be on the outside, and no matter how inspiring his speeches and slogans may be, it is an honest examination of what is in his head, his heart and his bank account (and who put it there) that matters.

Obama represents the same old wine in a brand new bottle. And the bottle is too opaque to see into, even if “progressives” were willing to take off their rose colored glasses long enough to have a look inside. To quote one more line from Obama’s speech: “But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” I couldn’t agree more. Too bad Obama doesn’t have the courage to include Israel’s state-sponsored bigotry against the Palestinian people in his definition of racism.