Keep Your Eye on the Ball; This Is Not about Rockets

by Stuart Littlewood / January 1st, 2009

What if Hamas dumped all their rockets in the sea tomorrow? Would Gazans enjoy the same freedoms as other nations? Would they be able to open their sea port to foreign ships and rebuild and operate their airport? Would they be able to import and export and carry on trade and develop their economy and prosper like other countries?

Would they be allowed to exploit and develop their offshore gas field? Would their fishermen be allowed to fish in unpolluted waters? Would their young people be able to come and go and take up places at foreign universities?

Would Israel clear out of Gazan airspace permanently? Would the Israeli navy cease its piracy and stay out of Palestinian territorial waters? Would you and I be able to visit Gaza direct?

Fat chance. None of this would suit Israel. So Gazans would be no better off. Their tormented half-existence would continue.

There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and ‘administrative detention’ of civilians and the massive interference with freedom of movement. Nothing has changed for West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets. There is no sign of an end to their misery.

The bloody assault on Gaza therefore has much more to do with Israel’s ambition to expand racial dominance in the Holy Land than crude and erratic rocket-fire. Hamas and the Palestinians holed up in Gaza are simply in the way of the Grand Plan and have to be removed or totally subdued.

The international community needs to keep their eye on the ball — the big issue — which is the ending of the occupation and Israel’s withdrawal to recognized pre-67 borders as required by international law. In short, they need to stop wringing their hands and start delivering justice, which is long overdue.

Palestinians in Gaza will hardly wish to give up armed resistance until they receive copper-bottomed guarantees of a normal life unmolested by Israel… and see concrete evidence of it.

Stuart Littlewood, after working on jet fighters in the RAF, became an industrial marketeer in oil, electronics and manufacturing, and with innovation and product development consultancies. He also served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and a member of the Police Authority. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and has produced two photo-documentary books including Radio Free Palestine (with foreword by Jeff Halper). Now retired, he campaigns on various issues, especially the Palestinians' struggle for freedom. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

This article was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 12:16pm and is filed under Crimes against Humanity, Israel (Historical Palestine), Zionism.

7 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Deadbeat said on January 1st, 2009 at 1:28pm #

    Passinger57,

    What is the real point of your post other than to deflect and obscure Zionism using reverse psychology. The tactic here is to imbue fear of a backlash against Jews in order to demobilize any real confrontation against Zionism. The Left has unfortunately adopted and has spread that fear in order to demobilize activism against Zionism. The people who read DV clearly understands the xenophobia and the Antisemitism of the Right and would never suggest embracing such rhetoric. However your post doesn’t aid the effort of constructing the kind of analysis and build the kind of action needed to confront Zionism and its influence upon U.S. policy.

  2. Passenger 57 said on January 1st, 2009 at 4:53pm #

    I don’t know why the fascists of Dissident Voice delete my post. So much for a democratic, socialist blogger.

    I demand freedom of speech now, not fascism !!

    .

  3. DavidG. said on January 1st, 2009 at 5:25pm #

    Stuart, there is as much chance of Israel accepting a two-state solution as there is of me flapping my arms and flying.

    Israel is building a Jewish Empire and it wants not only all the Palestinian’s land but a chunk of Lebanon and Syria as well (and who knows whether it will stop there).

    The creation of Israel was a huge geo-political mistake!

  4. The Angry Peasant said on January 1st, 2009 at 6:14pm #

    I agree with DavidG. Putting the Jews where we put them has proven to be far and away the most colossal mistake of the twentieth century. If it hadn’t been for the Jews own religious zealotry, we probably wouldn’t have. Surely there were plenty of unoccupied or under-occupied regions on this planet where they could have gone. Or perhaps they could have gone to many different countries and assimilated. Yet instead, we stole another country to make room for a new imperialist. It has led to decades and decades of bloodshed and global tension, and ultimately, I have little doubt, the third world war.
    And then of course there is AIPAC. Rooted in the sixties, by the 1980’s this ridiculously powerful lobby had three-quarters of Congress in its back pocket. Reagan consulted AIPAC Director Thomas A. Dine concerning whether or not to station Marines in Beirut after Israel’s aggression there, and AIPAC has had the ear of virtually every President, senator, and congressman since. It was in the 80’s that AIPAC began deciding American Middle East policy. At that time, there were only about 58,000 active members of AIPAC and four Washington lobbyists. Now, AIPAC has grown into an undefeatable monster which has intimidated American politicians to a point where they now don’t dare even question Israel, no matter how grotesque its displays of tyranny over the Mideast region.
    Amazing what the world (and of course Palestine) has endured and keeps enduring because of what Hitler did to a few million Jews, isn’t it?

  5. mary said on January 2nd, 2009 at 1:31am #

    Stu works very hard in the fight to get justice and freedom for the Palestinians and it is good to see his latest article here.

    An excellent source of daily and up-to-date information about the Middle East can be found on Uruknet. Their main page today, as it is most days, is a litany of the harmful effects of the unspeakable horror being faced by the people in Gaza, Occupied Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to their Editors and also to the Editors on this site who enable us to read the work of the contributing authors and to give our opinions thereon. They are both very important resources particularly at this time.
    http://uruknet.info/?p=-6&l=e

  6. james nelson said on January 2nd, 2009 at 9:51am #

    There is, of course, also the issue of UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and the right of return for those refugees who had to leave during the “Nakba”.
    Your “what if …..?” premise, however, is spot on!

  7. purplepatriot said on January 4th, 2009 at 2:23pm #

    Modern Israel exists largely in response to the genocide against Jews in Europe. It was an horrific episode in human history and Jewish outrage is understandable. Unfortunately, by international agreement the Palestinians have been required to atone for European sins against the Jews. The situation offends anyone interested in justice. An international solution establishing a new, sovereign Palestinian state is long overdue. Perhaps Obama can provide the leadership that Bush clearly could not, but the Europeans and Arab states that feign so much outrage must make sacrifices of their own to find a solution. A new Palestinian state extending from the coast of Gaza to the Jordanian border, supported by European and Arab economic and infrastructure investment and protected initially by UN peacekeeping forces and embraced by the US, would seem to be a constructive step forward. In return for international support, the Palestinians must firmly renounce and effectively prevent any acts of terror on their behalf. For it’s forfeiture of land, Israel gets a real chance at lasting peace – and to cleanse her hands of sixty years of injustice.