Saturday, December 31, 2005

What is happening in Gaza?

Three British aid workers who were recently kidnapped have been released. Israel begins shelling the northern sector of the Gaza strip, ostensibly in retaliation to rocket attacks on Israel from that region. Israel has also created a 'buffer zone' in the north of the Gaza Strip. Clearly security is the preserve of the Israelis, and it is for the Palestinians to surrender land (and rights) for the benefit and security of Israelis.

In amongst all this, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself after being caught at a checkpoint near Tulkarem (one of the main checkpoints into Israel situated in the north-west of the West Bank). In the process he killed one Israeli soldier and at least two Palestinian civilians who were sitting in the taxi he was in.

What on earth is going on??? Must be election time again...

The more I think about the suicide attack, the angrier I get. Not only because I too sat in crowded taxis with total strangers which passed through checkpoints like the one at Tulkarem. What if I had been in the taxi involved in the explosion? Imagine having to confront such threats on a daily basis? What makes me particularly angry is that such attacks harm Palestinians far more than they harm Israel's occupation - directly and indirectly. Directly because two Palestinians are dead. Indirectly because the attack gives Israel licence to collectively punish more Palestinians and because it gives the West's corporate media the opportunity to depict the Palestinians as nihilistic terrorists.

For the record, I should probably state that, as horrible an act as suicide terrorism is, an attack solely targetting Israel's military (which could arguably include armed settlers under the Geneva Conventions) is probably a legitimate act of opposition to a military occupation. Whether it is tactically wise is another question. Further, I don't think this assessment in anyway goes towards refuting the claim that war is an inherently immoral act. War is terrorism. But war is war.

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