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Israel bombs Palestine off the map
Eduardo Galeano
To
justify itself, state terrorism fabricates
terrorists, sows hates and presents alibis.
Indications are that the butchery in Gaza, which
according to its perpetuators, is about eliminating
terrorists, will create more.
 Some
150 London protesters denounce conditions in Gaza on
August 14.
Dylan Martínez/ Reuters.
Since 1948, Palestinians have been condemned to
perpetual humiliation. They cannot breathe without
permission. They have lost their country, their
land, their water, their liberty, their all. They do
not even have the right to elect their rulers. When
they vote for those they are not supposed to
support, they are punished. Gaza is being punished.
It has become a rat hole without escape, since Hamas
fairly won the elections in 2006.
Something similar happened in 1932, when the
Communist Party won the elections in El Salvador. A
bloodbath ensued, and Salavdorans did penance for
their bad behavior, living under military
dictatorships for years. Democracy is a luxury not
everyone deserves.
The
homemade rockets manufactured by Hamas militants are
a product of impotence, shot with little precision
into lands which were once Palestinian, now occupied
by Israeli usurpers. This desperation, alongside
suicidal madness, produces ineffective bravado
denying Israel’s right to exist, while the very
effective, perpetual war of extermination continues
to deny Palestine’s right to exist. Very little of
what was Palestine remains. Step by step, Israel is
erasing it from the map.
The
colonists invade; then come the soldiers, to adjust
the border. Bullets follow the usurpation, in
“legitimate defense.” There is no aggressive war
which does not claim to de defensive, Hitler invade
Poland to ensure that Poland would not invade
Germany. Bush invaded Iraq to prevent Iraq from
invading the world. In every one of its allegedly
defensive wars, Israel has eaten up another piece of
Palestine and the banquet continues. The land grab
is justified by property titles awarded by the Bible
for the 2,000 years of persecution the Jewish people
suffered, and by Palestinians lying in wait.
Israel is the country which never follows United
Nations recommendations or resolutions, never abides
by international court rulings, and is the only
country to have legalized torture of prisoners.
Who
gave Israel the right to deny others all rights?
Where has Israel acquired impunity to carry out a
massacre in Gaza?
The
Spanish government could not have bombed the Basque
Country to eliminate the ETA without facing
consequences, nor could the British government
attack Ireland to get rid of the IRA. Dopes the
tragedy of the Holocaust imply perpetual impunity?
Or does the green light come from the United States,
as a gift to its most loyal ally?
The
Israeli army, the world’s most sophisticated and
modern, knows who it is killing. It does not kill by
mistake; it kills to horrify. The civilian victims
are called collateral damage, according to the
dictionary of imperialist war. In Gaza, three of
every ten Palestinians killed are children. Add to
that thousands of injured, victims of human
dismemberment technology, which the military
industry is successfully using in this ethnic
cleansing operation.
And
as always, in Gaza, it’s 100 to one. For every
Israeli killed, 100 Palestinians.
Dangerous people, the media bombardment asserts.
These media are in charge of the manipulation of
facts, and invite us to believe that one Israeli
life is worth 100 Palestinian lives – the same media
who invite us to believe that Israel’s 200 atomic
bombs are for humanitarian purposes.
Does
the so-called international community exist?
Is
it something more than a club for merchants, bankers
and war-mongers? Is it something more than the
artistic name the United States uses when performing
theater?
Faced with the tragedy of Gaza, world hypocrisy is
once again made apparent. As always, indifference,
empty speeches, hollow statements and ambiguous
positions thinly veil the continuing impunity.
Faced with the tragedy of Gaza, Arab countries wash
their hands. As always, Europe rubs theirs.
In
Europe, so capable of beauty and of perversity, a
few tears are shed, while secretly the masterful
move is celebrated. Since the hunting of Jews was
always a European custom, but for more than 50
years, the historic debt is being paid by
Palestinians, who are also Semites, and were never,
nor are, anti-Semitic. They are paying, cold and
hard, a debt which is not theirs.
*
Uruguayan writer, author of the Open Veins of
Latin America (1971), Memory of Fire
(1986) and Upside Down: A Primer for the
Looking-Glass World (1999), among many others.
This
article was first published in 2012 on various
alternative websites. Granma International
reproduces it at this time given its continuing
relevance.
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