Crushing Palestine, Again

     By Reginald Johnson
     November 21, 2012



All I can say is, as a progressive, I am so glad I cast my vote in the recent election for third party candidate Rocky Anderson, and not for Barack Obama.


It is downright offensive to me that as missiles rain down on the impoverished and enslaved people of Gaza --- courtesy of the Israeli military, using American-made weapons ---- Obama flies off to Myanamar and to meet with human rights dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.

What right does he have to talk about human rights? Scores of civilians are being killed in the Gaza assault, hundreds being wounded. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Infrastructure is being leveled. Israel is launching this attack on the usual pretext, some mumbo jumbo about how the Hamas faction of Palestine poses a mortal threat to Israel and has to be removed. Really? Did Hamas ever send an army and air force into Israel killing more than 1400 civilians in the process? That’s what the Israeli military did to Gaza in December of 2008 and January of 2009.

Obama had just been elected president at that time, and he said nothing about the Israeli aggression. His excuse that time was, he wasn’t president yet, and he didn’t want to interfere with the administration of then president George W. Bush.

What’s his excuse now? Does he care? I think not. This is the same man who has calmly ordered dozens of drone strikes on targets around the world, supposedly to kill terrorists, but in the process killing hundreds of innocent civilians in countries like Pakistan and Yemen. The drone strikes appear to violate international law, since these are sovereign nations and permission for these strikes hasn’t been given.

When Obama returns from his Asia trip, I suppose he will take some steps to restrain Israel a little bit. He or his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make some entreaty amounting to, ‘Please Israel, don’t go too far. We really do support you, but it looks bad to kill too many.’ Then the carnage will stop, and some shaky truce will be reached. But by that time, who knows how many innocents, including children, will have been killed.

It is just shameful what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians, and equally shameful that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to support this bloodletting.