The Gaza Genocide

I find it very hard to describe or comment on what is happening in words...after watching the footage of children being taken to hospitals and morgues on stretchers and then hearing the deftening silence from the rest of the world...what can I say? I guess the more important question is, what can I do?

Two articles on Electronic Intifada provide some insight, although, it really doesn't take a genius political analyst to understand the situation because Israel no longer cares about hiding, or justifying its brutal measures, and the rest of the world does not even pretend to care. They're too busy preparing for Israel's 60th anniversary celebration, or slapping more restrictions on Iran for developing imaginary nuclear weapons.

The Gaza Genocide, by Laila Haddad - excerpts:

Is it only when Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai used the word shoah to describe what will come to Gaza that some media outlets took note. Here was an Israeli government official himself invoking the Holocaust, of his people's most horrific massacre, in reference to the fate of Gaza.

...

It is as though what has been happening in Gaza -- what continues to happen -- whether by way of the deliberate and sustained siege and blockade, or the mounting civilian death toll, is acceptable, and even encouraged. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has said that genocide "is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip" after much thought and deliberation.

But the real genocide in Gaza cannot or will not be assessed through sheer numbers. It is not a massacre of gas chambers. No.

It is a slow and calculated genocide -- a genocide through more calibrated, long-term means. And if the term is used in any context, it should be this. In many ways, this is a more sinister genocide, because it tends to be overlooked: all is ok in Gaza, the wasteland, the hostile territory that is accustomed to slaughter and survival; Gaza, whose people are somehow less human; we should not take note, need not take note, unless there is a mass killing or starvation.

Continue here

The Time for Worldwide Boycott is Now, by Omar Barghouti

Going back to the question of whether anything should and could be done to stop Israel, the answer is a certain yes. South African apartheid crimes were challenged not only by the heroic struggle of the oppressed masses on the ground in South Africa; they were also fought by worldwide campaigns of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the regime, with all its complicit economic, academic, cultural, and athletic institutions. Similarly, international civil society can, and ought to, apply the same measures of non-violent justice to bring about Israel's compliance with international law and basic human rights. Even the threat of sanctions has proven effective enough in the past to halt Israel's repeated campaigns of death and devastation.

Complete article here