Thursday, June 29, 2006
The Gaza Action
Last Sunday Palestinian militants raided an Israeli Army checkpoint, killed a couple of soldiers, and kidnapped one. On Monday Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, promised a punitive strike if the soldier wasn’t freed.
Israel responded by sending its army into Gaza City and the West Bank a few days ago, almost completely destroying the Gaza City power plant and sweeping through the city looking for the lost soldier. Now few of the 1.3 million Gaza residents have power. The water pumps lack power and now many don’t have a water supply. Hospitals and clinics now lack power. Medicines in refrigerators have gone bad. Israel also bombed several bridges and completely surrounded the city, with Prime Minister Olmert saying “From now, according to instructions given by myself and the defense minister, Gaza is sealed off by sea and land. No one goes out and no one comes in.”
Israeli defense forces sent bulldozers and tanks into the West Bank, destroying homes and shops. Some children were shot in the legs in the course of anti-terror operations by Israel’s special forces.
Israel also arrested 64 members of Palestine’s Hamas government yesterday.
All of this, ladies and gentlemen, to recover one young soldier who is a hostage. Does this make sense to you? If some militant organization in San Diego kidnapped a US serviceman from the San Diego Naval Station or Miramar would the National Guard surround San Diego, imprison everyone in the city, bomb the power plant, and then send tanks, bulldozers, and Navy SEALs rampaging around the city, crippling children with errant gunfire and setting fire to small businesses? As the people without power or water in the imprisoned city suffered do you think there would be some criticism of the military forces?
The actions of the IDF are simply that of collective punishment, what Israel has been doing for generations. Cut off water and power to the city, imprison the populace, send troops and tanks across the region (with the inevitable fatalities, accidental shootings, people dying from lack of power in the hospitals, etc.), then watch the 1.3 million people suffer.
My Chicago Tribune, which is Dead to Me, had nothing to say about the ridiculously draconian Israeli response. Shame on them. But, then again, they have no shame. That’s why they’re Dead to Me. Human Rights Watch, however, has voiced concerns identical to mine.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 10:39 AM 
