USA Today has published an article – a complaint, actually, titled “Israeli ‘pause’ of Gaza attacks woefully inadequate. Why are we still waiting for cease-fire?”. It is written by Rami Nashashibi, who tells us he is a Palestinian, a MacArthur Foundation fellow, and founder and executive director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network.
Here is how it begins – in rust, with my comments in blue:
Thursday’s White House announcement of daily four-hour “pauses” of Israeli attacks in light of the carnage and destruction Gazans have endured over the past month is woefully inadequate given the magnitude of the devastation. A fair opening point. Now let’s talk about why the attacks took place and why Israel is not implementing a cease fire.
The bombing campaign has led United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to declare that the Gaza Strip, one of the most impoverished and densely concentrated open-air prisons in the world, is now becoming “a graveyard for children.” No surprise there. The United Nations, which consists of one Jewish state, compared to 22 Arab States (which control much of the world’s oil supply) and 49 Muslim-majority states, unfailingly goes against Israel on just about everything. That’s not a right or wrong thing, it’s a there’s a lot of them and just one Israel thing. Now: how come Gaza is so impoverished? It gets billions of dollars in aid a year and has the potential to be a major Mediterranean tourist destination. We’re going to be talking about that, right? Uhhh…..right???
Unlike other horrific spaces of suffering right now such as Sudan, Congo and Ethiopia, it is U.S. weapons and U.S. money bankrolling Israel’s war machine with billions of dollars annually. Yet when President Joe Biden was asked Thursday what the chances of a cease-fire were, he answered, “None.” Asking again: why would this be the case? Why would Israel be against a cease-fire? And, while we’re at it, why is Israel in Gaza in the first place. You haven’t mentioned a word about that yet. Will you in the rest of the article? We’ll see….
When asked whether Israel’s “retaliatory strikes” have been working since Hamas attacked Oct. 7, he responded, “They’re working in the sense that we’re hitting the targets they’re seeking” – as if to confirm that this is a joint U.S.-Israeli-led operation. Well, we’ve at least got an admission that Israel is reacting to “an attack”. Completely generic wording. But nothing mentioned about the extent of the attack, how many deaths it caused, that virtually all the deaths were of innocent civilians including women, and children, and that hamas is holding over 200 of them hostage (assuming they aren’t already dead). Will that part of the story be coming?
In answer to my last question, no. Mr. Nashashibi does not mention any specifics of what prompted Israel’s attack. He also does not mention:
-the fact that its stated objective is to remove hamas,
-no mention of the fact that hamas has been in control of Gaza almost from the time Israel handed this land to Palestinian Arabs (that’s right, the land comprising Gaza was GIVEN to Palestinian Arabs by Israel) and
-no mention of the fact that instead of using the billions and billions of dollars it receives each year for infrastructure and, more generally, the betterment of Gazans’ quality of life, it has instead used the money to arm, build tunnels for military purposes and attack Israel whenever possible.
This is hardly a surprise, given that hamas’ own charter states, in so many words, that its first order of business (in its preamble) is the obliteration of Israel – and, further on (article 7), that it is committed to kill all Jews, not just in Israel but everywhere else around the world.
Now why do you suppose none of that is included in Mr. Nashashibi’s commentary? Why, in his world, none of this is part of why Israel has decided, after enduring attacks from hamas-controlled Gaza all these years, enough was enough and hamas had to be removed…and why providing a cease-fire, which would give hamas time to regroup/re-arm, is out of the question.
I’ll leave it for you to figure that out. I doubt you’ll have much trouble doing so.
