Sunday, August 31, 2014

The GAZA war 2014



The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The map shows the territory of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan heights. The West Bank together with the Gaza Strip constitutes the "Palestinian territories". This is the geographical scene of the Arab-Israeli conflict that has lasted almost 100 years. The territorial boundaries defined by the Rhodes Arab-Israeli armistice agreements of 1949 are red marked.
In the summer of 2014 a new war was started, another episode of the endless series of conflict between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
 
The 2014 GAZA war
The armed conflict between Gaza and Israel began on July 8, 2014 and lasted 29 days, it was triggered by two tragedies, the kidnapping and killing of three young Israeli settlers, and the killing of a Palestinian boy for revenge. From these facts, the political calculus and barbarism have triggered a new war. Launching of rockets by Hamas-Palestinians against Israel, and aerial bombardment of Gaza followed by the Israeli ground troops invasion.
On August 5, when the two sides agreed to a first truce, the tragic result of one month of hostility is 1,850 Palestinians killed and 9,500 casualties. The UN estimates that between these there are at least 1,312 civilians, including 408 children and adolescents and 214 women. Israel's military dead are 64, and three civilians were killed by rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. For one Israeli 27 Palestinians killed!
Ca. 485. 000 refugees are forced to leave their homes, to take refuge in UNRWA schools or by friends or relatives. The provisional estimate of the damage caused by the bombing amounted to $ 5 billion.
Once again, the world is witness of a new act of a never ending tragedy. Dismay is strong, the television images of civilian casualties and the destruction is tormenting. UN,  USA and Europe condemn the conflict, they act through diplomatic channels, but no one can stop the demon of war.
The never-ending conflict 
At the root of the Palestine-Israel conflict is the clash of two reasons: the right of two populations who compete for the same territory. Facts have proved that these two populations are not able to dialog, every initiative failed, the parties have not been able to find a solution to the conflict. Their most extreme factions at political level block every peace initiative. Too much hatred and desire for revenge have been accumulated. The moderate forces, the more civilized, more educated and wise are in the minority.
In face of this tragedy without end, the most developed and powerful nations of the world and those who claim a leadership role, those who feel to be civilized, those who are responsible for the balance of the world, are not able to act. And they are forced to do so because they are indirectly involved with their geo-politic and economic interests in the conflict.
Who has made the Israeli army one of the most powerful in the world? From where are the F16 aircraft, the combat helicopters, the smart bombs, the drone and all the other hi-tech war equipments? Who finance HAMAS and has supplied kalaschnikov machine guns and long-range rockets?
The unresolved Palestinian problem, with its continuous wars, is a cancer that threatens to propagate worldwide, destroying everything. Evidence of the facts is: the intensification of the conflict between Arab and Western cultures, the extremist-Islam and international terrorism.  
The wise people opinion 
Regarding the situation in Israel and Palestine, David Grossman, one of the most famous and important writers of Israel, in an essay argues that Israelis and Palestinians run the risk of dying of suffocation in a bubble of hatred and violence:
"In this tumour bubble, brutal and without hope, both parties are right. Both hears the law of evil, the law of force, of war, revenge and hatred "
D.Grossman imagines both Israelis and Palestinians convicted in a Dante's Inferno, and represents them as a pair of desperate people who drag a huge millstone, that runs perpetually destroying and overwhelming their innocent victims.
The Israeli government has never been able to enter into negotiations for peace because it is controlled by right-wing extremists, the settlers and the religious fundamentalists. The Israeli people have lost the sense of reality because they are prisoner of fear, they are surrounded by enemies and remember the sufferings of the Jews in the history. The hope is that the more moderate and wise forces in Israel are able to enforce the message that peace can only be achieved through dialogue, compromise and recognition of Palestinian rights. As long as Gaza is an open air prison, a “Lager”, there will be no security for the Israelis. As long as the Jewish settlements are occupying the Palestinian land, Israel will have no future.
Zeev Sternhell Holocaust survivor, former professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and eminent scholar, shares the thought of David Grossman. He argues that the occupied Palestinian territories were colonized by Israel, implementing a regime of Apartheid. Gaza has been transformed into a giant internment camp, a concentration camp. According to him the only solution of the conflict is the creation of two independent states, each with its own territory and its population. Israelis and Palestinians must recognize territorial boundaries as those defined by the Arab-Israeli armistice agreements of Rhodes in 1949. These agreements put an end to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and established the armistice lines that have been observed up to the Six Day War of 1967.
We are at a "zero" point 
It's time to stop! The civilized world should no longer tolerate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and must impose peace. The common European opinion can be resumed at some fixed points:
Israel has to end with a policy of colonization of Palestine and the Apartheid regime imposed on the Palestinians.
Israel has to lift the blockade of Gaza, now reduced in a concentration camp.
Israel has to cease with the policy of the Jewish settlements in the territories of Palestine.
Israel has to withdraw from the territories occupied in the Six-Day-War and recognize the borders established in the agreements of 1949.
Israel has to accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State west of the Jordan River.
From their part, the Palestinians have to recognize that:
Israel has the right to exist as an independent state within the boundaries assigned by the agreements of 1949.
Terrorism must be banned as a method of political pressure.
Conclusion 
The monologue disguised as dialogue, in which Israelis and Palestinians speak only with themselves and listen only to their own reasons, must be broken. To do this an external multilateral intervention  is necessary, the conflict is not local and represent a global danger, a danger to everyone in the world.
Sandro
September 01, 2014

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