- Jenin - Operation Home and Garden Archived Message
Posted by Jackie
on July 6, 2023, 4:39 pm
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From Zatoun.com https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/92207/92903259246692338 Killing Palestine It is often with heavy heart that we approach news from Palestine and especially Gaza and Jenin. These two places serve as Israel's whipping posts - a bad day in the Knesset or in the polls or at the UN is a good excuse. This week yet again we see a monstrous invasion (in a very long list); this time on Jenin in the West Bank. It's scale is unprecedented in a generation, using helicopters and bulldozers on civilians defenceless except for small arms. To put military might into perspective, Israel's annual IDF budget is over $25 billion which is 125% that of Canada's military - a country with 5 times the population and 482 times the land mass. Similarly, the IDF budget is 25% greater than the GDP for the entire West Bank & Gaza with 5 million people. Is there any word other than war crime to describe this invasion? In 2002, Jenin refugee camp was razed and many dozens of residents massacred - this is captured in the searing documentary film, Jenin, Jenin (can be viewed free on vimeo - 53 min with subtitles). Jenin is again suffering the bottomless animus of Israel which is using gigantic militarized bulldozers to plough roads and obliterate buildings as well as infrastructure in one pass - just as a might a farm tractor in an Iowa cornfield. In 2002, there was no social media or smartphones to get images and video out to the world. But neither was there the online monopolies, search censorship, deplatforming, surveillance and IHRA whip. Just as Palestinians and supporters find new tools to help in the struggle, so also Israel finds ways to neutralize them. As with the saying "more things change, the more they stay the same;" we can also see enormous ongoing shifts which eventually may favour Palestine. Killing the Witness Perhaps even sicker than the killing is the shocking and vile name given to this military invasion - Operation Home and Garden. In some respects this is as great a violence as the killing of Palestinians and destruction of their cities. The name used is a deliberate affront to every thread of morality that binds humankind and makes it worthy of the name. Israel toys with life and persons but with such a name it also mocks the very idea of humanity. It is a giant middle finger to all regardless of geography, ethnicity, religion, gender, politics or values. It is killing the soul of the witness by degrading and trivializing humanity. Morals, dignity, life do not matter, all that counts is the power to kill with impunity while turning it into a joke. It is normalizing the abnormal, the inhuman and the unacceptable. We can ask: Why? Why such determination? Why such anti-life, anti-faith, anti-spirit, anti-moral, anti-human actions? Why this devotion to hubris to the false gods of power and violence? When will it fly too close to the sun? What can we as individuals, as civil society do about it? Killing the Messenger Sadly, Palestine is not often seen for its heroism and sacrifice standing up to a regime and ideology which is slowly taking hold of so many nation-states especially in the vaunted, over-hyped western democracies. They are falling precipitously - in their economy, in their military, in the legislatures and the law courts. What is to replace them? Global Palestine, Global Zionism Israel is showing the way for national power centres to do the same. Israel has been a pioneer, a scout and trailblazer in this realm. We can see this immediately in the title of Jeff Halper's 2015 book, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification (talk by Halper on Youtube) and a very recent book by Antony Lowenstein entitled, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world. (Interview on Democracy Now). We can ask the same questions again - why such anti-life, anti-faith, anti-spirit, anti-moral, anti-human actions? Why this devotion to the false gods of power and violence? What can we as individuals, as civil society do to help end it? We are united in the resolve that Palestine will not die "All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind." Robert F. Kennedy At times like this we see the best, most trusted reporting coming from a handful of small outlets operating on a shoestring putting to shame name journals and journalists. Please support these sites with every dollar you can spare: middleeasteye.net, electronicintifada.net, mondoweiss.net, palestinechronicle.com, 972mag.com Also please support the Media Accountability Project (MAP) which is monitoring and holding the traditional media in Canada accountable for bias, whitewashing and factual errors. We thank them for their service to truth and a better world. |
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