Something is stopping the Defence Forces from launching the ground attack into Gaza that should have followed the aerial bombardment that has been pounding that unfortunate strip of land for the last two weeks. I suspect there are two reasons for that hesitation: first, IDF cowardice. The IDF was made to leave the Gaza Strip back in 2016, when there was a Palestinian government elected there. I don’t suppose there’s any feeling of not being wanted, because if there was, they would leave Palestine.
I’m not sure how far the Jewish right of self-defence is supposed to go, but I doubt if even the most bellicose and expansive Zionist would go as far as claiming that it would cover the killing of a six-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois. He was stabbed to death by his landlord, who also wounded his mother, who was in hospital after being stabbed a dozen times. The little boy was stabbed 26 times by Jospeh Czuba, 71. Czuba has been charged not just with murder and attempted murder, but also with having committed a hate crime.
Waeda was not the youngest Palestinian killed this year. Muhammad Tamimi was killed after being shot in the head in June, while leaving home with his father in the West Bank. He was two. He was killed by the IDF, as it responded against an attack on a Jewish settlement nearby.
Or does the right of Israeli self-defence extend to the Palestinian woman attacked in the UK?
However, leave aside the Palestinian children. Let’s look at the insult handed down to US President Joe Biden by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority by their refusal to attend the Summit in Amman to which they had been invited. Makes one wonder what is the point of being President of the USA, and thus the Leader of the Free World, if tinpot dictators like Sisi or MBS refuse the opportunity to meet him.
Their rather thin excuse was the Israeli attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. As President Biden said, toeing the Israeli line, the attack was a misfire from Palestinian rockets. Clearly, even the Israelis realize that world opinion is repulsed by the death of over 500 Palestinians in the attack. There was none of that jingoistic talk, full of false bravado, about the Israeli right of self-defence.
Still, the question should be asked: how many Palestinian deaths are going to be enough? At the moment, the only principle operating seems to be that of collective punishment, not of trying to punish the perpetrators. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are to be starved, and deprived of utilities, but for what? How much suffering will be enough?
It almost seems as if the Zionists themselves don’t know, and are flailing about trying to work out how many gentiles must die to compensate for one Jew. I know the Holocaust was a great human tragedy, and six million Jews died, but it wasn’t the Palestinians who killed anybody. I think it’s quite successful actually, the sleight of hand. The Nazis are all safe in rightwing extremist parties, hiding behind their governments’ condemnations of the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, at home it seems as if there’s a mini-Holocaust going on, of PTI people. It’s almost as if those who held a press conference were lucky. At the press conference, one had to abjure the PTI and all its works, condemn the May 9 attacks and raise slogans in favour of the Pak Army. Now, it seems, you do all of that, and declare that Imran Khan was responsible for those attacks. It started with Usman Dar, but now it went on with Farrukh Habib, then Sh Rashid. Who next? I’ve heard of Umar Ayub and Khawar Maneka, but the one I really like to see on TV would be Ali Amin Gandapur.
They’d better hurry. The next step will be written statements released to the press. And they would have to condemn themselves too.
Imran Khan is getting bad news all round. Not only has Sh Rasheed betrayed him, but so has the Australian cricket team. Beating Pakistan was all understandable, but did their batsmen have to concede five wickets to Shaheen Afridi? If he gets on the same page, the Australians will only have themselves to blame.
