Israel / Palestine

We Are All Gazans Now
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online, June 2, 2010
"Just imagine if these were Iranian commandos attacking a multinational, six-boat aid flotilla in international waters. The United States, the European Union and Israel would instantly make sure to shock and awe Iran to kingdom come. Instead, it was Israeli commandos who perpetrated this bit of gunboat diplomacy -- or 'self-defense' -- in the dark hours of the early morning, in international waters, some 130 kilometers off the coast of Gaza. And what if they were Somali pirates? Oh no, these are Israeli pirates fighting shady, 'terrorist' Muslims ... It doesn't matter that Arab, Turkish, European, developing-world public opinion and governments are fuming. So what? Israel always gets away with -- as Turkey is stressing -- 'murder' (or 'state terrorism,' according to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan). ... No one excels in post-Orwellian, war-is-peace newspeak as Israel. Not only the Israeli commandos are being spun as the victims; the world is being subjected to a complete Israeli-orchestrated news blackout. ...
Weapons-smuggling Hamas 'terrorists' dupe fake international 'demonstrators' into becoming human shields and start a firefight with Israeli commandos. ... It doesn't matter in all this that the World Health Organization, in a fresh report, has stressed how Gaza - because of the illegal Israeli blockade the flotilla was trying to break -- is mired in absolute poverty, unemployment, lack of medicine and medical equipment, and is being literally starved to death; no less than 10% of Gazans, mostly children, are physically stunted from malnutrition. The Israeli commandos were defending the illegal Israeli blockade in Gaza. Progressive Jews, wherever they live, are the first to admit that most of Israel nowadays is extreme right-wing, paranoid, and convinced they are victims of a global propaganda war. Thus the eternal recurrence message -- conveniently enveloped by US tax dollars -- to the whole world. Shut up. We are the victims - we are always the victims. If you don't believe it, you are an anti-Semite. [...]"