Let ‘Em Die

 

For many of the innocents in Gaza, the unavailability of antibiotics, surgeons with adequate operating facilities, the constant shelling and missile/drone strikes have led to an expedient and life-destroying alternative: amputation of untreated limbs, hands, fingers and toes… even for little children. Starvation claims lives with increasing frequency. Tetanus, typhoid, cholera, etc. are exploding, killing even more. There may be no excuse for the October Hamas carnage against innocent Israelis, hostage-taking terrorism plus random murder. But there is also no justification for the Israeli overkill reaction, exactly what Hamas had hoped for, against innocent Palestinians.

Uninformed biases will tell you that the Palestinians elected Hamas to lead them. Really? Let’s be a tad more objective: the last election in Gaza pitted extremist Fatah (a branch of the Palestinian Liberation Organization) against Hamas, the latter campaigning on moderation and coexistence with Israel. That was 2006, long before the vast majority of Gazans were able to vote. Over the years since, Hamas accepted “quiet money” driven in cash across the border … from the Israeli government.

At the same time, Iran’s theocracy seized on the opportunity to attack announced arch-enemy Israel through surrogate militants. Hamas (a Sunni force) and Hezbollah (Shiite) also accepted money, modern arms and munitions from Iran in massive clandestine shipments. It was Iran’s avowed purpose to destroy Israel, “from the river to the sea.” And with Iranian support and direction, Hamas segued from moderate to becoming full-on Iranian military tool. The moderate network of Hamas tunnels in Gaza expanded significantly. The destruction of Israel was the focus.

As much as Iran wanted Israel out of the Middle East, ultra-rightwing Israelis wanted the entire Israeli region purged of Arabs and occupied solely by Jewish citizens. Jewish “settlers” forced confiscation of property legally belonging to Palestinians living, working and farming on the purported dedicated Palestinian West Bank, an unequivocal foreshadowing of what was to come. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) often stood by as these “settlers” killed those homeowners to take their land. The mood in Israel, a nation with a unicameral parliamentary legislature (the Knesset) and no constitution, shifted right over the years, and for almost two decades Likud (conservative) called the shots, under a charismatic Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. Part of a global shift to the right.

As Netanyahu faced a corruption trial, he craved the ability for the Knesset to be able to override the judicial system, but he was no longer able to control parliament without a coalition… and the only players who were willing to sign on were those rightwingers. Pledged to a policy of total eradication of Hamas, rejecting the notion that Israel had long accepted – a two-state solution (which has been US policy for decades, except during the Trump years) – Netanyahu clearly had no post-war solution for Gaza and the West Bank. All of the above is necessary background for the horrible I am focused on today: the continual blocking by Gaza’s neighbors (mostly Israel) of the food and medical aid that represent the hope for survival for what I will call the human shield Gazans living above those well-stocked Hamas tunnels.

Writing for The Morning, New York Times news feed, June 19th, German Lopez describes the scene: “Humanitarian groups have thousands of tons of food, fuel and medicine ready to send to Gaza. That aid is sitting in Egypt, Jordan and Cyprus, just hours away, or less, from the people who need it. But much of it can’t get in… Why? Some problems are typical for a war zone. Aid groups want to protect their workers from bombs and gunfire. Roads and warehouses are destroyed, making the terrain difficult to navigate.

“But there have been bigger problems: Israel has enforced opaque rules that turn back trucks meant for Gaza, citing security concerns. Egypt has blocked aid to protest Israel’s military operations. Hamas has stolen, or tried to steal, aid shipments for its own use… In other words, the people in charge of allowing aid into Gaza have prioritized their own interests over helping hungry Palestinians. In doing so, they’ve repeatedly made decisions that humanitarian groups can’t overcome...

“Israel typically cites two justifications for blocking aid: It wants to stop any supplies that can help Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7. And it wants to keep aid workers out of harm’s way… The first reason is the more contentious. American officials and humanitarian groups argue that Hamas has intercepted very few shipments. Critics say that Israel has been too careful about an overblown threat — or, worse, has used the aid as a weapon against Palestinians. ‘They are trying to provide a plausible cover story for collective punishment,’ said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, a humanitarian organization… But Hamas has intercepted some aid, and Israel says its precautions keep the group from taking more.

“Other Hamas tactics have also made Israel more cautious. The group often hides behind civilians by placing its operatives in hospitals and stashing weapons in schools. Israel worries that Hamas could hide behind humanitarian groups and workers, too. So Israel requires aid groups to report their activities. For example, it signs off on specific routes in part to ensure that these really are humanitarian missions and not covert enemy operations… The Israeli military also announced this week [late June] that it would stop operations in parts of southern Gaza during daytime hours; the pause in fighting could help get more aid to hungry Palestinians… Since Israel controls what goes in and out of Gaza, it has taken a lot of the blame for the crisis there. But it is not the only country that has stopped supplies for Palestinians.

“Egypt has, too. After Israel moved into the southern city of Rafah last month [May], Egypt protested the incursion by blocking aid shipments. It did not want to look like it accepted Israeli control of the Rafah crossing, and was upset that Israel was operating so close to the Egyptian border. (Consider: Egypt once occupied Gaza, but lost control in 1967 in a war with Israel.)” Trucks with food and medicine have been ransacked by rightwing Israelis (see above photo), and the US efforts – requiring the building of a makeshift pier in Gaza on the Mediterranean – have not remotely delivered that aid where it matters. It all comes down to a moral choice!

I’m Peter Dekom, and we seem to live in an era of moral callousness – where Greek immigration officers throw unwanted refugees overboard to drown, where Americans dehumanize immigrants fleeing desperate poverty and cartel-driven violence (using US firearms), and where our own military MAGA extremists pledge death and destruction to their opponents – and where the world only drifts into chaos with few significant humane solutions.