Face of the Victim
There are the aggressors and the counter-aggressors and then there are the victims. Countless suffering innocents locked into a desperate survival battle of their own. Theirs is not the adrenalin-rushing, testosterone-laden determination to strike hard deadly blows at an enemy. Theirs is the hopeless plodding burden to survive for the sake of their children while their champions continue daily assaults on the enemy and the vice that slowly strangles civilians tightens.The lobbing of Kassam rockets over the border into Israel continues apace. Weapons and terrorists continue to be smuggled over the border between Egypt and Gaza through countless tunnels. Dedicated jihadists remain undeterred by any defensive actions taken by the Israeli Defence Forces; no sooner is one terrorist detained or dispatched than another takes his place. No sooner is a tunnel blown up, then others are diligently dug in the relentless game.
While those who purport loudly to act in their best interests continue to place Palestinian civilians at risk and in the doing blame the counter-effects of the enemy they target. The Palestinian civilian population in Gaza find themselves in dire straits, as helpless chess pieces in this disastrous game of war. They watch helplessly as their standard of living crumbles and they're left desperate to survive.
Hamas remains intently dedicated to its mission of obliterating the State of Israel. Thus delivering the land on which Israel sits back to what is claimed as their rightful owners, the Palestinian people. Much good it will do the Palestinian people as, in the process, they increasingly fall victim to the achievement of the goals of their protectors.
It is abundantly clear to Hamas as well as to those states who so generously fund them that the victimization of Gazans has become a part of the process of freeing the territory from Israeli annexation, as they would have it. The desperate condition of the population of Gaza appears to be an acceptable sacrifice for Hamas to gain its ends.
It has no pity, no compassion, will spare no mercy toward its own. Why should they, after all, when experience has amply demonstrated that while they are not expected to pull back from the precipice toward which their helpless victims are hurdling, self-censuring Israel has compassion and pity to spare?
Instead, it demands from the international community that Israel be forced to extend to Palestinians what Hamas is not prepared to. Sufficient compassion to allow Gazans to live with some hope for the future, rather than struggle with the living spectre of food and medicine shortages, energy cut-offs, strictured commerce, truncated agricultural activities, mass unemployment.
It is Israel that faces the challenge of humanitarian needs to weigh the balance of responsibility toward its own embattled population against the more immediate threat of starvation and illness caused by water contamination from untreated sewage as civil authority and infrastructure breaks down irremediably. "The only reason we are doing this is to make the lives of the terrorists harder", Israel says of her energy cuts to Gaza.
Gazan society, already on the brink of collapse as a result of unbridled lawlessness, and endemic poverty has now seen 60,000 private-sector jobs evaporated. Israel's economic chokehold on the Gazan economy, its closure of the scant remaining crossings, its actions to halt any but essential foods and medical supplies into Gaza, are having their effect on the society.
Success has been seen in one area, with dwindling Palestinian support for Hamas since its brutal seizure of control from Fatah.
But the question remains; how long can the embargo and the closures continue before the economic and practical, social life-blood of the Strip declines beyond the current emergency situation? What Hamas has been unable to accomplish by deadly force they may yet accomplish through their pitiless and unrelenting sacrifice of life for Palestinians in Gaza, with Israel succumbing to both internal and external pressure.
Which will - as is always done traditionally in the Arab world - be translated as yet another victory for Hamas. And its relentless "struggle" against the occupier will go on, given yet another breathing space.
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, November 03, 2007
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