While it is understandably appealing for pundits and spectators to search for a reason for yet another indefensible assault on Palestinians in Gaza, this focus separates Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip from its ongoing policies to implement the “Iron Wall”, a term coined by the far-right Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and referring to a strategy used throughout all Israeli regimes since 1948. As John Mearsheimer explains in his latest piece for the London Review of Books’ blog, the Iron Wall is “an approach that in essence calls for beating the Palestinians into submission”.
When it comes to looking behind the scenes of Israeli military assaults on Gaza (or Lebanon), there is always a general hoping for a promotion, a politician looking for votes, and an arms dealer making profits, but the rationale that enables that triumvirate to enact the lethal policies we are seeing play out in Gaza right now is the same one that allows the Israeli government to calculate how many calories each Palestinian in the Gaza Strip needs to survive, and to then intentionally allow fewer trucks and supplies in to meet that need.
And it’s the same rationale that motivates the Israeli occupation authorities to prevent construction in Area C of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to encourage widespread drug addiction in Area B, and to make near-daily incursions into Area A to arrest political leaders, activists and journalists.
It’s the rationale of a coloniser, who wants land but not the people on it. When the media starts speaking about this, then we’ll know there’s been a sea change. (Charlotte Silver)
More here.