The big club

      The closing of the territories has left Palestinians unable to report to jobs, and has brought a great deal of hardship to the people of the territories, where poverty is already a problem at the best of times. The anger has led to proests, and in March, 2001, the Israeli military again opened fire on those protesting against both the blockade and the restrictions on Palestinian movements in the West Bank, killing one person and injuring many others.

      According to some reports coming out of the occupied Palestinian territories, ordinary people are becoming desperate as the blockade moves into its fifth month. More and more ordinary citizens are becoming radicalized as loss of jobs and incomes brings desperate poverty to an already impoverished people. Farmers have been prevented from working their fields, forest, buildings and crops have all been flattened to provide clear lines of sight for military operations. One third of the population have been pushed into poverty, and must attempt to live on less than two dollars a day.

      The increasing poverty and growing anger at the tough tactics being employed by the Israeli military all serve only to incite violence and move even more Palestinians into the resistance. The Israeli government appears to ignore these facts of life, and instead rely on the club, and, one must assume, are prepared to respond to further protests, incited by their club, with even more violent repression, in a constantly repeating circle of violence. Bulldozing homes, relying on the silent compliance of the international community, shooting in the streets, curfews and lock downs, all of this is not part of a ‘peace process' particularly when viewed from the streets of the occupied territories, and this is something the Israeli authorities must realize. Evidently, with oppression and even economic strangulation being the chosen tools of the Israeli state, it would seem that the government is resigned to using the tools of violence, even if this evokes a violent response, requiring an escalation in oppressive tactics which must inevitably follow.

      This suggests that ‘the peace process' is merely window dressing for the Israeli government, something to toss to the international media so as to placate international opinion - these types of escalating rounds of oppression and violent responses are not the sort of thing that leads to peace on the ground, after all. Therefore, the ‘peace process' is part of an overall propaganda strategy of the Israeli government, and the playing up of extremist religion as the cause of the conflict only serves to draw attention away from the undemocratic tactics being used and the violations of international law, international opinion, and simple human rights going on ‘behind the scenes'. This is not the way you treat your neighbor if you love your neighbor, so obviously humanitarian concerns are once again trampled under foot (so typical of this planet, it is not) and instead we get more of these ‘politically expedient' so called ‘solutions', which even the most naive of observers must realize contributes nothing to a ‘peace process' (contributing only to some sort of over all propaganda ploy, which once again has nothing to do with human dignity or natural justice, but rather means more of the same policies that are responsible for starting such rounds of violence and protest in the first place.)