Polao e Sehlōhō ea Matsatsi a 51

Buka ea morao-rao ea Max Blumenthal, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, tells a powerful story powerfully well. I can think of a few other terms that accurately characterize the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza in addition to “war,” among them: occupation, murder-spree, and genocide. Each serves a different valuable purpose. Each is correct.

The images people bring to mind with the term “war,” universally outdated, are grotesquely outdated in a case like this one. There is no pair of armies on a battlefield. There is no battlefield. There is no aim to conquer, dispossess, or rob. The people of Gaza are already pre-defeated, conquered, imprisoned, and under siege — permanently overseen by military drones and remote-control machine-guns atop prison-camp walls. In dropping bombs on houses, the Israeli government is not trying to defeat another army on a battlefield, is not trying to gain possession of territory, is not trying to steal resources from a foreign power, and is not trying to hold off a foreign army’s attempt to conquer Israel.

Yes, of course, Israel ultimately wants Gaza’s land incorporated into Israel, but not with non-Jewish people living on it. (Eighty percent of Gaza’s residents are refugees from Israel, families ethnically cleansed in 1947-1948.) Yes, of course, Israel wants the fossil fuels off the Gazan coast. But it already has them. No, the immediate goal of the Israeli war on Gaza last year, like the one two years before, and like the one four years before that, would perfectly fit a name like “The 51 Day Genocide.” The purpose was to kill. The end was nothing other than the means.

Ka 2014, joalo ka 2012 le 2008, Iseraele e ile ea boela ea hlasela batho ba Gaza, e sebelisa libetsa tse fanoeng mahala ke 'muso oa US, tse ka baloang, esita le ho ema ka ho feletseng, ho sireletsa litlōlo tsa molao tsa Iseraele ho Machaba a Kopaneng. Ka ho sebelisa se 'nileng sa bitsoa Thuto ea Dahiya, leano la Iseraele e ne e le la kotlo e kopanetsoeng.

The stories in the U.S. media focused on Israelis’ fears. The deaths of Gazans were explained as intentional sacrifices by a people with a “culture of martyrdom” who sometimes choose to die because it makes good video footage. After all, Israel was phoning people’s houses and giving them 5-minute warnings before blowing them up. The fact that it was also blowing up shelters and hospitals they might flee to was glossed over or explained as somehow involving military targets.

But the Israeli media and internet were full of open advocacy by top Israeli officials of genocide. On August 1, 2014, the Deputy Speaker of Israel’s Parliament posted on his Facebook page a plan for the complete elimination of the Gazan people using concentration camps, to take one of dozens of examples.

And the whole thing was kicked off when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lied that three murder victims might be still alive, falsely blamed their kidnapping on Hamas, and began raiding houses and mass-arresting Gazans. Once Israel and the United States had rejected out-of-hand quite reasonable ceasefire demands from Hamas, the war/genocide was on for 51 days — with great popular support in Israel. Some 2,200 Gazan people were killed, over 10,000 injured, and 100,000 made homeless by a very one-sided war.

Mona ke tatso ea kamoo Blumenthal e hlalosang se etsahetseng:

"Baithaopi ba babeli ba Red Crescent ba ile ba mpolella hore hamorao ba ile ba fumana monna Khuza'a ea nang le lefu le thata, a tšoere matsoho a mabeli hloohong ea hae ho inehela, 'mele oa hae o tletse likulo. Botebong ba toropo, ba ile ba fumana lelapa lohle le senyehile hampe hoo le ileng la tlameha ho hlahleloa ka kolofo ka lebitleng la batho ba bangata. Sebakeng se ka lehlakoreng le leng la toropo, Awad le Alkusofi ba ile ba fumana mosali ea nang le khetla ea bonyane lilemo tse mashome a robeli a ipatile ka hokong ea likhoho. O ne a ipatile moo ka matsatsi a robong nakong ea thibello, a phela ka letho haese lijo tsa likhoho le metsi a pula.”

Le hoja sekolo le sepetlele se seng le se seng se hlasetsoeng ka libomo se ne se hlalosoa ka polelo ea hore bahlabani ba Gazan ba ne ba ipatile har’a “lithebe tsa batho,” re kopana le batho ba Gazan bukeng ea Blumenthal bao ha e le hantle ba neng ba phahamisitsoe e le lithebe ke masole a Iseraele a ileng a thunya Gazan a le holim’a mahetla a ’ona. Batho le bona ba bile le libetsa tse ncha tse mpe tse lekiloeng ho bona, ho kenyeletsoa Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME).

Batho ba Iseraele ka kakaretso ba ile ba tsamaea le ntoa ena (ka mekhelo e mengata e babatsehang), ’me hamorao ba khetha hape baetsi ba eona ba meralo. Boipelaetso bo khahlanong le ntoa bo ile ba thibeloa, ’me mashano a fapa-fapaneng (ho kopanyelletsa le a mabapi le bahlaseluoa ba bararo ba polao ba ileng ba e raha) a ile a pepesoa ka mor’a matsatsi a seng makae kapa libeke. Ho sa tsotellehe hore na morero e ne e le ho bolaea batho, ’me batho ba bolaoa. Mme ho sa tsotelehe Washington, leha e le, e neng e boloka libetsa li ntse li phalla, ntle le molao.

Gaza e ile ea kenya lirokete tse ka bang 4,000 Iseraeleng, ho sa bonahale hantle - lirokete tseo moputso oa tsona o kopaneng o neng o lekana le oa metsu e 12 eo Isiraele e neng e e romela Gaza ho tsoa ho F-16s ea eona ea Naha ea Mahala.

The “international community” gathered in Cairo on October 12, and diplomats “discussed the destruction of Gaza as though it were the result of a natural disaster — as though the missiles that reduced the strip’s border areas to rubble were meteors that descended from outer space.” There was no way to discuss damage to both sides in a manner that would make Israel’s actions seem legitimate, even by the standards of the “international community,” so they discussed the one-sided damage as if nobody were responsible.

Na ke moo United States e habileng teng ka setso le ka lintoa tsa eona? Lebaka le leng la ho se tšepe ke hore ho hanyetsa lintoa tsa Iseraele ke se seng sa libaka tse 'maloa moo bacha ba US ba lebeletsana in antiwar activism. Nonetheless, there is reason for concern. The U.S. has followed the Israeli model of domestic policing, of drone use, of assassination, and of propaganda, and the Israeli lead in relation to Iraq, Syria, and Iran. As the U.S. military moves more and more toward treating the world as Israel treats Gaza, the world’s future comes more and more into doubt. And there’s little to suggest that Americans will oppose actions by their own government simply because they’ve previously opposed those same actions by the government of Israel.