By: Toby Schill
The conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis seem to be never ending. The Palestinians are fighting for survival and for their land and homes, while the Israelis are fighting to confiscate more of that land and kill more Palestinians. Every American President in recent history claims that he will be the one to finally establish peace in the Middle East that is amicable and satisfactory to both parties, but every one of them seems to fall flat on his face when tackling this subject, and fails just as miserably as his predecessor. Why?? Because Israel simply does not want peace. Yes, that’s right; Israel does not want peace. This was discussed in another article in this blog.
In 1993, the prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, decided it’s time to have peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, so he met with the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat and the two leaders signed the Oslo Accords, which is based on several meetings and discussions between the two leaders. Rabin and Arafat actually won the Noble Price for peace. Rabin was the only Israeli that Arafat referred to as “my friend”. What happen to Rabin after signing that accord? He was murdered by his own people.
No prime minister in Israel, before or after Rabin seemed to be interested in peace with the Palestinians despite their claim that they were. In fact some of them like Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert waged wars (actually massacres) against the Palestinians in Gaza, killing 100’s of them and destroying several buildings for no reason. They claim that Hamas fired rockets on Israel and they had to retaliate when all the evidence point the fingers at them starting the firing.
Not to be out done by his predecessors, Benjamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister of Israel, decided to go on a killing and destruction spree in Gaza, in August 2014. After 2 months of shooting, bombing and firing missiles at the people of Gaza, he killed 2,200 people and destroyed several buildings of all types, office buildings, apartments and houses. Many of those buildings were destroyed while people were still inside. It’s laughable how the Israeli government tried to show its humanitarian side. They told the world that when they bombed an apartment building, they fired a warning shot, missile, first to allow the people to leave the building before they level it, which’s true and they have videos to prove it. The problem is, the warning shot came only one or two minutes before the one that destroys the building, which means unless you are waiting for the warning shot and ready to leave, you have no chance of making it alive out of that building. If you were asleep, they want to wake you up before they kill you, or if you were in the bathroom, you will have enough time to get up, without wiping and put your cloths on but forget about surviving. By the way the Israeli casualties were a grand total of 3, other than the 64 soldiers killed by the people of Gaza when they (the Israelis) entered the strip.
Netanyahu showed his ugly side again and again. Some of the atrocities he committed were, confiscating the tax money from the Palestinians. This is the money that the Israeli government imposed on the Palestinians to pay, giving the Palestinians a part of it back to live on. He also ordered the power to be turned off at a whole city for several days in the West Bank. In Gaza, not only he tightened the noose of the siege, but he also disallowed medical supplies and food to enter the strip. In the Jerusalem area, he robbed the Palestinians of over 1000 acres, which he annexed to Israel, leaving people with no homes to go to. Not only that but he expanded the settlements over more Palestinian land. What did our government do while this mad man was committing one crime after another? Absolutely nothing. I’ll take that back, we supported him and sent him more weapons to kill more innocent people and destroy more of their homes.
Evil as he is, he unknowingly did something good for the Palestinians. He opened the eyes and the ears of the world to these atrocities that Israel is committing against the Palestinians on daily basis. People in Europe and Asia have long suspected that Israel is illegally committing crimes against the Palestinians, from confiscating their land, to destroying their homes to killing their people, and now Netanyahu is confirming to them their suspicion. Currently, there’s a huge anti-Israel and anti-Semitic movements in Europe and other parts of the world. Even in the United States, people are waking up and shaking their heads to all that happens in the Middle East. It was reported that college students on campuses across the country are calling for boycotting the Israeli products, and protesting the Israeli treatments of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu is nothing but a thug, and the people of Israel who elected him are no better than him. More and more people in the US and around the world are realizing that. Netanyahu is a war criminal, and along with George Bush and Dick Chaney, he should be tried and executed for all these innocent lives he cut short for no reason.
Netanyahu brought awareness of the war crimes that he and his thugs are committing in Palestine. He caused the anti- Israel, anti- Semitic movement to grow and get stronger. He also caused other countries to boycott the Israeli products in protest to their uncalled for harsh treatment of the Palestinians.
Netanyshu did more disservice to Israel than any Arabic leader could.
For all this and more, the Palestinians should thank him.