Europe underwrites starvation policy

Currently, among CNN’s leading news items is one, which deals with the tragic effect of Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians.

A moving and deeply touching visual of a beautiful ten-month old infant lying defenseless in a Gaza hospital, encapsulates the tragedy of people, who almost six decades after the Nakba, remain hostage to a racist, colonial project known as Zionism and an indifferent world.

The story of the little baby destined to die because of lack of medication, does not end there. She is merely one of thousands more, spread across all ages and throughout the Occupied Territories, who, due to the collective strangulation of her people by Israel, are experiencing the effects of the Nakba every moment of their lives.

What is their crime? Why are their resources [belonging to them], held back from reaching them? Why must they be condemned to death?

The answers lie in the fact that they are Palestinians. As natives of a land that has been colonized – and remains so – by European immigrants, they are victims of brutal military machinery, which has been euphemistically described as a “democracy”. And to add salt to the wound has been projected as a “model democracy”.

Is it democratic to besiege and starve people? Stealing and looting people’s properties and belongings, is exactly that: stealing and looting! Blackmailing people to submit or starve is exactly that: blackmailing! Violating human rights and defying international conventions cannot ever be considered democratic. Indeed, the only word to describe Israel is: tyranny!

Yet, the lessons of the Nakba have not been understood by both the Bush administration and the European Union. Since they have shamelessly supported an Israeli boycott of the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, their scandalous conduct reflects a bankruptcy of policies.

The EU and the US have backed Israel in its overt blackmail of the Palestinians. They demand that in order to avoid starving to death, the Palestinians must renounce their democratic choice of Hamas.

This, in any language, equates to surrender. It also suggests that they must proclaim the EU and US policies of political cowardice as virtuous.

Not only is their bullying hypocritical, it is downright racist!

Every single death occurring in Palestine, whether through Israeli missiles, enforced starvation, or lack of adequate medication can be laid squarely at the door of the European and American governments. No moralizing by them of the so-called need for Hamas to relinquish its armed struggle while the nuclear power of Zionism reigns supreme in its destructive policies can ever be justified.