Espen Barth Eide defended Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza and called it Self-defense. Citing Noam Chomsky; “When Israelis now claim that they defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to do to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You cannot defend yourself when you are military occupying someone else’s land. That is not defense. Call it what you like. It is not defense”
Indeed it is not self-defense. It does not really require much intelligence to recognize that Israel’s core strategy is based on expansionism in which they strive to gain as much as land as possible by all means and then to use this land to enforce the terms of capitulation and humiliation on the others. They did that in Camp-David, Wadi-araba and Oslo I and II. Talking about the infamous and disastrous Oslo agreements brings us to talk about the classification of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians can be classified into two main groups;
1) Those who were lured into the promises of peace, two-states solution, mutual respect and prosperity (The Oslo group). They ended up with no state, no prosperity and no freedom. Abbas (the chairman of the PA) is still asking for Israeli permission each time he wants to drive his car from Ramallah to Nablus, and sometimes they do not grant him the permission.
This group of Palestinians gained a fragile authority, begging money from the Europeans and Americans in addition to “wining” roughly 500 000 additional Jewish-settlers in Palestinian land. They are Ignored and abandoned.
The agreement gave the Palestinians NOTHING but humiliation. While giving Israel the most valuable commodity in all conflicts: Time. And the Israelis have used this commodity effectively to change the facts on the ground while the rest of the world is watching (including Espen Barth Eide)
2) Now the second group of Palestinians is the determined and proud Palestinians, represented by the people of Gaza. They are not willing to surrender to the terms of capitulation outlaid in the Oslo agreements.
People of Gaza seek three things; freedom, freedom and freedom and therefore they are being harshly punished. They are punished, not because of the rockets, not because of the mortars shells. They are being punished just because they refuse to surrender. They are being punished all the way since 1948.
Espen Barth Eide knows that, Obama knows that, and Netanyahu knows that. And they all agree that they must subdue this punish of hard headed crowd.
A good friend of mine managed to enter Gaza from Egypt in a convey that carries medical supplies to Gaza. He twitted the following message:
“Anyone harboring ideas about a peaceful settlement with Israel should experience a night of Israeli bombardment in Gaza. And anyone who doubts that the Palestinians will prevail should spend this night with the youngster, youth and elders in Gaza. — at Rafah Crossing.”
So, Netanyahu, Obama and not the least, Eide ….. dream on!
