Israel slaughtered Palestinians on almost a daily basis with bombs, missiles, sniper shots and yet from the rubble stood the Palestinians, young and old, starved, humiliated, tortured, maimed for life but their spirit undeterred and strong, they asserted "Palestine, is our homeland and here we Stay!"
Israel tried different strategies and methods with support of technology and in the crudest form as well, using dogs assisted with tech to attack in the dead of night women asleep at home, the dogs bit, mauled, dragged the terrorized women out of their homes. Israel claims all its actions are aimed at dismantling Hamas for security reasons. This is not the total picture but a selective view to sustain occupation of Palestine.
Israel knows, whether Hamas is dismantled or not, as long as people in Palestine hold the concept of Palestine and being an Palestinian close to their heart, Israel's plans for greater Israel will remain a dream.
To erase the identity called Palestinian was the goal to achieve, but that proved evasive and distant even after 450 plus days of Genocide carried out with participatory (diplomatically, military aid, technical support and finance) support from Western countries, most of all from US, which did not consider it morally abhorrent to use its veto power to block even calls for ceasefire.
What Israel Attacked
a) Palestinian Identity
Human identity rarely exists in isolation from others be it immediate family members or community at large. Palestinian population has known excessive violence or even torture from Israeli forces for decades. Though violent acts happened on and off, humiliation and brutal denial of right to Be happened on daily basis almost in an all pervasive manne, this made possible because in the name of Israeli security the West sanctioned the criminal occupying force Israel total control over mobility, finance, parts of administration, trade, right to decide on law and order, to decide, even while being a criminal occupying force, on to Justice and decide what is Just.
While colonial powers stand accused of many atrocities they were rarely as thorough as Israel. It seems like a social experimentation was conducted along with technological input but desired result still evaded them.
Measures Taken
a) Destruction of sense of security and identity
The feeling of sense of security among Palestinians, even when chaos and violence surrounds them, was and is possible, because of sense of unity as a family, extended family and community and as Palestinians. It is that Israel sought to destroy and that is the reason for their pattern of bombing and missile attack.
While living within a live genocide, Palestinian parents tried different ways to protect their children. Some parents sort temporary respite by telling their children " people are celebrating it is fireworks". Other parents held their children close and gave them strength by saying "if something happens, we won't abandon you, we will all die together". Human spirit asserting against the lethal fireworks, with a weight of over three billion USD funded by US and others.
Israel knew the best way to destroy sense of security, is to attack loved ones sleeping together at night, at home. Disassociate family togetherness from peace, love and security and create a new link with danger, death and bombing. Behaviour therapy does not always work, for its influenced by culture, social context, resilience, and faith in something beyond supremacy of human power
b) Resilient Change Agents and sense of security.
For Israel, change agents have been a thorn difficult to get beyond. For they offered hope to the Palestinian population even when bombs kept falling or snipers had a field day. Change agents were from diverse walks of life, doctors, health workers, activists, poets, educators, media, personnel, writers, singers, social media influences (there were even children making blogs on food and other aspects of Palestinian life). They asserted hope, spread their views on Palestine or Gaza.
Israel knew arresting them would not be adequate so Israel selected different ways to chip away at Palestinian resilience.
a) A common trend not seen in many other conflicts, war, and violence systematic killing of change agents family and extended families. Strange, Western countries never raised an issue regarding this with Israel.
b) Create an impression and assert all of the Palestinians are linked to Hamas and therefore should be deleted from life or Palestine. This somehow seems palatable to West, especially the United States which never lost an opportunity through out the genocide to veto any possibility of peace or ceasefire.
c) In case of change agents from healthcare, the focus is to ensure the points of interaction with people are spots of danger and not solace. These spots should not evoke comfort but sense of danger that lurks around. This is the reason for bombing the ambulances and sniper shots at health workers and doctors. The reason for Israel's elaborate effort to assert hospitals there are command centres, though logically that could be inconvenient for Hamas itself.
d) It's the army that focuses on centralised control or others who are in position of power. For other groups it is a risk to have static centralized centers, it is safer to be flexible as far as possible.
e) If finding the tunnel system was really an important goal for Israel, they would have used human intelligence and technology to find it way before 7th October 2023.
f) Israel's enemy is the resilient spirit of Palestinians and their passionate identification with Palestine. It is that which Israel seeks to destroy. Death of resilient change agents is one step closer to Israel goal, towards greater Israel.
It is this strengthening of human spirit Israel sought to destroy, when they tortured them after stripping them off their clothes. Israel threatened them in silence, through live action that bulldozers would burry them alive. In some instance they did.
If the idea was just to kill there wouldn't be this extensive process of torture, the goal is to assert the powerlessness of change agents and break the spirit of resilience within Palestine.
c) Turning all symbols of identity to Rubble
When Israeli soldiers gleefully blew up the University building in Gaza, they were making another attempt to turn to rubble symbols within Gaza that Palestinians identified and perceive it as a sign of Hope. It is 'Hope" that Israel sought to eliminate.
The fear these symbols evoke among Israelis is seen when they go to great lengths to erase the representation of the flag symbol Watermelon. It was a smart move to select watermelon as a symbol to represent Palestinian flag for it is almost impossible to erase a symbol in nature and part of everyday reality.
Israel destroyed partially or completely anything that Palestinians needed for survival or resilience. The meticulous destruction of water sources or desalination plants were done with full knowledge that it would adversely impact survival and health of Palestinians.
Israel being systematic did ensure economic activities were difficult to carry on with. This is natural for when goal is to destroy human spirit, every step is pertinent.
d) Palestine - a Nation, whether you like it or not
Palestine as a nation exists as it did even before it's territories were violated for creating the country Israel, where Jews from different nations and regions were brought over with incentives given and promise of equal rights but that proved difficult, for that depended on perceived quality of jewishness inherited.
Palestine the nation exists and it cannot be erased by United States even it were to veto every UN regulation or ruling. A nation is a type of social organisation where a collective identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared feature across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory or society.
Black law Dictionary defines a nation as - a large group of people having a common origin, language, tradition, and usage constitutes a political entity.
If Palestine is a nation, then why is it not a country. The reason is very simple West protected Israel, as it in total impunity took care Palestinian boundaries were never defined without Israel's criminal right to Occupy Palestine. To ensure Palestine never became a full fledged UN member state, Israel redefined boundaries at its will, it occupied West Bank and on and off used technology for total control over Gaza, making invasion into sovereignty of Palestine an accepted everyday reality.
Israel used the same format for decades to govern Palestine as a colony and West supported it totally diplomatically and incurred annual expenditure of billions of USD as military aid.
A state is an association of people characterised by formal institutions, of government, including law, permanent territorial boundaries and sovereignty (political independence). Palestine is not a state by this definition because it neither enjoys sovereignty nor has permanent territorial boundaries.
But the limitation of Palestine is not because of its shortcoming but because Israel assumes and practices impunity and states it is above rule of law and international laws. It is able to do so because of unconditional support by United States and other Western countries as they turn a blind eye to Israel's war crimes and now genocide.
Why is Palestine denied it's sovereignty, it's right, because Israel has emerged as a criminal state that believes and behaves as if it's above rule of law?
Why should Palestine and Palestinians pay for shortcomings of international community including the UN in ensuring rights of Palestinians and sovereignty of Palestine is assured?
Molly Charles
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