Armistice… Not Peace

Why Paying the Price of Peace When You Can Bully Arabs for an Unfair, Unjust Open-ended Ceasefire.

This week is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. I’m not going to go through the details and the usual Historical fact reminder, there is enough data out there (and fortunately so) for anyone interested. All one needs to know is that this mass murder was prompted, encouraged, incited and eventually executed by the Nazi-inspired Lebanese Phalangist militia under the plan, protection and supervision of the invading Israeli forces.

Twenty five years, and thousands of victims later, the basic philosophy underlying the Israeli policy in the region, the protracted, systematic and slow ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, together with the “hatred machine” that the US neo-imperialistic vision of the middle east embodies, continue to yield even more frustration, bitterness and permanent demand for revenge.

The summer of hunger in the Gaza concentration camp continues unabated. Some might think that since the “mainstream” media has no “hot” news from the region to serve on the 24/7 display of horrors, things must be quite all right for the moment. Others might thing that the current course of action chosen by Israel and their American protectors to deal with the Palestinians since they’ve put the wrong party in the government, is working. In other words, Arabs are not the kind of people to talk to or trust and only coercion would force them to submit. Others also, might consider that this is an issue that has been chewed over enough, and it’s maybe time to get over it.

One should always keep in mind that what Israel seeks is not peace, because it is not, has not, will not be prepared to pay the price. Armistice and status quo is much more convenient for the Zionist sate. It allows it to continue its expansionism on the lands stolen from the Palestinians, not to be bound by any negotiated agreement with its neighbours or with the Palestinians, and continue capitalizing on the ridiculously huge imbalance of power in its favor.

As for the argument that it is maybe time to get over it, I would wonder how to explain that to the Palestinian mother who lost her children in the struggle against the occupying forces, how to tell that to the Lebanese child who, last summer, had to flee with her family from their home, terrorised as they were by the American manufactured, Israeli dropped cluster bombs, how to put that to the hundreds of thousands of refugees driven out of their land and homes and denied any basic human right…