Israel’s Incremental Genocide in the Gaza Ghetto
Ever since
June 1967, Israel searched for a way to keep the
territories it occupied that year without
incorporating their indigenous Palestinian
population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All
the while it participated in a “peace process”
charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral
colonization policies on the ground.
With the
decades, Israel differentiated between areas it
wished to control directly and those it would manage
indirectly, with the aim in the long run of
downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum
with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and
economic and geographic strangulation.
The
geopolitical location of the West Bank creates the
impression in Israel, at least, that it is possible
to achieve this without anticipating a third
uprising or too much international condemnation.
The Gaza
Strip, due to its unique geopolitical location, did
not lend itself that easily to such a strategy. Ever
since 1994, and even more so when
Ariel Sharon came to power as prime minister in
the early 2000s, the strategy there was to ghettoize
Gaza and somehow hope that the people there — 1.8
million as of today — would be dropped into eternal
oblivion.
But the
Ghetto proved to be rebellious and unwilling to live
under conditions of strangulation, isolation,
starvation and economic collapse. So resending it to
oblivion necessitates the continuation of genocidal
policies.
Ever since
June 1967, Israel searched for a way to keep the
territories it occupied that year without
incorporating their indigenous Palestinian
population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All
the while it participated in a “peace process”
charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral
colonization policies on the ground.
With the
decades, Israel differentiated between areas it
wished to control directly and those it would manage
indirectly, with the aim in the long run of
downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum
with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and
economic and geographic strangulation.
The
geopolitical location of the West Bank creates the
impression in Israel, at least, that it is possible
to achieve this without anticipating a third
uprising or too much international condemnation.
The Gaza
Strip, due to its unique geopolitical location, did
not lend itself that easily to such a strategy. Ever
since 1994, and even more so when
Ariel Sharon came to power as prime minister in
the early 2000s, the strategy there was to ghettoize
Gaza and somehow hope that the people there — 1.8
million as of today — would be dropped into eternal
oblivion.
But the
Ghetto proved to be rebellious and unwilling to live
under conditions of strangulation, isolation,
starvation and economic collapse. So resending it to
oblivion necessitates the continuation of genocidal
policies.
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