Israel says that 1500 Hamas fighters invaded the West Bank. (1)The Hamas fighters who invaded illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank did not expect to return alive. They had said their final good-byes to family and friends. (2) Most had never left the open-air prison called ‘Gaza’ in their entire lives. For 75 years Palestinian refugees of their homeland forcibly taken by settler-colonial Zionists have suffered destruction of their crops, their houses, their water, and on average the murder of one Palestinian per day, together with nightly raids and the kidnapping of young Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers. There are over 1000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails–men and women–on Administrative detention, with no charges; just imprisonment for indefinite amounts of time.
NPR reports that the thousands of Israeli troops amassed on the border with Gaza, poised to invade Gaza, consist almost exclusively of soldiers under the age of 20. By now most people are aware that the human brain does not develop mature problem-solving capabilities or ethical decision-making capabilities until between age 25 – 27. For men this is at a later age than for women.(3) Truly, as the old song says, the old men send the young to be sacrificed in war. The young Israeli soldiers say they can’t wait to invade Gaza and kill “the enemy”–over half of whom are small children who have already been killed by the hundreds by constant Israeli bombings of homes, churches, UN schools and 4 hospitals to-date. (4)
How is it that the Hamas invasion took place at the same time nationwide demonstrations against the extremist right-wing Netanyahu government were scheduled? Those anti-government demonstrations were called off and the Israelis gathered to the support the same fascist government.
How is it that the most fortified border with the most sophisticated intelligence/spying capabilities in the world– Pegasus is used to spy on the leading government officials in many nations–was not capable of detecting invasion plans in the Westbank? (5) Even experienced Israeli military commanders find this impossible to believe. Funny how things just work out for the long-held plans of Israeli Zionists to force Palestinians to flee Gaza or be killed there.(6)
(l) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hamas-fighters-bodies-israel-toll-gaza-ground-invasion-rcna119640
(2) https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18/rashid_khalidi_gaza_israel
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Pegasus_(spyware)
(6) “Israel wanted this violence. In 2017, Smotrich, who was then a member of the Knesset, but at the moment, unfortunately, this racist thug is a minister, a minister of finance, but, as well, minister within the Defense Ministry, he published six years ago — and it is explicit. You can read it. I mean, you can google and read it. It was entitled the “Subjugation Plan,” which boils down to three. First, the Palestinian Occupied Territories should be annexed to Israel as a whole, without granting basic rights to the Palestinians. Second, those Palestinians who do not agree to live under this subjugation are going to be expelled from their homeland. And third, those Palestinians who are going to resist are going to be killed. What we see now, and the coup, by the way, that the government of Israel has been carrying out within Israel, all of those are means to that goal. The goal is to realize this horrific, racist, colonialist, fascist plan of Smotrich’s. And the attack on Gaza is part of it. They use the terrible, horrifying, unacceptable carnage in the struggle of Israel as an excuse to attack Gaza as part of the realization of this fascist subjugation plan.” Knesset Member Cassif Says End the Occupation Now, All “Pay the Price”
MARY LYNN CRAMER, MA, MSW, LICSW, Senior Citizen, has a background in economics and clinical social work, and peace activism. She can be reached at [email protected]
