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West weak while Palestinians pay

By Greg Barns - posted Tuesday, 6 January 2009


In Australia you can go to jail for donating money to a cause like Hamas, which runs the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians on the Gaza Strip.

However, it is not an offence for you to support organisations in Israel, which actively disrupt the lives of Palestinians by ripping up their olive groves or financing illegal settlements in areas of clear dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.

Hypocritical? You bet.

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The Australian government, be it Liberal or Labor, like successive US administrations of any hue, is tied to a policy of supporting Israel at almost any cost. The plight of the Palestinians is given patronising lip service by Canberra and Washington.

If an Australian politician is invited to an Israeli function they will fall over themselves to be seen there. The same goes in the US. But if you suggest to those same politicians that they actively and consistently support Palestinian organisations or causes they will go weak at the knees and find any excuse to be out of town on that day.

There is no way any Australian or American politician should be supporting Israel's disproportionate use of force against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas is an organisation with limited resources and munitions, while Israel has one of the best funded armies in the world.

The result of its Gaza offensive is untold suffering to innocent men, women and children, while the Hamas leadership remains in hiding underground.

Perhaps the most abject failure of the fracas in the Gaza has been that of the man whom so many thought - foolishly in this columnist's view - would shift US policy towards the Middle East onto a more just and humane plain.

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Last week Mr Obama, in a scene eerily reminiscent of his predecessor George Bush, stayed on the golf course and wouldn't say boo while Palestinians were being remorselessly attacked by the Israelis.

Some of us are not surprised by Mr Obama's weakness last week. He, like all candidates for the US Presidency, actively courts the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US. In fact, he did so very publicly after it became clear he would win the Democratic nomination.

Mr Obama was at pains to show the American electorate that he was not anti-Israel and now he is compromised hopelessly.

If he is the man of compassion and hope that his supporters never tire of telling us he is, then how can he be so indifferent to the suffering of ordinary Palestinians over the past days?

How can he sit back and let the Israelis make life so intolerable for those on the Gaza Strip that even the apolitical Red Cross has condemned Israel?

The pro-Israel lobby says Hamas is an organisation that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. True, but this only tells part of the story.

Hamas might be a terrorist organisation in the eyes of those who would jail you for supporting it in Australia, but to many Palestinians it represents a lifeline.

Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip since Hamas took control in 2007 and sought to strangle the area economically.

This has merely made Hamas more relevant to people in the area as it provides medical help, welfare, housing and employment. Israel has created the monster it now seeks in its bullying and indiscriminate fashion to destroy.

What is unfolding today - a sad case of history in this part of the world yet again repeating itself - is due to the West's refusal to pressure Israel's leadership for significant concessions and recognise the yearning of the Palestinian people for a homeland is as legitimate as that of the Jews.

It is the Palestinians who, from the Oslo Accords in 1995 onwards, are forced to make the big plays in diplomacy. The Palestinians are meant to stomach continual humiliation and eroding of their rights so that Israel might come to the party and negotiate some form of peace.

The leadership of Israel is today morally and ideologically corrupt. It does not matter who replaces Ehud Olmert as prime minister in the next couple of months, it seems political leaders in Israel know only one thing - use military and economic might to destroy ordinary Palestinians so they give up on groups like Hamas.

It is a flawed and failed strategy, but Israel gets away with it because they are the good guys that politicians in places like Washington and Canberra pander to time and again.

Meanwhile, Palestinians are denied their fundamental human rights to be citizens of a place that is their homeland.

They talk about justice for all? Yeh ... and pigs might fly.

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First published in the Hobart Mercury on January 5, 2009.



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About the Author

Greg Barns is National President of the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

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