By Stephen Lendman

Longstanding US-led Western support lets Israel get away with genocidal mass murder and destruction. More on this below.

Israel's Operation Protective Edge is the latest example of well planned, premeditated Israeli aggression on Palestine.

It has nothing to do with Hamas rocket attacks, self-defense or security.

It has everything to do with maintaining occupation harshness, assuring unchallenged control of all valued parts of Judea and Samaria, denying Palestinians self-determination, stealing their land and resources, as well as pursuing a longstanding Greater Israel objective. Israel believes its "promised land" extends from the Nile Valley to the Euphrates. It includes parts of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon at least to the Litani River.

It lawlessly occupies Syria's Golan Heights, as well as Lebanon's Ghajar village and 14-square mile water-rich Sheba Farms.

In 1982, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior adviser Oded Yinon published "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s." It's a regional conquest and dominance plan.

For Israel to survive, Yinon believed it must dominate the Middle East. It must become a world power.

All challengers must be eliminated. Israel wants Arab nations balkanized along ethnic and sectarian lines.

It wants weakened, fragmented, divided, reconfigured controllable satellites. Its Judaization of Palestine master plan involves slow-motion genocide.

It wants Arabs excluded from all valued Judea and Samaria areas. It wants irreversible facts on the ground established.

Ideally, it wants Palestine entirely Judaized. It wants Arabs ethnically cleansed by whatever means possible.

In February 2012, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik, commented after visiting Israel and Occupied Palestine, saying:

"From the Galilee and the Negev to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli authorities promote a territorial development model that excludes, discriminates against and displaces minorities, particularly affecting Palestinian communities."

"Throughout my visit, I received repeated complaints regarding lack of housing, threats of demolitions and evictions, overcrowding, the disproportional number of demolitions affecting Palestinian communities side by side with the accelerated development of predominantly Jewish settlements."

"The policies adopted by Israeli authorities severely restrict Palestinians from building legally through various means."

"Among others, Israel has not provided Palestinians with the necessary planning framework to ensure that their basic housing and infrastructure needs are met."

"Currently, tens of thousands of Palestinians are estimated to be at risk of their homes being demolished due to unregulated building."

At issue is pursuing maximum Judaization with minimum Arabs. Current policies reflect Yigal Allon's post-Six Day War plan.

It called for permanent militarized occupation. It mandated "maximum land with minimum Arabs." Its other elements included:

• dispossessing Palestinians from areas Israel wants exclusively for Jews;


• annexing all valued parts of Judea and Sumaria;


• controlling Greater Jerusalem;


• claiming it as Israel's exclusive capital;


• establishing settlements, military bases, free-firing zones, commercial locations, tourist sites, nature reserves, no-go areas, Jews-only roads, checkpoints, barriers, and other exclusively Jewish areas;


• stealing Palestinian resources; and


• crushing resistance by brutal subjugation and genocidal wars of aggression.

The late Edward Said once said "(y)ou cannot continue to victimize someone else" because of your own previous victimization or for any extrajudicial reason.

"We cannot fight for our rights and our history as well as future until we are armed with weapons of criticism and dedicated consciousness."

Mahatma Gandhi once said "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French."

"It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs."

"Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."

Bertrand Russell once asked "(h)ow much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

In his book titled "Peace Not Apartheid," Jimmy Carter said:

"Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law."

"The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories."

President Nicolas Maduro said "(t)he Bolivarian Government of Venezuela vigorously condemns the unfair and disproportionate military response by the illegal state of Israel against the heroic Palestinian people."

Israel believes it has a divine right to operate extrajudicially. Western leaders offer full support.

Obama supports Israeli aggression. So do nearly all congressional members. They lie calling it Israel's right to self-defense.

The Jewish state's only enemies are ones it invents. It does so as pretexts for colonization, occupation, apartheid, ruthless militarized repression and wars of aggression.

A July State Department statement lied saying "(n)o country should be expected to stand by while rocket attacks from a terrorist organization are launched into their country."

Fact: Hamas is no terrorist organization.

Fact: It's Palestine's democratically elected government.

Fact: It responds solely to Israeli aggression.

Fact: International law affirms its right to do so.

Fact: Israel is one of the world's most egregious human rights abusers.

Fact: It ignores international laws, norms and standards.

Fact: It operates extrajudicially.

Fact: It's guilty of virtually every crime imaginable and then some.

Fact: Western leaders turn a blind eye to what demands universal condemnation and accountability.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is a convenient imperial tool. He shames the office he holds.

He urged Israel to exercise maximum restraint. He was laregly silent on its genocidal war.

He called legitimate Gazan rocket attacks in response to Israeli aggression "unacceptable."

British Prime Minister David Cameron "strongly condemned the appalling attacks being carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians…and underlined Israel's right to defend itself from them."

He ignored what speaks for itself. Hamas responds solely in self-defense.

Its rockets are pinpricks compared to Israeli firepower. They killed two Israeli civilians and one Thai national.

Israel's genocidal war murdered over 2,065 Palestinians so far. It injured over 10,300 others. Many seriously. Some will die. Others will be maimed for life. Over 80% are civilians. Over 550 are children.

Israel indiscriminately turned large parts of Gaza to rubble. Entire residential neighborhoods were destroyed.

Schools, hospitals, UN shelters and mosques were bombed and shelled. Not one square inch of Gaza is safe.

State terrorism is official Israeli policy. So is lawless collective punishment.

Israel considers civilian men, women and children legitimate targets. So are civilian structures and infrastructure unrelated to military necessity.

Rogue terror states operate this way. America and Israel are the world's worst.

Ireland's Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore "condemn(ed) unreservedly the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel which pose such a grave threat to the population."

At the same time, he criticized mounting civilian casualties in Gaza.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier told Israeli Knesset members:

"I have come to tell you that the French people will always stand at the State of Israel's side whenever its existence is threatened."

He failed to explain its existence never faced existential threats except briefly during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. For sure it faces none now.

Current French President Francois Hollande strongly supports Israel's right to "self-defense."

At the same time, he said "(a)ll efforts must be boosted to impose, now more than ever, a ceasefire in Gaza and end the suffering of the civilian population."

His government so far did nothing to do it. Nor any other Western one.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier said "(i)t's the legitimate right of Israel to protect its own people."

She turns truth on its head holding Hamas alone responsible for current and past conflicts with Israel.

GW Bush earlier said "Hamas…show(s) its true colors as a terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.'

"In order for the violence to stop, Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel, and agree to respect a sustainable and durable ceasefire."

Fact: Hamas will recognize Israel when it unconditionally accepts Palestinian self-determination within 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its exclusive capital.

Fact: Israel bears full responsibility for sabotaging current and earlier efforts for sustainable peace and stability.

Israel is a lawless rogue terror state. Washington supports its brutal occupation and genocidal wars. So do other Western nations.

As long as status quo conditions remain, justice for long-suffering Palestinians will remain elusive.

Israeli genocidal wars of aggression will repeat. Unaccountable mass murder and destruction will follow.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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