Ray HananiaIt's shocking that Israeli soldiers can murder civilians, including children, in the Gaza Strip with impunity, as their media manipulators all the while spin the truth and place the blame on the victims. Isn't that Israel's entire story? Always pretending to love peace but warmongering more than any other country in the Middle East? There was a time when peace with Israel was possible. Under the leadership of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinians and the Arab world made significant compromises to recognize Israel, after Israel promised in the face of God and the world that they would reciprocate and make peace with the Palestinians and the Arabs. It's true that violent extremists on both sides did everything they could to block peace. Hamas terrorists nurtured young suicide bombers to sacrifice their lives for their distorted strategy of rejection and hatred. And while Rabin's gesture of peace was genuine, nearly half of the Israeli population opposed peace believing that their historic policy of taking land by force and erecting a massive military state would give them everything. Why should Israelis make peace when conflict has brought them everything they have ever desired? The Israeli terrorist settler movement murdered Rabin, provoked more violence by attacking Palestinian civilians and undermined the weak-willed Israeli peace movement. Till this day, the Israeli peace movement remains an empty shell of abandoned principle and absence of courage. One must ask if they even still exist? There remains no real peace movement in Israel. Analyzing the failures of what did exist, it's clear that Israel never intended to make peace. Instead, Israel has used peace as a strategy to further divide the Arab people and continue their land grab using violence, targeting civilians and shielding their war crimes using a complicit, unprincipled mainstream Western news media. Peace today is impossible with Israel. Short of some miracle where the fast-disappearing minority of principle-minded Israelis wake up from their self-imposed slumber to counter the growing fanaticism that has overcome reason in their country, Arabs and Jews are destined to face each other on the battlefield. History shows that most Israelis never really wanted peace with the Palestinians. They want the land. They want the Palestinians to disappear. Israel continues to ethnically cleanse Christian and Muslim Arabs. Even during the wavering peace process, Israel continued to expand its racist settlement movement and confiscate more land taken illegally from Arab owners in the West Bank and especially around Jerusalem. There is no peace today. The peace movement is dead. Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims have a moral obligation to defend themselves against Israeli aggression and violence. They have an obligation to respond to the lies from Israel, including the most pernicious claims by Israeli spokesman Mark Regev who falsely asserts that Israel must kill Palestinians in Gaza because the Gazans have fired rockets into Israel. Yes, the Palestinians have fired rockets into Israel, but only after Israel launched assault after assault murdering Palestinian political leaders and civilian leaders. Regev was speaking to the brainwashed, fickle and truly ignorant American public in making his comments. He knows that Americans fully embrace Israeli lies as facts because they know so little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The most recent murder by Israel was the unprovoked killing of Ahmed Al-Jaabari, who was the Hamas security chief who spent the last 18 months working with Israel to contain Arab extremism and prevent the firing of rockets. But each time Israel attacked Palestinians, individual groups of Palestinians angered by Israel's lies, fired rockets at Israel. So with the help of the American government, Israel used an American-made drone to target and murder Al-Jaabari as he drove from his office in his car. Killed along with Al-Jaabari were several civilians who happened to be nearby. Israel has never feared killing civilians in its campaigns to murder its targets. No one should question Palestinians or Arabs who respond to this brutality with their own force and violence against Israelis. I don't support violence. I support peace based on land compromise. But if you have no partner for peace, then what's the point? All human beings have the absolute right to defend themselves against aggression and violence. Fighting back when fighting back is the only option is not terrorism; it is a moral struggle among the righteous to stand up to Israeli brutality. The Gaza conflict undermines the Palestinian National Authority, which was founded to help nurture a Palestinian state during the now dead peace process. As Israel continues it pogrom against the Palestinians, the Palestinians should cease all cooperation with Israel, and Arab governments should recall all of their diplomatic representatives. There should be no contact with any Israelis except those who reject the violence of their own government. Does the Arab world have any self-respect? Or are they all weak and fearful cowards who have turned the majesty of Arab history and culture into little more than a slave to apartheid hegemony?— Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist. He can be reached at www.TheMediaOasis.com
