MONDAY night, I simply could not help but answer my five-year-old son's question about why several young Palestinian children, on TV, were crying and screaming with bloodstained faces and tearful eyes. What my little son does not know is that these children are not crying because their parents refused to bring them a toy – as I falsely explained to him, but because their big neighbor wants to uproot them entirely from their homeland. The images from the Gaza Strip have been horrific since last Saturday. Several parts of Gaza – a tiny strip with a population of 1.5 million – have been reduced to rubble. Bodies of innocent men and women have been left scattered on deserted streets; grief-stricken women have been crying and lamenting the loss of their loved ones. Several government buildings, mosques and schools have been flattened in this large-scale aggression. Israeli warplanes continue to drop tons of US-supplied bombs on defenseless Palestinians killing more than 400 and injuring up to2,000. What Israel is doing these days in the Gaza Strip is nothing but genocide. Using its massive force to slaughter innocent people is a violation of international law. Its declared objective is to eradicate Hamas and to change the “realities on the ground.” However, Israel is trying to convince the international community that its military offensive in Gaza is to stop “militants from firing rockets and targeting Israeli people.” Though people all over the world can observe the significant human losses on the Palestinian side, Israeli's foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has justified Israel's unjustifiable aggression by completely putting the blame on Hamas. “Israel's values are completely different from theirs,” the prime minister told journalists who know well that it is Israel who is responsible for this human tragedy, and not the unarmed Palestinians. As Israeli troops and tanks mass along the Gaza border, a truly human catastrophe is looming on the horizon. It is feared that a ground assault, which is highly anticipated in the coming days, will deepen the wounds of people already traumatized by days of bombardment, months of blockade and years of lost hope in having an independently viable state. This offensive would not have happened if Palestinians stood firmly united. Factional disparities between Hamas, the elected government, and Fatah, the architect of the Oslo agreements, have caused a sharp division among Palestinians and have split the once-united government. This split has been exploited by Israel and other regional powers to achieve their goals. The Arab reaction to the current events in Gaza is overshadowed by the division between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority leadership. Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing point – a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza – refused to open the border without the presence of observers from the Palestinian Authority and the European Union. The Egyptian position in the current crisis draws much criticism, particularly after Livni's recent visit to Egypt in which she confirmed to the Egyptian leadership that Israel was in no position to launch an eminent attack against Gaza. Egypt and other Arab countries prefer pressuring Israel to end its offensive by influencing key powers in the world like the US, the EU and Russia to intervene and convince the Israelis to put an end to their aggression. Unlike the US, France expressed its concern over the humanitarian crisis that is looming in Gaza and, therefore, proposed a 48-hour truce, a suggestion that was instantly rejected by Israel. Other Arab countries, recently dubbed as the resistance front, have called for an immediate summit meeting, a topic that was broadly discussed in an Arab League meeting recently held in Cairo. However, no consensus was reached and further discussion has been delayed until the UN gets involved. The United States has openly and unreservedly championed the view that Israel is being threatened by Hamas and that the latter has to stop firing rockets before negotiating any cease-fire. The Bush administration's position is no surprise knowing that Israel could not do what it has been doing in Gaza without political cover from the US. So it is unreasonable to expect the outgoing administration of George W. Bush to put any pressure on Israel or do anything to stop the Israelis from continuing their offensive. On a popular level, the Gaza carnage has drawn rare but expected sympathy from the Arab and the Muslim world. Several TV shows, newspaper articles and web-based commentaries show the anger people have against the Arab leaders for their inability to support the defenseless Palestinians. Massive demonstrations are being held across the Muslim world to condemn Israel's ongoing onslaught against innocent Palestinians. Despite the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, what is needed, first of all, is ending the Hamas-Fatah conflict and resorting to dialogue as a means to resolve problems. Without these crucial steps, Israel will continue its military offensives against the Palestinian people and, at the same time, will work to undermine any effort taken to bridge the rift between embattled Palestinian factions. __
