The belated trip this week by US Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East, in what appears to be a half-baked attempt to establish truce between Israel and Hamas, appears difficult to achieve promptly. One disappointing reason points to the Obama administration’s failure to crack the whip early on, particularly on the Israeli government to stop its heinous massacres in the besieged Palestinian enclave, a small area of 561 square kilometres. As of July 22, more than 600 Palestinians, including 121 children, have been killed in merciless Israeli bombardment, and at least 3,500 others have been injured, including at least 1,100 children and 608 women, according to the US-based Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).
Six Nobel Peace Laureates were among several international celebrities who have recently called on the United Nations and governments across the world “to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid”, reported Mondoweiss.net, a progressive Jewish news website. Whether the Obama administration follows suit remains to be seen, but given that the US is at present in the midst of a tough Congressional election campaign, it is unlikely that it will make such a move. In fact, Israel annually receives $3 billion (Dh11 billion) in US military aid, the largest amount given to any country — a step that has raised many eyebrows in America.
However, in a slip of the tongue, Kerry was recently heard telling an aide, following the Israeli massacre in the eastern neighbourhood of Gaza City, known as Shujaiya, that this was “a hell of a pinpoint operation, a hell of a pinpoint operation”. Although he had publicly defended Israel’s actions on the talk shows that followed last Sunday, some assumed he was being critical. “The difference between what Kerry says on air and off is mind-numbing,” commented someone privately after one of the shows. The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has disappointingly been eclipsed in the West by the loss of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. However, that was not the case with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke publicly at a meeting in a Turkish city on the Black Sea. He declared: “Those who condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism,” though he simultaneously called for the Turkish Jews to be left alone.
The outcry against Israel was heard and felt in many countries, in anti-Israeli demonstrations in several European countries and even in the US. However, the absence of a tough anti-Israeli response within the US was, as of always, noticeable. The General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to the US was the only Arab diplomatic mission to put out a statement saying, “Thus far, Israel has killed 520 Palestinians, 70 per cent of whom are civilians, injured over 3,000, displaced more than 135,000people and damaged more than 1,000 homes, 69 mosques and churches and 85 schools”.
There is no doubt that the condition among the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip is heartbreaking and deplorable. Here is what a doctor, Mads Gilbert, in Gaza reported in an “open letter” published in the Independent of London on July 21: “More than 100 cases came to Shifa (hospital) in the last 24 hours. Enough for a large well-trained hospital with everything, but here almost nothing: Electricity, water, disposables, drugs, operating-room tables, instruments, monitors — all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday’s hospital. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors enormous, resolute.”
He then addressed the American president: “Mr [Barack] Obama — do you have a heart? I invite you — spend one night, just one night with us in Shifa. I am convinced, 100 per cent, it would change history. Nobody with a heart and power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people ... Please do what you can. This cannot continue.”
Moreover, all that Hamas says is that it wants a lifting of the siege of Gaza whose borders with both Egypt and Israel are sealed, the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel and Gaza’s seaport and airport could be monitored by the United Nations.
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
