The Israeli bombing and shelling of unarmed civilians in Gaza is code-name "Summer Rain".
Macabre. For when the intense heat of a dry Gazan summer makes people desperate for water, Israel has destroyed Gaza's power station whose electricity is necessary for the operation of many Palestinian wells.
Have any Canadian media informed us "people are raiding garbage dumps" - the words of the UN World Food Program officer in Gaza - because 70 per cent lack food to meet their family needs.
Israel controls every entrance and exit to Gaza - land, sea and sky. For months the 1.5 million Palestinians, in the most densely populated area of the world, have been hermetically sealed. no products can be exported - the economy is destroyed. No Palestinian can leave, no medicine can arrive. Israeli fighter planes with purposely unpredictable frequency fly low above the hovels breaking the sound barrier to terrify children and adults alike. Thirty-five thousand fishermen cannot venture [on] the water because Israeli gunboats will shell them.
Yet the Canadian government and our media repeat a mantra: "Israel has withdrawn from Gaza". If prison guards withdrew from inside the cell-blocks but controlled every gate, patrolled every inch of perimeter, and shot from every tower - would you say the prisoners had been freed?
It is not a metaphor nor an exaggeration to say Gaza is the world's largest prison.
It doesn't matter where you choose to start your story - on June 25 when some Palestinians captured one Israel soldier manning a gate that seals them in their prison, or June 9 when an Israel naval boat fired seven successive artillery shells at Palestinian families relaxing on the beach on a weekend, killing a father, mother and five children from the same family - or in 1967 when Israel invaded and illegally occupied Gaza. When you know that hundreds of Palestinians intentionally are being murdered, hundreds of thousands starved and tormented, something dreadful and appalling must be brought to a halt.
Yet the Canadian government praises and defends Israeli atrocities, just as it did in Lebanon.
Worse still, our government was the first to cut all humanitarian aid to Gaza, and implement a boycott against the Palestinian government. Why? Because the Palestinian people, in an election hailed as democratic by none other than former US president Carter, voted in large numbers for Hamas. And our government says it wants to "bring democracy" to Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine!
Ask South Africans for their response, the ones who fought against apartheid and wanted an international boycott against the white supremacist government. Archbishop Desmond Tutu says apartheid in occupied Palestine is worse than it was in South Africa. Ronnie Kasrils, a South African Jew and Minister in the current government, supports the Palestinian call for an international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. Willie Madisha, President of COSATU, the federation of South African unions, said if we don't support a boycott of Israel, "history will look back at and spit on our graves".
To help inform people of the realities of Gaza and to uphold international law and human rights in Palestine and Israel, contact Canpalnet: support@canpalnet.ca