Why Israel is Becoming a Pariah State Gaza: a Lie Agreed Upon by KAREN ENGLISH In New Guinea there is a word for a truth that everybody knows but nobody speaks: Mokita. In the official discourse surrounding Palestine—Gaza in particular—politicians, President Obama, and the media speak from a phony script full of false vocabulary, false assertions, and deliberate omissions…all lies agreed upon. As soon as a “crisis” erupts in the region, the phony narrative clicks into place and the Sunday morning roundtables commence with everyone speaking their lines from the official script. Israel’s aggressions, the cruel economic blockade of Gaza resulting in malnutrition or anemia in nearly half of the region’s children, the targeted assassinations… Everything is ignored. Noam Chomsky calls Gaza, “the world’s largest open-air prison.” We’re subjected to words like conflict as if the systematic oppression and brutalization of an entire people is just a disagreement between two equal parties. Then are those calls for a truce. Pure political theater. Imagine calls for a truce between blacks during the time of apartheid and the white apartheid government. Would such a phrase have applied? Often there’s the discussion of the two state solution: Another phony phrase. There is no real possibility of that. And the term implies that there’s legitimacy in the illegal, criminal land grab that’s been going on for decades. As an innocuous, superficial model of this theft, imagine you have a house. Guests have come to visit. Little by little they begin to take over your house until you’re left with a fourth of the kitchen, half of the bathroom, and a corner of a bedroom. As time goes on, these people begin to gobble up a bit of your quarter of the kitchen, half of your half of the bathroom, and half of your corner of the bedroom. Is there a possibility of a two house solution? Of course, in the official narrative facts are conveniently omitted. Then there’s always the mention of the peace process. This term is a joke. It’s hard to see how anyone can keep a straight face uttering these words. This process has been going on at a snail’s pace deliberately for decades. It’s full of starts and stops. Long stops. It is basically a stalling mechanism that sufficiently puts things on hold while Israel builds more and more settlements to make its goal of Eretz Israel a fait accompli. Israel’s right to defend herself. Obama is always spouting this or a variation of this. It is the most disingenuous of assertions. In 2004, the International Court of Justice found that as an occupying power, Israel’s right to defend itself under a UN Charter provision does not apply against those living under its rule. The assaults on Gaza and its population are not acts of self-defense. I’m sure Obama knows this. In fact, UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 “affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal.” Alhamdullilah, Israel’s ability to paint herself as the victim is on the wane. Almost no one but the ignorant and the willingly obtuse believes that Israel is a victim. That stance is falling apart even among ordinary Americans. One indication of this was what happened in St. Louis, Missouri in on December 19, 2012. A group of American citizens showed up at a standing room only meeting in the mayor’s office for the St. Louis City Board of Estimate & Apportionment to protest the approval of a city contract with Veolia Water. They managed to get the vote delayed until there could be a full investigation into the company’s history and practice of ethnic discrimination and abuses in Palestine. More and more Israel is becoming a pariah state because of her apartheid practices. Her special status (propped up by the holocaust) is diminishing. The mainstream media’s tired jargon is increasingly transparent and a step behind the times. The litany of false terms and assertions, and the official narrative are being seen increasingly for what they are—just lies agreed upon. Karen English is a writer living in Los Angeles.
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