Complicity in Ethnic Cleansing

07-22-2014 • antiwar.com

This time Israeli forces have already slaughtered over 500 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, while about 20 Israelis, almost all soldiers, have been killed. The imbalance of these death tolls is staggering but not surprising. I say not surprising because Israel has one of the strongest militaries in the world, supplied with the latest US weapons and technology, whereas Palestinians have no real army nor any defense against Israeli plane or missile attacks.

In each of these massacres, the scenario was similar. Palestinians react to some Israeli provocation and Israel uses the Palestinian reaction as an excuse to launch its attack. The use of provocations is a long standing Israeli tactic. For example, Moshe Dayan discussed the use of this tactic against the Syrians, claiming that at least 80% of the incidents with Syria under the armistice agreements were caused by Israeli provocations.

Israel claims that the goal of its attack is to stop rockets from being launched into Israel.