From Cast Lead to Genocide

JVL Introduction

Although Joseph Finlay wrote this in 2009, it could very well have been written now with only changes of detail; is this passage 2009 or 2025?

“What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern”. So the goal is the total defeat of Hamas, a war of ‘regime change’, which will ultimately require Israel to fully recapture Gaza. This is hubristic, terrifying madness.

This article was written at the start of the ‘Cast Lead’ assault on Gaza, the first of what has turned out to be a series of invasions of intensifying brutality leading up to the current genocide. Cast Lead seemed to be the ultimate catastrophe at the time not merely practice for the real horror.

I was in Gaza on the eve of Cast Lead having entered Gaza on the last boat to reach the strip before the virtual maritime blockade became total. It was a strange time. Israel had killed the five Hamas tunnellers; as Joseph Finlay points out an action only interpretable as a provocation. Hamas was duly provoked and launched a limited number of rockets. Israel greatly exaggerated the number of rockets and used them to justify the implementation of an invasion plan already drawn up and only awaiting an excuse to put into operation.

Travelling around Gaza in December 2008 we could see everywhere the damage already inflicted in earlier raids. Life was going on as normal even though everyone was expecting an Israeli assault at anytime but this did not affect the hospitality with which we were offered everywhere. We sailed out before the murder and destruction began, much of what we saw, from media centres to  schools to universities was in ruins soon after.

MC

This article was originally published by Joseph Finlay's Blog on Mon 5 Jan 2009. Read the original here.