Dr. El-Sarraj: Terror in Gaza

[DogPoundPup]

By Eyad El-Sarraj
Sunday, January 4, 2009

GAZA CITY

How much worse can it get? After a horrifying week, the Israelis have arrived once again at our doorstep. What now? Already we have experienced so much terror and want.

When the Israeli strikes first began, my wife and I were worrying about lentils. She said we could not have lentil soup for lunch because there were no lentils in the shops. Nor any rice or flour. Suddenly there was a deafening noise, followed by a succession of blasts the likes of which I had never experienced. Our house was rocking, the windows rattling in their panes.

Panicked, we ran into the small hallway. My sister-in-law, who lives upstairs, joined us, frantic because her young daughter was not yet home from school. Sari, a boy from the neighborhood, banged on our door asking for shelter. He trembled as he told us that he’d been on his way home from school in a taxi when there was a thundering blast. The driver stopped the car and ran for cover. The passengers scattered in all directions. Sari found himself running aimlessly. The explosions seemed to be chasing him, he said. Suddenly, he came upon people lying bleeding in the street. He went up to a man, wanting to help him, and touched his hand. It was nothing but a piece of burnt flesh. Somebody shouted at him to get away, so he ran off.

The news came over the telephone and the television. More than 200 people had been killed and even more wounded in less than 10 minutes. The numbers were climbing and the funeral scenes filled the TV screen. Apparently F16s had dropped more than 100 tons of bombs on crowded Gaza and had hit more than 300 targets in one mission. The pilots must have reported back to their commanders that their mission had been accomplished. But they never reported the pain and suffering of the innocent people and the fear their fighters had spread in the hearts of our children.

Continue reading...http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2009/01/04/dr-el-sarraj-terror-in-gaza/

[scarletwoman]

1. Thank you for finding this. I'm posting another excerpt:

Wisdom tells us that violence can only breed violence. Israel’s brutality guarantees that its people will not be secure. Israel may destroy much and kill many in Hamas, but that is not the solution.

Hamas was born because of the occupation and won the democratic elections in 2006 because of false promises of peace and people’s disillusionment with the Palestinian Authority. Israel and its allies should address Palestinian grievances instead of aggravating them by denying justice and security and by violating basic human rights.

Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are here because they were expelled in 1948 when Israel was created. Since then, we have not had a day of freedom or of equal rights with Israelis. We can barely feed our children or provide them with medicine, because Israel controls everything that goes in and out. From where I sit, in the middle of this barrage of bombing, Israel looks to be increasingly living outside the norms of the world community and outside international law.

sw

[subsuelo]

2. Colonization of someone else's land is not such an easy process is it

[Duckhunter935]

3. A lot of things happened in 1947-48

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 was a plan approved by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947<1> to terminate the British Mandate of Palestine by August 1, 1948, and facilitate the creation of two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The plan was approved by a vote of 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.


gets into the weeds


In May 1948, Israel became an independent state after Israel was recognised by the United Nations as a country in its own right within the Middle East.

Israel was attacked on the same day it gained its independence – May 14th. The armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq attacked Israel. With such a combined force attacking Israel, few would have given the new country any chance of survival.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/israel_and_the_1948_war.htm

[Malikshah]

5. True. And ~300,000 refugees created before the declaration of the State of Israel in mid-May

From Feb to May 14 a mad scramble. Plan D, etc.

Avi Shlaim's Iron Wall is a good source on this period.

[DogPoundPup]

4. You are welcome. n/t