Military Strategies of the Gaza Pull-out.

Since getting back to Belgium, I've had trouble locating a Flemish equivalent of the New Statesman. I was therefore bound to scrummy newsflash takes on world affairs and erratic newspaper clippings. When I saw the newsbulletin about Sharon's decision to evacuate Israeli settlers from the Gaza strip, I was somewhat perplexed. The newsanchor didn't mention one word of the whys, hows or conditions of this decision. All we were shown were images of families in tears and palestinians celebrating. And for the past few days, that is all we were given. Despite it being a very appropriate time to do such, I will not enter into the "media information manipulation" debate here, as I think I've done that in earlier blogposts with respect to Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent".

But it did speed up my search for other media venues that would give a broader, more objective account of this whole series of events. I ended up at the New Statesman website again, and eventually found the article I was looking for. Indeed it seems Sharon has cut a deal with George W. Bush in which Sharon traded off the "free-ing" of the Gaza strip, for the garantuee that the Jewish settlements in the West Bank would remain untouched if ever a Palestine State were to be officially established. This is a trade-off of a mere 9000 settlers in the Gaza, for a far bigger occupation in the West Bank. Apart from this, Sharon is strategically building settlements in and around Jerusalem which will enclose Palestinian areas and eventually block off Jerusalem from the West Bank, to avoid it ever being established as the capital of Palestine.

I am not shocked at his tactics. Sharon has proven himself a shrewd military strategist on more than one occasion. I am, however, once again shocked at the willingness of the majority of the Media to obscure these crucial facts. Shocked too that the US has let its ignoramous president cut deals such as this one. Saddened that the pressure from financially well off Jewish American lobbygroups, still seems to have a foot in the ground.

What Palestine is concerned, the only honest reasoning that can be made is this one: In 1949, the Palestinian people were brutally robbed of their land and brought into oppression to relieve the guilty concious of the West. Nations which called themselves democratic ought to have known better back then. Nations that call themselves democratic today, should not make themselves guilty of robbing them even further.