Imprisoning a Whole Nation

May 24, 2007
Imprisoning a Whole Nation
by John Pilger

Israel is being allowed to destroy the very notion of a state of Palestine and is imprisoning an entire nation. That is clear from the latest attacks on Gaza, whose suffering has become a metaphor for the tragedy imposed on the peoples of the Middle East and beyond. These attacks, reported on Britain's Channel 4 News, were "targeting key militants of Hamas" and the "Hamas infrastructure." The BBC described a "clash" between the same militants and Israeli F-16 aircraft.


After reading John Pilger's article, I couldn't help but think of a funny line by comedienne Bobcat Goldthwait: "If you ever see me getting beaten by the police, put down the video camera and come help me."

It's not so funny as it relates to Gaza. It's amazing how the entire world is watching the horror show in Gaza and the silence is deafening. Gaza has been described as the real life "Truman Show". There are cameras everywhere, many are surveillance cameras installed by Israel, but no shortage of reporters as well and how is it this abomination continues with the full knowledge of the world?

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised as history is filled with atrocities where people and nations often looked the other way.

I feel the Gaza and Palestinian situation is different than other cases, including current cases such the Congo or Tibet, in that there are no shortages of cameras in Gaza as opposed to the two I mentioned. It can be argued the same for events in WW2 with Hitler's extermination camps and the Cambodian killing fields and many other historic tragedies, lack of information and cameras we believed made the war crimes possible - so we were told. The Gaza situation debunks the myth, "if only you shed light on something" and expose it to the light of day, then people will be informed and act to prevent such atrocities.

This begs the question - why? Jewish victimhood status - perennial victims - and years of propaganda strengthening such views, with European guilt over the holocaust neutralizing any criticism of Israel and many other factors, mostly power politics in America and Madison avenue spin, all work to shield Israel from having to account for any of it's war crimes.