THE Israeli military are gearing up for an invasion of the Gaza enclave. Israel has at its disposal one of the best equipped and most lethal armies in the world with heavy armour, state of the art technology and a powerful air force.
Equipped by the US military-industrial complex (with the British jostling for a piece of the pie) the might of the empire is ranged against the Palestinians.
Palestinians don’t have an army, they don't have an airforce, they possess no tanks or heavy armour.
And despite the hypocritical Western rhetoric about a “two-state” solution, Palestinians do not have a state in any real sense. There is no piece of territory over which they exercise meaningful sovereignty.
Israeli armour is massed on the border behind which untold numbers of evicted Palestinians live within sight of the lands from which they were dispossessed.
In the BBC's “even-handed” reporting there is great focus on rocket fire from Gaza which occasionally finds targets in a few nearby Israeli settlements.
Of course there is a cottage industry in Gaza that manufactures devices which various Palestinian groups fire into the few Israeli settlements within range. Over the years a large number of these devices have been launched.
The Times of Israel reported today that of the 100 fired at Tel Aviv and Beersheba in what it describes as a “major barrage” four people were injured while seven Israelis were killed in other parts of Israel.
These militarily ineffective devices have an undoubted psychological effect but as proportionate responses to the massed firepower of the settler state they are no more effective than David's slingshot would be against a state-of-art F-35.
By way of contrast the Israeli airforce took out a 13-storey apartment block in Gaza in a single strike.
While the Times of Israel reports that 72 Palestinians died overall, the Palestinian health ministry says 26 people died in one day of the present Israeli assault on Gaza, including nine children with another 122 people injured.
Add this to the 520 Palestinians injured in Jerusalem on Monday when the heavily armed Israeli police ran amok among unarmed worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque and we have a measure of how evenly matched are these adversaries.
Much of this Israeli-initiated tension is while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces corruption charges and in the context of a leadership contest in which the leading contenders for his job are competing to see who is most resistant to the mounting demand for Palestinian justice.
Add to this police violence against protesters opposing the settler pogrom to drive hundreds of Palestinians from their houses in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood; compound this with the planned Dance of the Flags invasion through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter by crazed right-wing zionists — and Palestinian resistance became inevitable.
Israeli perceptions are becoming ever more detached from the way the rest of the world sees the situation. In important ways the Israelis have already lost the propaganda war. Even in Western states whose political elites are in support of the apartheid state, public opinion is moving towards a more balanced judgement.
This is no less true among Jewish people for whom unthinking loyalty to Israel is no longer easily commanded. Among the 7.5 million US Jews 10 per cent support Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions — this in a context in which backing BDS can be a threat to career and livelihood.
As long as there is an occupation there will be resistance. Where the present situation cannot continue the Israeli actions are partly a test for Biden — and so far his response has been muted.
