Pessimism

Living in Palestine, you have a keen sense of what's going on politically in the region. I don't think it's any stretch of the imagination to say that the events of the past week have caused a great deal of frustration for all those living here, (well, except for the Israeli Settlers).

Let's do a quick review. This week the EU, following a host of other governments, cut off aid to the Hamas led PA. They did this because a) Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, b) They refuse to disarm and halt all attacks on Israel, and c) They refuse to recognize past agreements.

While this has been happening, Israel has been shelling Gaza constantly (while also closing all the entrance/exits preventing the transport of grain among other things into Gaza), and two days ago switched from football pitches and militant training bases to residential areas. Yesterday, as a result of this decision, a nine year old girl was the latest Palestinian killed, as she sat in her home which was hit it by a shell.

The constant shelling is providing a footnote to the first news item, and I have yet to hear of any condemnation for the attacks on civilians. The fact that Israel a) refuses to recognize Palestine, b) refuses to disarm or halt attacks on Palestinians, and c) refuse to recognize past agreements (one example being the one handing control of some Gaza border crossings to the Palestinians, which Israel has now closed causing chronic food shortages in Gaza for the last month) comes as no surprise to anyone living here.

No doubt in a few weeks or months, when the next suicide bomber blows himself up in Tel Aviv or Netanyha after his father/mother/brother/sister/child/ was killed by the shelling or some other Israeli attack, we can all sit at home in front of our television sets and think that all that shelling was worth it just to quell the 'terrorists'. And the extraordinary violence that is the Occupation will keep ticking along.