The U.S. media needs to inquire more deeply into the complex history of what we call the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Gideon Levy’s columns in Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, tend to offer fair analyses.

In his July 13 column, titled “Israel’s real purpose in Gaza operation? To kill Arabs,” Levy calls the “war” a match between “the elephant against the fly.”

Concerning rockets, Amnesty International reported it found no instances in which Hamas fired rockets from within a civilian home or used civilians as cover, and, on the other hand, that Israeli soldiers did use civilians as shields.

Challenging readers to consider the list of conditions published by Hamas, Levy asks and responds in a July 20 column: “What does Hamas really want? … Judge honestly whether there is one unjust demand among them. There is not one unfounded condition among them.”

One of those conditions is the lifting of “the siege,” the seven-year Gaza blockade. Living in what many call “the biggest open-air prison in the world,” Palestinians can’t get in or out.

Hamas cannot even get enough cement into Gaza to rebuild homes, factories and the water treatment plant destroyed by Israel in 2009 and later years. The Israeli state even rations Palestinians’ water and calculates just enough calories of food per person so they will not starve.

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In the July 24 Bridgton News, Henry Precht, a retired U.S. State Department official, explains that the state of Israel is violating Geneva Convention rules. “One of them,” he cites, “is the requirement that an occupying power (like Israel) will ‘protect’ the inhabitants under its control. That would seem to mean, at a minimum, not bombing Gaza’s water facilities and depriving 1.7 million people of fresh water.”

Is not the United States an upholder of international law? Let the siege be lifted!

Elaine G. McGillicuddy

Portland


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