JUST as the truce ended on Friday, Israel rained bombs on Gaza, killing 158 Palestinians, mostly women and children, reported The Guardian quoting the Health Ministry in Gaza.
The newspaper also reported that 589 Palestinians were injured. Tel Aviv says it wants to wipe out Hamas, but in reality it is killing ordinary Palestinians. We let the numbers speak. According to the Middle East Eye, a regional news portal that often challenges the narratives of Western mainstream media, the ongoing war has thus far killed upwards of 20,000 Palestinian civilians.
Of these, more than 15,000 are confirmed dead, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women, and more than 7,000 missing under the rubble. The Zionists have one clear aim: to take Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from the Palestinians for good. No, don't take Hamas's word for it.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Zionist cabinet have made this clear. Tel Aviv does this in two ways. One, bomb the Palestinians to death. Two, force the survivors of the bombardments to leave Palestine. This is ethnic cleansing. Period.
But Israel's impunity won't stop because the West is turning the apartheid regime into a genocidal killing machine. The Western nations aren't blind to Tel Aviv's impunity, but they refuse to do anything about it. What is worse, Western mainstream media are growing this impunity by helping to spread the Zionist regime's lies.
Everytime the Palestinians rise up against the apartheid regime to defend their right to freedom and a homeland — a right guaranteed under international law — there is a well-rehearsed chorus of response from Western leaders and the press: Israel has the right to defend itself.
Never mind if Israel has been the persecutor-occupier and the Palestinians the victims of genocide for at least 75 years. Never mind, too, if Israel is a nuclear power and the Palestinians are without an army.
The West cannot continue to talk of Israel's security and not of Palestinian security. In fact, Israel is not defending itself. It never has been. Even before May 14, 1948, it had been on a mission to annihilate the Palestinians.
It has tried various means, beginning with settler colonialism. Seeing that none of these work, it is now after genocide by bombardments. The apartheid Israeli regime, modelled along the lines of the South African one, invented Zionism to justify Palestinian-Arab hatred. If it was a street ideology in the past, today it is an active Israeli school curriculum.
Small wonder, Israeli cabinet members, especially those from illegally occupied settlements — yes, they have made it to the Knesset — are calling the Palestinians and Arabs "animals". The West has to do some serious thinking about its ties with Israel.
Blank cheque to the murderous regime in Tel Aviv means a big hole in the reputation of the West. Slowly but surely, it will bring certain ruin. With a friend like Israel, the West doesn't need any enemy. Saying the West wants peace in the Middle East isn't enough. It must mean it. Here is how: hold Israel accountable. To fail to do so is to fail to give peace a chance.