De Israelische Terreur 1100

Terwijl in de polder nagenoeg iedere kunstenaar, politicus en autoriteit die z'n geld verdient met mensenrechten zich muisstil houdt, spreken hun collega's in de grote mensenwereld zich wel uit, zoals Brian Eno:

An Experiment in Provocation

Stealing Gaza

COUNTERPUNCH

By BRIAN ENO

It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better

than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as

oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked

"Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the

Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw

ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've

forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the

Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing

teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated

military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the

right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every

chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion

that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of

Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While

there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements.

While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of

military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they

can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into

which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million

people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity,

food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate

them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why

would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under

attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the

helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks

and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains

of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then

you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a

terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an

accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing

their homeland.

Brian Eno is a musician and music producer.