Israel Sought ‘Politicide’ Through Gaza Attack - make ALL Palestinians give up fight for self-determination and justice

By Saree Makdisi is professor of English literature at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.” The opinions expressed are his own.
Israel’s primary justification for the bombardment of Gaza was that it was intended to stop Palestinian rockets fired into Israeli territory.

But Israel failed to accomplish a single one of its declared objectives. It failed to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza. It failed to stop smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. And it failed, even in the short run, to bring security to Israel’s own population.

If anything, the bombardment of Gaza left Hamas stronger than ever, for having stood up to three weeks of bombardment and preventing the Israeli army from translating its overwhelming firepower superiority into actual accomplishments on the battlefield -- of which there were none, other than crude destruction...

...for three weeks Israel showered high explosives, white phosphorous and other advanced munitions from land, sea and air on the packed residential neighborhoods of one of the most densely populated areas on Earth, in sweeping disregard for the principles of international humanitarian law...

...Clearly, the aim of the bombardment of Gaza wasn’t to extirpate this population. But it was intended to pound them, and all other Palestinians, into submission, to make them give up their call for self-determination and justice. It was intended to extirpate them in a symbolic sense -- a kind of politicide, to use the term coined by the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling.

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