What about Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine?

For the past month, Gaza and occupied Palestine have fallen off newspaper front pages and mostly out of everyone's' imagination while Lebanon was being devastated by the Israelis. During the entire month of the Lebanon-Israel war, the residents of Gaza, the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, continued to feel the cruel and relentless wrath of the occupying Israelis. It is likely that even greater damage was dealt to both civilians and infrastructure while the world was focused on Lebanon. It is now time to refocus equal attention on Palestine and Lebanon and let the momentum of a United Nations resolution--meant to protect the civilian populations on both sides of the border--reinvigorate the many existing resolutions calling for justice for Palestinian residents and refugees in the land of Palestine.

As Ehud Olmert is fed grilled-crow in Israel, he will try to exonerate himself by throwing his weight behind the ongoing war against the Palestinians. Rhetoric about having "crushed Hizbullah" are empty words that are already being met with heckling in the Knesset. Human rights and peace organizations need to become more vigilant about the unleashing of hatred and violence towards the imprisoned Palestinians by a returning Israeli army smarting from fighting a worthy opponent in S. Lebanon. Unlike the Lebanese who could flee northward or towards Syria, the residents of Gaza and occupied Palestine are in open-air prisons with the IOF controlling all movement, period. Residents of Gaza are living in the worlds largest open-air prison.

Indeed the Kadima party has suffered something of a setback, and serpents like Benjamin Netanyahu is turning Olmert's shame into a political spade. Capitalizing on the publics' anger and fear--as Israelis have never felt more vulnerable as during the past four weeks--the bloodletting and reprisals against ordinary Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are likely to escalate. Now, more than ever the Palestinians need the eyes, ears and support of the world for protection.

Once again the solution to the Middle East crisis lies in finding justice for the original crime: the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral home and the brutal subjugation of the remaining population to a military occupation far nastier and repressive than the one the existed in South Africa. Whether or not Israel will face a united world front for perpetuating heinous war crimes in Qana and elsewhere is debatable. There is certainly ample evidence for legal proceedings through both traditional and non-traditional channels to exact reparations for its destruction of Lebanon. Suffice it to say that this is really just the most recent chapter of a long and well-documented book on Israel's fascism that begin with the events leading to al Nakba and continue until this very day.