Foreign Aid, the U.S. and Palestine
Let us, for a moment, take a look at a part of the world where suffering is rampant. Here are some of the conditions the residents there experience:
- Very limited potable water.
- Electricity for six hours a day, at a maximum.
- Children have to walk through areas destroyed by terrorist bombings to get to school. Many schools have been destroyed.
- Unemployment is in the double-digits. It rose to 32.5% over the second quarter.
- Food is lacking; few people have sufficient to eat, due to import restrictions.
- With new restrictions on the importing of cement, construction activities have all but come to a halt. The construction sector is the largest source of employment in the area.
- Imports of natural gas and oil are greatly restricted, if allowed at all.
- Foreign trucks carrying goods into the area decreased by over 50%.
- It is one of the most crowded places on earth.
One might think that the U.S., which is always rushing off to assist far-flung locations, whether or not they want U.S. assistance, might intervene in this location. Unfortunately, it has not been as quick to send its money, supplies and soldiers to this place, as it has to many other locations suffering from similar conditions.
One need not wonder for long why this is. The U.S., which presents itself as the world’s foremost beacon of peace and freedom, standing with the oppressed and downtrodden throughout the world, does have a few caveats. It will assist any people anywhere, as long as their government does exactly what the U.S. wants it to do. It will spare no expense to help suffering people, as long as those people have not had the temerity to elect a leftist government. And no limitations will be put on assisting anyone, as long as they haven’t displeased Apartheid Israel.
And here we come to the crux of the matter: Palestinians in Gaza, the people suffering as described above, cannot be assisted, because the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) owns the U.S. Congress. While the U.S. can afford to give Israel $8,500,000.00 each and every day of the year, it will not assist starving children in Gaza, living without electricity or potable water, because doing so might dry up some of the campaign contributions funneled to Congress’s members, through the efforts of that disgraceful, racist organization, AIPAC. And, as always, the financial bottom line trumps anything else in U.S. government and politics.
The Gaza Strip has been described as the largest prison on the planet; Apartheid Israel controls all its borders – land, sea and air – and allows few imports or exports. Fisherman attempting to make a living in the waters off the coast are often shot, and their small boats sunk. And now, due to Apartheid Israel’s total blockade, and the overthrow of the democratically-elected Egyptian government of Mohamed Morsi, even clandestine tunnels from that country have been destroyed, further aggravating the suffering of the Palestinians. Without fuel and/or electricity to operate pumps, sewage spills in the streets. And this is how the men, women and children of Gaza must live.
In the U.S., it is no secret to anyone who bothers to look that human rights take a distant back seat to political expediency. The unholy mantra of ‘national security’, for both the U.S. and Apartheid Israel, is chanted with the hope that, if said often enough, it will be believed. Few citizens in the U.S. pay much attention to the Middle East anyway, except when the U.S. decides to invade it, or when such an invasion is prevented, such as was recently done by that upstart Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Then, it is not praise for restraint that is heard, but criticism for allowing a foreign power to influence U.S. policy.
So what of Palestine? Ragged, homeless children and families there do not appear on U.S. news programs. Flooding in city streets is ignored by the western media. The near-starvation of the populace gains no notoriety, since those pulling the media strings have more allegiance to Apartheid Israel than to truth, justice and human rights. And the U.S. Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, bow to the wishes and whims of Apartheid Israel. And President Obama, like his predecessors at least back to President John F. Kennedy, toes the AIPAC line.
And while these disgraceful elected officials mouth worthless platitudes about national security, for the U.S. and Apartheid Israel, from one side of their mouths, and spout about helping the downtrodden of the world with the other, Palestinians in Gaza continue to suffer, with little help in sight beyond their own resiliency.
That, however, seems to be changing. With the ‘Boycott, Divest, Sanction’ (BDS) movement gaining traction around the world, and more artists refusing to perform or appear in Apartheid Israel, perhaps the tide of racism is turning. This cannot happen soon enough for the people experiencing unspeakable suffering in Gaza, suffering that the U.S. government not only ignores, but also is actively complicit in causing and continuing.