Gaza massacres are the price of a Jewish state

As the Israeli army pauses its shelling of neighborhoods, hospitals, and ambulances in Gaza, Ali Abunimah distills the situation to its essence:

Israel cannot exist “as a Jewish state” without violating the rights of all Palestinians to varying degrees... The massacre in Gaza is at the extreme end of the spectrum of abuses necessary to maintain Jewish sectarian rule in Palestine, but it is part of the same policy that requires employment and housing discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and outright land theft and ethnic cleansing in the Naqab (Negev) and the occupied West Bank.

If you support Israel’s “right to exist as a Jewish state” in a country whose indigenous Palestinian people today form half the population, then you ... must come to terms with the inevitability of massacres. If you oppose the horrific, repeated massacres in Gaza, then join the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), a movement that aims to decolonize Palestine and restore to all the people all their legitimate and inalienable rights.

Resources: Abunimah's book The Battle for Justice in Palestine. The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation holds its annual conference for organizers September 19-21 (wish it were closer than San Diego). The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. A more recent petition calling for international arms embargo to Israel.

Photo: Shejaiya neighborhood in Gaza 26 July 2014, destroyed this week by Israeli shelling and aerial bombing. Photo via Kate Benyon-Tinker (@katebt3000), Middle East producer for BBC.