Sunday, December 29, 2019

Israel: The criminal enterprise

Belen Fernandez

Demonstrators in the Federal Building Plaza protest the deaths of more than 30 Palestinians killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza on 20 November (AFP)
Demonstrators at the Federal Building Plaza in Chicago protest against the deaths of more than 30 Palestinians killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza on 20 November (AFP)
In an end-of-year article headlined “Israeli migraine-busting device saluted as 2020 ‘game changer’”, the Times of Israel enthused: “After its product was selected earlier this year as one of Time magazine’s 100 best inventions for 2019, Israeli startup Theranica, the developer of a medical device for the treatment of acute migraine, has been chosen by New York data company CB Insights as one of next year’s 36 startup ‘game changers’.” According to the New York firm, Netanya-based Theranica is one of an exclusive group of “high-momentum companies pioneering new ways to solve big problems” in 2020.
If only the year 2020 would enable people to see Israel for the criminal enterprise that it is, that would be a 'game changer' indeed
Of course, the custom of whitewashing Israeli apartheid and lethal brutality vis-a-vis Palestinians is nothing new. For years, proponents of the Zionist state (along with potentially unwitting collaborators) have marketed Israel as an oasis of technology, modernity, civilisation and all that good stuff - and never mind the fact that it regularly massacres Arabs and otherwise deprives them of rights.
The Gaza Strip, for example, is no stranger to Israeli-induced casualty counts in the thousands. Forget "game-changing" solutions to the phenomenon of migraines - Israel is perpetually behind the proliferation of all manner of "big problems" on Palestinian land, from slaughter and mutilation, to trauma, to terrorisation-by-constant-buzzing-drone-presence (an extraordinary sort of headache in its own right).
Over the course of two days alone this November, 34 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air raids in Gaza, among them eight members of one family (including five children and two women) - before a ninth member also succumbed to his injuries. And if the Israeli military’s murderous response to Palestinians’ ongoing Great March of Return is any indication, it seems 2020 will be yet another year of more-than-migraines for Israel’s perennial victims.
As we all know, the number 2020 is associated with perfect vision. If only the year 2020 would enable people to see Israel for the criminal enterprise that it is, that would be a “game changer” indeed.

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