Mike Murray, The Capital Times, January 8, 2010
Dec. 27 marked the one-year anniversary of Israel’s brutal invasion of the occupied Gaza Strip, which was commonly referred to as “Operation Cast Lead.”
During this three-week act of aggression, Israel killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, injured thousands more, and destroyed billions of dollars of Palestinian civilian infrastructure. Today, Israel continues to subject the 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to a dehumanizing blockade — an illegal act of collective punishment — that denies Palestinians adequate access to food, clean water, sanitation, electricity, and even school books and construction materials for rebuilding.
While most governments around the world have maintained an official silence about the siege of Gaza, activists worldwide are beginning to speak out against Israel’s illegal actions. Recently, a worldwide coalition of activists organized solidarity marches around the world — including Egypt and Gaza — to protest the siege.
Back in the United States, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, has begun to demonstrate an admirable proclivity for compassion, courage and rationality in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an institution where all three of these characteristics are sorely lacking on this issue: Congress. Many progressive and independent-minded members of Congress are beginning to tire of their colleagues’ unthinking support of Israel and are showing a willingness to challenge both Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians and our government’s unconditional support for Israel.
Recent events in Congress have revealed that many members — including Baldwin — are no longer willing to march in lockstep behind Israel. The most striking example was the House’s reaction to the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Report was issued by the U.N. and was written by a group headed by imminent international human rights jurist Richard Goldstone. The report detailed human rights violations that were committed both by Israeli invasion forces against Palestinian civilians and by Hamas fighters during the Gaza conflict.
(Read on …)