Leading article: An unlawful policy of collective punishment

The Independent

".....The Israeli government denies it is creating a humanitarian crisis and calls the blackout a ploy by Hamas, the authority in Gaza, "to attract international sympathy". This is not a view shared by John Ging, the operations director for the United Nations refugee agency in Gaza. It is true that the power station normally supplies only a third of the Strip's electricity, but it is also clear that the Strip's energy infrastructure cannot cope with such a massive disruption to supplies. The suffering in Gaza is real, and is the result of Israel's embargo.

.....Israel has a right to attempt to stop the attacks on its civilian population, but not by any means. International law specifically forbids collective punishment of occupied populations. The Geneva Conventions stipulate that occupying powers have an obligation to supply utilities such as water and power to occupied populations.

Israel has attempted to get around this by arguing that it is no longer bound by the law governing the administration of occupied territories because it withdrew its troops from Gaza in 2005. But that is thoroughly unconvincing. Israel still controls Gaza's borders, airspace and territorial waters. It may have begun referring to the Strip as a "hostile entity", but this is plainly an area still under Israeli control......"

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A major flaw in this comment is to present the Israeli policy of genocide as "reaction to the Qassam rockets;" nonsense! The real goal, clearly enunciated by non other than Olmert and his puppet in Ramallah, is to topple Hamas by turning the misery of 1.5 million Palestinians against Hamas.

But the opposite is happening. An article in the Jerusalem Post, posted here yesterday, makes that clear. The Palestinians are a very savvy and sophisticated people and they know that this is the plan. Instead of turning against Hamas, this has intensified their contempt for that stooge in Ramallah and has, again, shown the total incompetence and irrelevance of the existing Arab "order." The regimes have never been seen as more servile and more controlled by the USraeli leash, as they are today. They don't even dare to speak, let alone act!