PALESTINIAN ROOTS STOLEN

To his credit, Middle East "expert" Antony Loewenstein has finally visited Gaza. His latest Gaza post, Gaza: flattened, occupied, sick and rootless is, however, typically muddled with Gaza simultaneously "occupied" and "under siege for over three years by Israel and the Western powers". Read the whole thing, marveling at the writing -- good enough for Crikey.

His conclusion is powerfully persuasive:

In the small village of East Maghazi, near the Israeli border, a farmer told me a story that seemed to encapsulate the sense of humiliation that infects this conflict. After the Israelis bulldozed his home without warning in early January, along with killing some of his live-stock, they returned to steal the roots of a 100 year-old sycamore tree, a shady covering used by his grandfather in decades past. The roots would undoubtedly be re-planted in Israel as a way to eradicate the Palestinian connection to the land.

This is the real meaning of occupation.

The Palestinian cause may never recover.