Palestinians will fight on

The waning days of the presidency of George W. Bush is now best remembered for the "shoe-icide", as the headline in the New York Daily News had it when the Iraqi journalist, Muntadar Al Zaidi, threw his shoes at the visiting American leader in Baghdad during his farewell visit which he had hoped to be his "victory lap."

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq," the young journalist declared at the press conference last month attended by Bush and his Iraqi host, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, as he tossed his pair of shoes.

One wonders how any Palestinian in Gaza, scene of the ongoing Israeli blood bath, would treat the American president should he visit there before his term ends in less than three weeks especially after unabashedly voicing his support of the Israeli invasion? More than 650 Palestinians, a third of them children and women, including dozens of civilians were killed by Israeli tank shells as they were seeking shelter last Tuesday at a UN-run school in Gaza. Nearly 3,000 are wounded.

The excuses given by American and Israeli leaders for the Israeli invasion, namely the continued firing of Qassam rockets into southern Israel weeks before the expiration of the Israeli-Hamas truce are not tenable. Much as any attack on unarmed civilians is abhorrent, the ineffective rockets fired from Gaza in the last few months - hardly a dozen Israelis have been killed - seemed to be a last-resort attempt to get the Israelis, or anyone else who can influence them, to lift the six-month suffocating siege on the densely populated Gaza Strip. (In a commendable gesture that must have embarrassed many an Arab leader, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered, after his visit to several Arab capitals that Turkey, to mediate between Hamas and the UN Security Council over a truce.)

Crucial election

Israeli leaders are in the midst of a crucial election season where the hawkish Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been leading in the election campaign to unseat the present Israeli coalition. Accordingly, his desperate rivals, the newly elected Kadima Party leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, head of the shrinking Labour Party, have been eager for some manoeuvre to outdo Netanyahu.

The opportunity came when Israel's political godfather, the US, is preoccupied with the country's "very sick" economy as well as pace-setting transition in American leadership. Their short-sighted option was to invade the densely populated Gaza Strip in the hope it would not have the same disastrous results as Israel's war on Hezbollah two years ago.

Although the Israeli coverup for their assault has been the Gaza shelling of southern Israeli towns, the suspicion has been all along the elimination of Hamas and restoration of the West Bank regime of moderate Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has unsuccessfully been negotiating with Israel for some time now.

Much to the surprise of many, Bush did not hesitate to reveal his true colours in giving the green light to the Israeli assault, accompanied by his deadly silence over the high civilian toll in the first week of the invasion.

This prompted President-elect Barack Obama to break his silence and express his deep concern over the high civilian casualties. "After January 20, I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East." He stressed, "that's something I am committed to".

Bush's one sidedness has also prompted French President Nicolas Sarkozy to jump into the political fray and take the lead from Washington in orchestrating this Middle East turnaround by visiting the region and ushering the Egyptian proposed ceasefire.

If nothing else, this also signalled the unceremonious demise of the Bush presidency.

Bottom line is, according to Joseph Massad, an associate professor at Columbia University, "the lesson that Zionism has refused to learn, and still refuses to learn, is that the Palestinian yearning for freedom from the Zionist yoke cannot be extinguished no matter how barbaric Israel's crimes become."

George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com