You may have noticed that in recent weeks one of the world’s most advanced military machines has been relentlessly attacking the civilian population of Gaza. There has been no pretence at precision in these attacks, whole districts were flattened. More children were killed than Palestinian fighters. Nearly 2,000 Palestinians were murdered and 10,000 injured, in what can only be called genocide. Over half a million people were displaced and 12,000 homes were totally destroyed. International law was broken incessantly.

One feature of the war has been an immense online propaganda campaign by the Israelis with their Hasbara organisation recruiting literally thousands of Israelis to sit at computers and use crib sheets to spread lies and drown out debate. One lie was about Hamas using human shields. Another lie was that Palestine has never been a state. There are many more. A wall of Zionist lies and propaganda hitting the world. IDF (Israeli Defence Force) also release many untrue statements, these are often taken up and repeated by the Western press as being the facts. So your newspaper and TV news are lying to you.

It is very strange that Israel attacked Gaza. Hamas want peace. In mid July they offered a ten year truce in return for the restoration of basic human rights to Gaza, in a way that would not damage Israeli security. Many in the West do not realise that Gaza is a concentration camp. Look up the dictionary definition and that is Gaza. 1.8 million people have been herded into a narrow strip of land and then had their human rights removed. Netanyahu refuses point blank to talk to Hamas because he calls them a terrorist organisation. Yet they are the democratically elected political party that runs Gaza and represents the people there.

So why was Gaza attacked:

• To stop Qassam (the military wing of Hamas) rockets. These have been launched at Israel in the thousands for nearly 14 years now. They are glorified fireworks, totally unguided and with very small fertiliser warheads. They are the only means that Gaza has to resist Israeli oppression yet they are so ineffective that in all these years they have killed just 28 people. Hardly sufficient cause for the destruction meted out on Gaza.
• To stop the tunnels. IDF propaganda says that these tunnels were offensive, so Qassam could kill Israeli civilians. Yet no civilians have ever been killed because of them. They are defensive tunnels, against Israeli attack. In the recent conflict they proved very effective, enabling a very lightly armed Qassam to out-fight the heavily armed Israeli army on the ground. IDF propaganda says that the tunnels were financed with Western aid money. This is ridiculous, Hamas raise most of their revenue from smuggling with Egypt.
• To disarm and demilitarise Gaza. Israel never even tried to do this one. They just wrought destruction, one estimation says the explosive power of the bombs and shells used was twice that of the Hiroshima bomb. Also it is impossible, weapons can be buried for later use and new weapons can be made or smuggled in.
• Because of three murdered Israeli boys. Hamas always take responsibility for their actions and they deny having anything to do with this. Also it happened a long way from Gaza. And Gaza is a concentration camp. So this is a false pretext. But one used by Israel to imprison hundreds of Palestinians without trial. Collective punishments like these are war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention yet Israel does them all the time and the world says nothing.
• As part of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing. Israel was “given” to the Jewish race by the British with the Balfour Declaration. The big problem was that the land was already owned by other people, the Palestinians. So to make their state the Jews had to steal the land. This is the history of Israel, land theft and ethnic cleansing. 650,000 Israelis live illegally on Palestinian land on the West Bank and in Jerusalem alone, for instance. There is a continuous ongoing “settler” movement who spearhead this ethnic cleansing and land theft. They have a long history of killing Palestinians without punishment. But even for Israel ethnically cleansing 1.8 million people is a bit much. Their  previous record is over 700,000 in one go and world opinion wouldn’t allow them to do that again.

So it looks like Israel has no good reason for meting out death and destruction on a civilian population on such a large scale. But there is one and they are not telling the world about it. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 1994 under the terms of the Oslo Accords, whereupon governmental authority was transferred  to the Palestinians. Back then the Israelis did not realise that there are huge oil and gas reserves offshore of Gaza. And now they want to steal them back. Just as they have always stolen Palestinian land. Israel has an energy crisis and is desperate to get its hands on fuel. To them killing thousand of Palestinians is a small price to pay.

The reality is that Gaza could be immensely rich from its energy reserves. A Kuwait in the Eastern Mediterranean. Instead it has been bombed to rubble by a genocidal aggressor out to steal its prime asset.