Bush indifferent to law

Ordinary Americans watch in shock and awe as the U.S.-sanctioned killing of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of their means of life continues. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a guilty conscience written all over her face, appears in the U.N. Security Council to block every effort to enact a cease-fire and ease the suffering. The Bush administration seems determined to leave office the way it came in: indifferent to international law, world opinion and basic humanitarian standards.

At the root of the conflict, as everyone knows but few dare to acknowledge, lie Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its now 41-year-old military occupation of Palestinian territories, the steady expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the forced segregation of its Palestinian inhabitants. Is the purpose of Israel’s current attack on Gaza to provoke retaliatory terrorism so as to have a justification not to negotiate a just peace?

Underwriting the costs of the IDF’s military campaign to subjugate the Palestinian people is not going to increase Israel’s security. It only encourages the expansionist policies that have failed the Israeli people in the past and are bound to lead to further destruction in the future.

Rod Stackelberg

Spokane