Like many viewers of mainstream media, I'm often guilty of swallowing the bullshit without thinking about the motives behind what I'm seeing on TV. This Gaza offensive is not about religion, nor is it about the humanitarian crisis created by the occupation by Israel and the subsequent deprivation of natural resources, food and other necessities to the Palestinian people. The real reason, as is always the case in any military campaign, is financially motivated: THE PROFIT EARNED FROM THE EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES. Under international humanitarian law, Israel is obliged to administer the natural resources belonging to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) without damaging or diminishing them. These occupying companies and corporations lead real estate deals, develop the Israeli colonies and infrastructure, and contribute to the construction and operation of an ethnic separation system, including checkpoints, walls and roads. They also design and supply equipment and tools used in the control and repression of the civilian population under occupation. Corporations like Halliburton, Raytheon or Bechtel have become more powerful than most governments.
The Gaza coastline on the Levant Basin sits atop 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, yet the people are often faced with "gas shortages." They are victims of the phenomenon caused by Economic Hit Men. The corporatocracy, a term coined by Jeffrey Sachs, points out how multinational conglomerates are pulling all the political strings, especially in the energy sector. John Perkins, author of Confessions Of An Economic Hitman, explains the history in a 2004 interview:
AMY GOODMAN: You’re actually called economic hit men —e.h.m.’s?
JOHN PERKINS: ...We called ourselves e.h.m.'s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know? And, so, we went to Saudi Arabia in the early seventies. We knew Saudi Arabia was the key to dropping our dependency, or to controlling the situation. And we worked out this deal whereby the Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia — new cities, new infrastructure — which we've done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they’ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we’ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place.
The whole thing sounds almost James Bond-ish. Perkins continued:
And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn’t buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had — His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.
The OPT is not much different than the other places e.h.m.'s have created conflict to secure private ownership and exploitation of natural resources. Israel is encouraging and facilitating the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and actively assisting their pillaging by private actors. From the 1950's when the idea of an economic "hitman" was born, giant corporations have been meddling in foreign affairs. When Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh was ousted by a "coup" in 1953, the practice of corporations hiding behind governments to seize their natural resources could not be stopped. Perkins said, by just spending millions of dollars to replace Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran...we understood that this idea of (an) economic hit man was an extremely good one.
Palestinians employed in these "industrial zones" work like slaves. They suffer from severe restrictions on movement, on organization, and with almost no government protections. In 2006, this is exactly why they turned to Hamas to help with these infrastructural problems. Hamas are essentially mercenaries, empowered by Palestinians to help with the acquisition of natural resources. Unfortunately, this alliance with Hamas is causing more harm than good. When the Palestinians of Gaza voted for the leadership of Hamas in democratic elections, Israel imposed a total lockdown on the entire population of Gaza. When all options are exhausted, the inevitable "war" never benefits the most marginalized of society. Corporatocracies use the expendable population only for profit.
