Contributed by Joe Montero

For the second week in a row, Australia has seen big marches across the country in defence of the Palestinian people in Gaza. There has been no similar response in support of the Israeli side. This comes only from the political elite and the Murdoch controlled media, and social media platforms have promoted paid advertisements that are really war propaganda, while censoring contrary opinion.

Israel-Hamas war updates

Video from al Jazeera

Australia’s response in support of the Palestinians is like that of nearly every other country. Millions have marched in many cities. Even among the political elite. Many leaders are calling for a ceasefire. This is expressed in debates at the United Nations. The Security Council was stopped by using the veto power and not by majority opinion. UN secretary-general António Guterres says he’s ‘deeply distressed’ by Israel’s announcement of a complete siege of Gaza. and has personally called on Israel to stop its offensive.

The nations that back Israel, like Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, had once the Middle East into their colonies. The United States came later to carve out its own sphere of interest. This is no coincidence. These powers seek to maintain their influence. They were directly involved in the establishment of a religion based and segregation Israel in 1948, as a tool and the murder and displacement of those who were already living there.

The Australian government and opposition have joined the chorus of the old and new colonial powers.

The leaders of these nations are effectively participating in blocking of food, medicine, water, and other necessities needed by the civilian population by ignoring it. This is exactly what they did when Jews were targeted and rounded up in Germany during Hitler’s time.

A trickle of supplies has come in from the Egyptian border. not enough though to meet the scale of the need, and the attacks on civilians continue.

Humanitarian relief arrives in Gaza as Israel prepares to step up attacks

Video from PBS

Justification of Israel’s current invasion of Gaza continues the same tradition. The events that have unfolded can’t be understood without consideration of the history and the recent factors that led to the Hamas’ offensive inside Israel.

These are the ongoing occupation and deprivation, the imposition of an apartheid system that enforces dehumanisation and an inferior status to Palestinians, the killing of more than 250 of their people by Zionist Israeli settlers backed by the army over the previous month alone, and the attack on the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by hundreds of backed race haters backed by the army, just days before the Hamas offensive.

Our political leaders ideologically directed Murdoch media, and social media platforms choose to deny or ignore all of this and regurgitate Israeli government and military propaganda and block out all other voices.

Cracks in the wall of silence are appearing. Hiding the scale of the atrocity being carried out in Gaza is impossible. Images of dead children are beamed across the planet through the internet. This verifies the scale of the murder at the hand of the Israeli authorities.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu tries to cover this, with the aid of his ministers and generals, by alleging Palestinian atrocities. Unlike the toll in Gaza, where, despite the all-out effort to prevent journalists getting to the scene, the evidence still gets out, no similar evidence of Palestinian atrocities is seen.

Photo by Abir Sultan/AP: Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has used the racist term human animals to describe Palestinians

Hamas did launch a military attack and there were many deaths. The only footage available shows that the Hamas fighters met opposing gunfire where they went. This was not shooting in one direction.

All deaths and injuries suffered by the innocent are terrible and deserve recognition. They should not happen. But this truth should never be used to obfuscate the whole truth.

Israel’s leaders are making a huge mistake. Locking Palestinians in the words biggest ever concentration camp and punishing them for more than 70 years hasn’t broken them. It has strengthened them and nurtured resistance instead.

If Israel’s leaders had taken account of history, including that of the Jewish people, they would have realised that it is impossible to kill off a people. The more that is inflicted on them the more they will pull together and fight back against the oppressor.

If the targeting of the people of Gaza continues and military force is applied as the intended solution, it will lead toward eventual defeat for Israel. This is the lesson of history.

For the Palestinians this is a fight against occupation, no less than the resistance movements in Europe during World War Two. Their fight is primarily political, but like all such fights, it does have a military aspect. International law protects the right of an occupied people use military means when necessary.

The massive air, land, and sea invasion promised by Netanyahu has not materialised yet. The strength of international and domestic pressure has held this back so far. The problems are being able to legitimise the invasion, and the division in Israel over whether rescuing the captured Israeli’s or the invasion should be the priority.

There has been an attack on the West Bank. Lebanon and Syria.

A growing tide of voices is calling for Netanyahu’s resignation. This includes former political leaders and military brass.

Sacrificing the lives of Israelis for the sake on an invasion will be a political millstone.

Added to this is the harsh reality that avoiding a quagmire of permanent war on a higher level on a population refusing to be subjugated and fighting back will be impossible. Israel’s high level military control over Gaza will be impossible in the longer run.

Regardless of these problems, the invasion may still take place soon.

Restlessness among Palestinians in the other occupied territories and refugee camps in neighbouring countries is rising, and there is a chance Israel’s military will be stretched across too many fronts. This risks the expansion of war and could even draw in other nations backing one or the other side, risking global conflict.

The first step towards avoiding all of this is for Israel to be pressured to pull back from invasion and sit down at the negotiating table to secure a ceasefire. From this there must be aa start to facing the causes that have led to the present state of affairs. There must be a release of prisoners, many of whom are held without trial, a stop to settlement activity, and an end to the ongoing war for the extermination of the Palestinians as a people.

Progress on these changes will provide the road towards cooperation, the dismantling of the apartheid system, and the creation of a home for both Palestinians and Israeli’s, where they can live side by side as equals.