News / Brèves Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente Henry Siegman: ’Israel Provoked This War’ 25 July 2014 (LPAC)—Henry Siegman, the leading US scholar, former head of the American Jewish Congress and now president of the U.S./Middle East Project, today issued a scathing attack on Bibi Netanyahu and the Israeli massacre, continuing in Gaza. It was published in the daily Politico. Not only did Israel provoke the war by refusing to take any measures to alleviate the stinking squallor of Gaza under the Israeli blockade, but, as Siegman writes, the invasion "was not triggered by Hamas rockets directed at Israel, but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy." He quotes Nathan Thrall from a NY Times article: "Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. It is not only Hamas supporters, but many Gazans, perhaps a majority, who believe it is worth paying a heavy price to change a disastrous status quo." Netanyahu, writes Siegman, rejected every proposal by John Kerry during the peace negotiations, because "he and his government are engaged in a frenzied effort to eliminate Palestinians as a political entity." He talks of a two-state solution, but "he rejected out of hand the American proposal that U.S. and international forces be stationed on the Israeli-Palestinian border, which he insisted would remain permanently under the IDF’s control. Various enclaves will comprise a new Palestinian entity, which Palestinians will be free to call a state. But sovereignty, the one element that defines self-determination and statehood, will never be allowed by Israel, he said." He accuses Obama of doing nothing about Netanyahu’s murderous rampage, for purely political purposes.