Julie Levesque: Israel's Holy War. Triggering Palestinian Exodus!

Israel's latest attack on Gaza, Operation Pillar of Cloud, was named after a passage in the Torah: By day the Lord went ahead of them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day and night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. Exodus 13:21-22. Far from divine guidance, however, the intentions underlying the pillars of cloud and fire, Israel violently dropped on the small and densely populated territory had quite a nefarious objective. Exodus and the chasing of Palestinians out of the Holy Land. To achieve their goal, some prominent Israeli figures even had mushroom clouds in mind: We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn't stop with Hiroshima. The Japanese were not surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki too. (Gilad Sharon:  A decisive conclusion is necessary, Jerusalem Post, November 18, 2012). Nile Bowie views the latest attacks as part of the expansion of Israel's illegal settlements: The Israeli bombardment of Gaza being perpetuated under Operation Pillar of Defense comes at an interesting time. Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements into Palestinian lands has increased at unprecedented rates. Netanyahu's administration has approved the construction of 850 settler homes in the occupied West Bank in June 2012, even after the Israeli parliament rejected a bill to retroactively legalize some of the existing homes in the area. The number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has almost doubled in the past twelve years, with more than 350,000 residing illegally under international law. While Israels Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman asserts Tel Aviv's unwillingness to permit Palestinians any right to return to their lands, emphasizing, not even one refugee, apartheid enforced on ethnic and religious has become a ratified part of Israeli government policy. Far right political discourse that was once considered extremism is now status quo in Israel.