As the volleys of soccer shots intensify on their way to the goal in the World Cup, and the tournament slowly ebbs to an end, a new ballgame is gathering momentum and being replayed in a different region. Only this time it is volleys of missiles and bombs, and the target is not goalposts but the innocent people of the Gaza Strip in Palestine.
A game that has been in progress for over half a century has intensified this time around under the pretext of rescuing an Israeli military corporal seized by a Palestinian group, following the Israeli attack on a beach which indiscriminately killed several Palestinian holiday-makers out for a day to perhaps put out of their minds their constant state of oppression.
While the rest of the world has tuned to the theatrics and human drama of their heroes on soccer fields in Germany, very little attention has been given to the real-life drama where human blood spillage rather than fouls is being committed in an act of unconcealed aggression by IDF cowards firing off payloads of death into civilian areas from the relative safety of helicopters.
Thousands of innocent Palestinians languish in Israeli prisons, held with all contempt of human rights and undergo every form of abuse and torture. And yet, the concerns of the US media over the welfare of this one Israeli soldier are hypocritically puzzling. Where are the outcries against every form of damnation the Israeli government has been pushing on the oppressed of Palestine?
Undoubtedly encouraged by the nodding look of Uncle Sam, Israel has continued its policy of violence against the people of Palestine. Were it not for the bellicosity of their primary benefactor, Mr. Bush et al against the elected government of the Palestinian people, one would have mistakenly thought but forgiven for thinking that perhaps Israel would finally seek peace with the people they had oppressed for so long, and return some of the land stolen from under them. But that was not to be.
Beginning with squeezing their livelihood from under them, the Israeli policy of denying the Palestinians their daily bread with increasing sanctions and military action has once again put the oppressed masses under the indiscriminate crosshairs of the Israeli military machine. It is not just Palestinian soldiers who are dying. Tragically, it is mothers and their children as well. It is the young and the very old. Death did not march in just by bullets. Denying the Palestinians food, water and medicine was another way of inflicting misery and suffering on Palestinians. The mounting death toll of the innocent exacted as a result of these sanctions did not seem to warrant headline news in Western media. And although human dignity suffered, it has not waned in the hearts of the oppressed. It is a people who have suffered for so long against tyranny that hope and justice seem alien words.
The policy of the Israeli government of taking over Palestinian land and driving its legitimate occupants into isolated pockets has served them well in their aim of ethnic cleansing. Deprived of daily conditions others in most parts of the world take for granted, these oppressed people are now experiencing another page of the age-old game of violence directed against them. Should we just remain seated and watch?
While World Cup matches appoint referees to observe the goings on on the football field and ensure the spirit of fair play, just who is going to referee this other brutal game being held elsewhere on killing fields, where human lives instead of goals are being scored?
