Robert called in from Gaza, where he travels through at least once every week. He knows all the players, so his insights were new and interesting.
He had boundaries, of course. The interview taught me as much about the UN as about Gaza. There were positions that could not be taken, like the fact that Hamas is openly resisting the occupation while the PA, bought and paid for the Israel and the US, is content with being the occupation's boots on the ground.
Israel's vicious military slaughters in Gaza were "conflicts" rather than war crimes, with blame attributed to both sides. Were those Robert's observations, or the what the UN, itself under US financial and military control, is forced to say?
Words like apartheid and genocide were not part of our discussion. Can the UN be more that a reporting agency under these restraints? And can the reports it issues really get to the bottom of Israel's 60 years of occupation and repression?
Like many of us who work on the left, the acceptance of evil makes us into facilitators rather than agents of change. I like to think that I am free to say what I want on this radio program, and I feel very good about that. I have also paid my taxes to the empire for the last sixty years of Israel's occupation. Perhaps we are all facilitators.
