Gaza conflict must be seen in context

The current violence engulfing Gaza is presented by shallow media reporting as both a conflict of equal forces and almost as if it is some new phenomenon.

We see no serious attempt to explain the history of the Palestinian people and their search for peace and their own identity.

The tragedies of life for Palestinians are not the result of natural disaster but of political choices.

Britain, as a former colonial and imperial power, has a special responsibility historically.

As a major capitalist power in the 19th century Britain was obsessed with sea routes and trade. As industries developed oil became a major consideration, oil that was to be found in the territory of the crumbling Ottoman empire.

World War I saw the carving up of that empire, and the victors duplicitously offered statehood and independence to Palestinians while also promising a new territory, Israel, to the Jewish diaspora. The seeds of conflict were sown.

Britain held mandatory power over Palestine from 1922, coming into effect the following year.

It put down many uprisings by Arabs demanding that the great powers honour their promises, and at the same time encouraged Jewish immigration as the persecuted fled the rising tide of fascism in Germany.

In 1948, in the wake of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust, the state of Israel was established by United Nations decree.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were immediately driven from their homes to Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and into exile all over the world.

The following year the UN established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to provide for the education, health and physical needs of displaced Palestinians.

Over 60 years later it is still doing that.

The camps in the region are home to hundreds of thousands, now in the third and fourth generation, still living in hope for their right to return.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza suffer the humiliation of occupation, imprisonment and poverty and the denial of their statehood by the world's major powers.

At every stage the Palestinian people have been advised to seek peace and swap land for agreement. Every deal tentatively made has resulted in more land-grabbing for Israeli settlements.

Gaza, the world's largest prison of 1,500,000 people, is the world's most densely populated piece of land.

For the past four years it has been under total siege, with limited supplies allowed in and only the tunnel black economy to provide limited relief. Many have never even been out of Gaza. Anyone trying to leave into Israel over the fence is shot on sight.

For the people of Palestine life means either living in a refugee camp, under siege in Gaza, or in the occupied West Bank.

Even the West Bank, run by the Palestinian National Authority, is bisected by settler roads, walls that encroach on land and water courses and checkpoints to prevent movement. Israel sends its army in at will to arrest and detain Palestinians.

Poverty and dislocation are the lot of most Palestinians.

It is hard to believe that a BBC reporter standing in front of a shopping mall in the Israeli city of Ashkelon with all the accoutrements of Western lifestyle is but a few miles away from Gaza, with its potholed roads, donkey carts, destroyed homes from the last bombing and massive unemployment - the First World separated from the Fourth by barbed wire and surveillance.

Israel, a country sustained by massive US aid, enjoys privileged trade with Europe and despite being the region's only nuclear power pleads that rockets fired from the Gaza Strip are an existential threat.

The world's media presents this as a war of equals, but fails to report the scale of the tragedies.

Every death is a tragedy in either Israel or Gaza, but the numbers are not comparable. In 10 years there were 3,434 killed in Gaza, 78 in Israel.

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The Goldstone Commission, which investigated the conduct of Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, concluded that Israel had used illegal weapons, collective punishment and had targeted civilians.

The operation was therefore illegal under international law.

But the US, European Union and Britain took no action, imposed no sanctions and continually asserted Israel's "right to defend itself."

Now, four years later, President Barack Obama who, as president elect during Cast Lead had nothing to say, has a great deal to opine.

Claiming that Israel has a right to defend itself, he seems oblivious to the suffering and killing of children in their homes. He even appears to countenance a ground invasion as happened in 2008-9.

The planes and drones used to spy and bomb are mostly US-made - the links between the US and Israeli military industrial complexes are strong.

Israel is not a signatory to any international agreement on nuclear weapons and is thought to have 200 warheads.

It remains to be seen whether Israel will attend the Helsinki Conference next month to discuss a nuclear weapons-free Middle East.

Nuclear weapons do not bring peace or security but make the world infinitely more dangerous.

The so-called Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair, who has an exceptionally poor record when it comes to WMD, has barely visited Gaza.

But in a visit to Ramallah this week he was criticised by independent Palestinian Assembly member Mustafa Barghouti as being only interested in trying to persuade President Abbas to withdraw the Palestinian UN recognition bid.

Blair's agenda has been to further divide Gaza and the West Bank and defend the state of Israel.

Israel often claims to be the only democracy in the region. Yet despite the fact that the Gazan elections in 2005 and 2006 were well conducted and under close observation many elected MPs were jailed by Israel and some still are.

So amid the conflict and devastation, solidarity is crucial.

There are also some very brave groups in Israel that oppose the occupation, speaking out for the rights and needs of Palestinians and refusing to serve in the military.

While Israel seeks to present the condemnation of itself as an attack on Judaism, it fails to note that many Jewish people in the US and Europe oppose the militarisation of the state and the subjugation of the Palestinian people.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other groups are a vital part of the Palestine solidarity movement.

The BBC ran an online poll on the conflict and, weirdly, refused to publish the results.

It is rumoured that the majority of viewers thought Israel was wrong and the F16 and drone attacks were not self-defence but aggression against a corralled population fearfully hoping to survive.

Popular opinion deplores this unjust onslaught. But only massive mobilisation and solidarity can force world leaders to put an end to the violence and subjugation of the Palestinian people.

• On Saturday November 24 a Palestine solidarity march will assemble at Downing Street at midday and then make its way to the Israeli embassy in Kensington. There will also be a national lobby of Parliament on Wednesday November 28. For more information visit www.palestinecampaign.org.