Why is the Western media so inconsistent when reporting on the military occupation in Palestine? When 26 Israelis were killed by bombings this weekend, it created a crisis that mobilized the whole world and saturated the media, whilst the targeting and killing of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians, one third of them children, and the suffocation by siege of three million more is simply background noise unworthy of attention?

In response to the attacks, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: "the only way to defend against terrorists is to go after the terrorists", which not surprisingly culminated in a helicopter missile attack on Gaza city.

This can only be understood as an endorsement of Israel's policies of extra judicial executions and state terrorism, which last week took the life of a senior Hamas leader, put an end to a tacit ceasefire with Hamas, and directly triggered the latest round of suicide bombings. It is now clear that the US is supportive of even greater atrocities that have yet to unfold.

The BBC asked Mr. Roelf Meyer, a former Minister in the last Apartheid government of South Africa, whether from his experience he thought that the onus was on the Israeli government or the Palestinians to act to end this conflict. Meyer said that it was not until the Apartheid government--the side with the power--gave up the dream of perpetuating white rule that South Africa could move forward, and that therefore it was up to Israel--the side with the power--to decide to end its occupation.

It is remarkable therefore, to think that when everyone in the world sees things so clearly, only Arial Sharon, the United States government and the media, pretend that they do not.

It is time to end the racist Zionist military occupation of Palestine, and for America to re-consider its blind support for Israeli terrorist leaders.

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by courtesy & © 2001 Media Review Network & Abdullah Vawda