Perhaps most shocking, revolting and unacceptable of all, is the silence of the international media on the Palestinian movement and the hunger strikers. There are 1,600 of them, some of whom will die, and their noble, non-violent resistance is ignored or even denied. It is as though Israel, the West's unconditional ally, enjoys special consideration and the Palestinians — themselves part of the Arab Spring — warrant only passing attention. The media laud the courage of the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Libyans and the Syrians in their resistance to dictatorship (that the US and Europe for so long supported) but ignore the seemingly infinite determination of the Palestinians as they stand up against a self-styled democracy that behaves exactly like a colonial-era dictatorship. When they voted for Hamas, the Palestinians proved themselves to be bad democrats; today they are bad Arabs as they resist the demeaning treatment inflicted on them by the West's Israeli ally. They will always be wrong; Israel will always be right in dispossessing, torturing, imprisoning and colonising them, slowly but surely. Meanwhile, the world looks on in silence. The silence of shame. The politicians, the intellectuals and the journalists who remain silent while claiming to be specialists in Middle Eastern affairs, bring shame to their respective professions. And the Arabs among them who crave only respectability in the eyes of the West by forgetting the oppressed of Palestine, are doubly contemptible. History will certainly judge them harshly. Indeed, there exists in human memory an informal court of cowards, traitors and historic sell-outs. But Palestine will one day have its day in the courtroom of dignity and justice: for history, in history. That court case, Israel has already lost.
