Gaza bombed again and again and again

The recent Israeli collective punishment of the population of Gaza through mass bombings is not surprising. The indiscriminate use of violence against the whole population of Gaza has become a rather regular occurrence and an important part of Israeli strategy for preventing the emergence of a viable Palestinian state. In a very real sense Palestine including the Gaza Strip which lacks control over its own borders, air space, and coastal waters remains one of the world's last actual colonies. What is surprising is how little concern this latest attack has generated despite the fact that 2014 is International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Perhaps people have just grown tired of the never ending Israeli repression of the Palestinians and the resulting Palestinian resistance, a dynamic that is usually termed conflict in US sources to obscure the extreme power differential between the two sides. On the other hand the continued use of Gaza as a bombing range populated with a large number of civilians by the Israeli military every couple of years is not morally sustainable in much of the world outside the US. Eventually there will be serious economic consequences to the Israelis for their actions and they are in a much worse position than South Africa or even Rhodesia to withstand such isolation from important world markets.