Associated Press: 'Gaza is a Troubled Territory'

Heard on yesterday's Breakfast program on Radio National. Gormless ABC interviewer Matt Bevan trots out "bloody clashes"* yet again. It seems Matt wouldn't know a massacre if it hit him in the face:

"The UN has called for an independent investigation into the deaths and injuries of Palestinian protesters who were involved in bloody clashes with Israeli security forces on the Gaza border on Friday. At least 17 Palestinians were killed and an estimated 1,400 injured after Israeli forces opened fire on the protesters, making it the deadliest day in the Israel-Palestine conflict since the 2014 war. Israel has rejected calls for an independent inquiry. They have blamed Hamas for the violence and Israel says that it could take further action against what it says are terrorist targets inside the Gaza Strip... Joe Federman is the Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. Why has violence flared up in the last week?"

OFFS. The "violence" just "flares up", like a volcano. You just never know when. But seriously, folks, just listen to Federman's reply. Matt's a veritable paragon of objectivity compared to this bloke:

JF: Well, this is something that has been in the works for some time...

Err, right... since the British issued the Balfour Declaration, flooding Arab Palestine with Zionist colons, or at least since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist terror gangs in 1948.

Gaza is a troubled territory.

You know that autistic kid that's driving his teachers bonkers, Matt? Gaza!

It's controlled by a group called Hamas [which] took over a decade ago...

Miserable half-truth: Hamas was democratically elected (taking 74 seats in a 132 seat Palestinian legislative body) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in January 2006 after Bush junior insisted that elections be held, against Israeli wishes, in the occupied territories. Israel went ballistic at the result and, by way of collective punishment, imposed an economic stranglehold on Gaza, withholding Palestinian tax and customs revenues. This in fact was the actual beginning of its ruinous blockade of the territory. Sharon adviser Dov Weissglass famously described the move as putting Gazans on "a diet."

... and since then it's been under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt and conditions are getting worse... And it just seems to be boiling over right now. Hamas is kind of running out of options.. It's become isolated internationally, it's fought 3 wars against Israel, and it's running out of options so now it's turned to these mass protests  along the border.

MB: So why specifically last week? Was their some sort of occasion for these protests to be held...?

JF: Um, it's hard to point to a single spark.

Sooo hard! Of course, you wouldn't expect this blockhead from New York to have heard of Palestinian Land Day - commemorated every 30 March ever since Israeli troops massacred 6 Palestinian Israelis and wounded around 100 others on that date in 1976, during a protest against Israel's theft of Palestinian land in the Galilee. After all, he hasn't even heard of the Palestinian Nakba/Catastrophe FFS:

This has kind of been in the works for a while and we're hitting a time in the calendar with Israel celebrating its 70th anniversary very soon. You have some holidays coming up and you have the Palestinians marking the 70th anniversary of what they call their tragedy.

And this is just the opening Q&A!