(Photo, taken at an earlier confrontation, can be found online here.

Why won't the world do something to stop this...?!

...At least 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in sometimes fierce fighting involving shootouts, artillery fire and airstrikes. Most of the deaths were in northern Gaza, although two Palestinian militants were killed in southern Gaza.

After days of sporadic clashes, Israeli forces pushed further into northern Gaza, moving south from the destroyed former Israeli settlements to the outskirts of Beit Lahiya, in the northwestern corner of Gaza, where Palestinian fighters had been preparing earth barricades, explosive charges and shooting positions.

Complete story here.

For decades, Palestinians have been seeking justice by peaceful and by violent means. September 11, 2001 had a much less violent antecedent nearly 31 years before almost to the day. A simultaneous hijacking of four airliners bound from Europe to New York which, if lessons had been heeded, would surely have prevented 2001’s tragedy.

Planned and executed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) the September 6, 1970 hijackings were executed almost flawlessly. Two jets—TWA Flight 741 of Frankfurt and Swissair Flight 100 of Zurich--were forced down at a former RAF airstrip in Jordan called Dawson's Field. A third, Pan American Flight 93 of Amsterdam, too large for Dawson's, landed in Cairo where passengers and crew were evacuated and the plane blown up.

In an eerie parallel to 31 years later, the PFLP’s fourth hijacking attempt was foiled in flight. Pilots on El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam plunged their jet into a dive, toppling the hijackers. An onboard security guard fatally shot one, Californian Patrick Arguello, 27, while passengers overpowered and arrested the other, Leila Khaled. (Still campaigning for Palestine’s liberation, Khaled, 61, addressed Dubliners at an event sponsored by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign late last year.)

In retaliation, PFLP operatives hijacked a fifth jet on September 9, adding it to the two planes on the ground in Jordan. On September 12, 1970, the three empty airliners were blown up while television crews broadcast the spectacle to the world. Jordan‘s King Hussein responded by declaring martial law, provoking a bloody civil war between Palestinian refugees and the Jordanian army. Some 15,000 people died before Palestinians, under Yassir Arafat, fled Jordan. The bloodbath spawned the infamous Black September Movement responsible for, among other actions, killing 10 Israeli athletes and their coach at the Munich Olympics two years later, again in early September. (The incident recently highlighted by Spielberg in his film, "Munich".)

The PFLP clearly spelled out their motive for the 1970 hijackings to be retribution for American arms-sales to Israel—sales which continue to this day. From its founding in 1948 through 1998, America has given Israel an estimated $83 billion in direct foreign aid—much of which has facilitated arms purchases.

To summarize, in 1970 one person was killed in five hijackings over six days; in 2001, some 3,044 people died in four hijackings in a matter of hours. Only a nation whose citizens are ignorant of history would view the two events as unrelated. Bin Laden and al Qaeda may be many things, but forgetful of history is not one of them.

Indeed, I question if U.S. leaders are so forgetful, including “Why-do-they-hate-us?” President Bush. On September 13, 1970, The New York Times published a letter condemning the PFLP hijackings and signed by Neocon godfather, Irving Podhoretz. In 1997, Podhoretz put his signature to the statement of principles for the Project for the New American Century, along with other Iraqi war proponents Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

Only by obscuring America’s complicity in Israel’s subjugation of the Palestinians could the Bush administration hope to persuade Americans to embark on the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. Only by suppressing the fact that 9/11 was not an isolated act masterminded by a madman but rather the culmination of increasingly desperate and deadly actions over more than 30 years, part of a campaign to convince Americans to deal justly with Palestinians, could Bush pursue his war for oil in the Middle East.

Justice, which we can plainly see, is still sickeningly lacking for Palestinians.

[A version of this, written by me, was published last year in Dublin's Village magazine.]