What is clear is that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has become a nightmare of oppression and crimes against humanity.

Israel-Palestine was last in the news in March of 2010, when a flotilla of civilian ships attempted to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza strip.

In a now-infamous raid, Israeli commandos boarded a flotilla bringing badly needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip. The flotilla was organized by the Free Gaza Movement.

According to an Al-Jazeera cameraman, the initial wave of four Israeli commandos — armed with anti-riot weapons — were overpowered and taken prisoner by activists armed with pipes, knives and improvised weapons.

The Israelis subsequently used live fire, resulting in the deaths of nine activists (eight Turks and one Turkish-American).

Although the story certainly generated controversy, the unequivocal violation of human rights was the blockade itself, which partially ended last June.

Israel claimed aid was allowed into Gaza, but its screening process was unrealistically strict.

Shelter kits, health kits, bedding and stationary were among the many items said to have “alternative uses.” Apparently those uses were the kind that can threaten a world-renowned military backed by Western funding.

According to the United Nations, about 60 percent of Gazans lack daily access to water and 75 percent rely on food aid. The World Bank, hardly a leftist organization, estimates 80 percent of Gaza’s imports are smuggled in.

Under such circumstances, activists’ insistence that their aid go directly to Gaza is understandable.

In 2009, Israel allegedly committed war crimes during an offensive in Gaza. Whistle-blowing Israeli soldiers told of “loose rules of engagement” under which civilians knowingly were targeted; one elderly woman was gunned down at the orders of a company commander and soldiers spray painted “Death to Arabs” on walls and buildings.

Oppression in Palestine also has been economic. Israeli-American intellectual Bernard Avishai wrote in Harper’s Magazine “If the Israeli government were intentionally trying to crush Palestinian entrepreneurship, it could not pursue the endeavor more perfectly.”

Palestinian businesses are denied access to Jerusalem to, ironically, the chagrin of Israeli business. According to Avishai, there are more than 600 “obstacles, checkpoints, and routine closures” maintained by the Israeli military.

Obviously, this has a crippling effect on the Palestinian economy. He further documents a laundry list of arbitrary, shifting regulations that hamper Palestinian business at every turn — for example, Israel has refused to free up the necessary electromagnetic spectrum for the launch of Palestinian cell phone provider Wataniya, which it promised to do in 2008.

All of this sheds light on the shameless posturing by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to advance “economic peace” in the last election.

Netanyahu’s real agenda was made clear in 2009, when he refused to halt the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Increasingly, the actions of Israel fly in the face of Jewish ethics. There’s a reason why more and more Jews, such as myself, harshly are criticizing Israel’s indefensible actions.

Under the mantle of “self-defense,” its state policies have become starvation, racism and outright murder.

The rise of Avigdor Lieberman’s ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel Is Our Home”) party, part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, is symptomatic of the intolerable direction the country has taken.

It’s a gross misconception that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is in any way symmetrical. It is nothing less than a brutal occupation, one that must end before peace can be a possibility.

How this will be affected by the Arab revolutions is anyone’s guess.

Joel Reinstein is a State News guest columnist and a Residential College in the Arts and Humanities senior. Reach him at reinste5@msu.edu