The imperious way Israel has gone about over the past seven days, destroying the Jebaliya refugee camp in Gaza without so much of a protest from the world community, provides a veneer of legality on the Israeli attacks against the Palestinians.

The Jebaliya operation, ironically code named "Operation Days of Penitence," began after Palestinian rockets killed two children in the Israeli border town of Sderot. Israeli retaliation has so far cost the lives of nearly sixty Palestinians in the last five days.

The UN has not been able to do much more than ask Israel to cease its operation and watch haplessly as the killings went on. And, the epitome of freedom and champion of world peace, the US, by its guarded statement that advised Israel to use force appropriate to the opposition it faces, sanctified the Israeli carnage by stating in the same breath that Israel had the right of self-defence.

The interpretation of threat and theory of self-defence in the Israeli and American lexicon was brazenly demonstrated by the Israeli Defence Forces at the Gaza-Egypt border, when they shot and critically wounded a 25-year-old pregnant Palestinian woman while demolishing a house. Apparently, in the judgement of the Israeli soldier who shot her, the pregnant woman presented 'grave risk' to the Israeli occupation forces and the only appropriate reaction was to shoot her. A deaf man was also shot dead on the balcony of his home in Jebaliya, according to Palestinian witnesses.

The wanton destruction of Palestinians houses and other facilities is a form of collective punishment meted out to the Palestinians. Observers assert that the demolitions are part of an ongoing war against Palestinian civilians that goes far beyond terrorist attacks. The disproportionate nature of the Israeli response is matched by its indiscriminate attacks upon an innocent civilian population. Some 1,200 houses have so far been demolished in Gaza in the past three years.

The Israeli attack on Jebaliya is the latest of the several Israeli attacks on the Palestinian territory in the last five months. It was Jenin and Rafah that bore the brunt of Israeli attacks not long ago. All the Israeli attacks were undertaken ostensibly to reduce Hamas and to sanitise the areas around Israeli borders in order to prevent the guerillas from disturbing the illegal settlements.

The Jebaliya operation has systematically destroyed Palestinian homes, schools, hundreds of acres of agricultural land and other facilities. To put the matter in perspective the Jebaliya is the most densely inhabited area where one camp of a square kilometer in area houses almost one hundred thousand Palestinian refugees, many of them evicted from homes occupied by the Israelis in 1948.

What we see today in occupied Palestine is in reality the ugly face of state terrorism. We see in the Israeli actions a true reflection of state terrorism in full fury -- state terrorism perpetrated by the Israeli military on the unarmed Palestinians. And it is the US administration's double standard and condoning of all Israeli acts against the Palestinians that have provided the motivation and encouragement to Israel in its heinous acts of violence.

Israeli destruction of the refugee camps replicates the US policy of preemption and war against terrorism. The right of preemptive action and the ' war on terrorism' is being applied in occupied Palestinian territories to decimate its resistance against an illegal occupation, the illegality of which is acknowledged even by the UN. Today's Najjaf and Samara in occupied Iraq look quite like Rafah, Jenin or Jebaliya in occupied Palestine.

Sharon's statement of Oct 2, that the IDF operation has no time limit and its aim is to alter the situation in the Gaza front, driving the rocket launchers out of range of Israeli towns and destroying the terrorist organisations by killing their leaders and destroying their weapons-making workshops, echoes the 'Bushian' rationale in Iraq as well as his 'war on terrorism'.

It is of no consequence to Israel that attacks on non-combatant population, collective punishment and the demolition of homes are all illegal under international law and constitute war crimes, a fact that was acknowledged even within Israel when a former Israeli minister pronounced such indictments in May this year.

Regrettably, it is the US' diplomatic and military support of Israel that festers the core issue of the Middle East problem. The Israeli policy of continued occupation of Palestinian and Arab territories, the siege of various refugee camps and their destruction to make the border a "sterile" zone, use of disproportionate force and violation of Palestinian sovereignty are entirely the results of the one sided and biased US policy

The only power that can influence a settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict is the US but unfortunately it has lost all moral grounds to act as an honest broker in this matter. Resolutions after resolutions on the Middle East at the UN have been stifled by US veto. Only recently, in a UN vote calling on Israel to withdraw from Gaza, every country in the world supported the call for withdrawal except three countries, the US being one of them.

In spite of what Bush and Kerry say about the removal of Saddam being harbinger of peace in the Middle East and security for Israel, the Palestine- Israel conflict remains the core issue. Only through its just resolution can peace be established.

Impartial observer of the Middle East are of the opinion that the only way to end the current cycle of Palestinian-Israeli violence is to implement the Road Map outlined by the diplomatic Quartet of the UN, European Union, Russian Federation and the United States. An Israeli withdrawal from Gaza must be part of the peace plan and not an alternative to it.

It's time the US saw the ground reality and reined in its minion in the Middle East. While the US has recently chastised a sovereign country for violation of UN resolutions, can't the world expect it to chastise other violators of UN resolutions, starting with Israel?

The author is Editor, Defense and Strategic Affairs, the Daily Star.