KITCHENER, Ontario — (Analysis) Every two years or so, Israel decides that it’s time to once more test out its weaponry, provided by the United States, on Palestine. It invents some vague pretext and levels the Gaza Strip, a process Israeli politicians have referred to as a periodic “mowing of the lawn.”

Indeed, the grass in any lawn will grow too tall if not mowed periodically. Palestinians in Gaza, suffering under a brutal siege that’s now entering a second decade, must be put down before they, too, grow too much. And since the last bombing was during the summer of 2014, Israel must be looking for a new excuse now to “mow the lawn.”

Due to the total blockade, very little reconstruction material enters Gaza, so there is little to bomb that hasn’t already been reduced to rubble.

Still, new weapons must be tested so they can be sold, even if, like previous weaponry, those weapons are banned by international law. After all, along with the U.S., which provides this weaponry and technology to Israel, Israel is one of the world’s largest exporters of armaments. So why not test them on the Palestinians, who the international community has more or less ignored for generations?

In 2014, the trigger for the bombing was the announced reunification between Hamas, the democratically-elected government in the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, the puppet government of Israel and the U.S. in the West Bank. Since Israel isn’t interested in a two-state solution, having a unity government is not in keeping with its goals, which include the complete obliteration of Palestine. So, looking around for a more publicly-acceptable excuse, the government decided that so-called “rocket” fire into Israel would do just fine. This enabled Israel to both unleash additional terror, over and above the everyday kind, on the West Bank, and bomb the Gaza Strip.

However, it may be more difficult for Israel to find a new excuse to “mow the lawn,” so it may fall back on ones it’s used in the past. Here are some examples:

It might be helpful to look at some facts on the ground in Palestine:

It would seem that if one of the two nations — Palestine or Israel — had a reason to bomb the other, it would be Palestine. Other than the ineffectual “rockets” referred to above, Palestine has no capacity to do so. But Israel does, and it uses any excuse to exercise its murderous military muscle, with the complete support of the hypocritical U.S.

What will be the reason this time? Perhaps it will be a few stabbings in Jerusalem. Or maybe renewed talk about a unity government will do the trick. Or peaceful (until Israeli terrorists start shooting) demonstrations opposing the occupation.

Whatever the excuse, Israel will bomb and the U.S. will support it. This time, though, the rest of the world may do more than shake their collective finger at Israel and say Israel really shouldn’t do that. No longer does the world rely solely on corporate-owned media for their information. By 2015, social media users have risen to an incredible 2.2 billion people. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement continues to score significant victories, and worldwide awareness of Israeli apartheid is growing.

Israel’s decades-long ability to terrorize and oppress the Palestinian people with complete impunity is over. Israel’s failure to recognize that fact does not negate it.

No one can adequately predict Israel’s next deadly move. But what can be said with some degree of certainty is that, at long last, much of the world is paying attention. And it does not like what it is seeing. The “grass” of anger at the brutal, illegal occupation and blockade will continue to grow, nourished by an increasingly knowledgeable populace around the world, that condemns the vicious oppression of the Palestinian people and demands their liberation. With this growing awareness, that liberation is not a matter of “if,” but “when.”