May 21, 2021
‘Israel is not exercising the right to defend itself”, says Chris Hedges. “It is carrying out mass murder, aided and abetted by the U.S.”
Hedges, in my opinion, is one of the most insightful and honest commentators alive when it comes to Israel/Palestine. He spent seven years as Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He is also an ordained Presbyterian Minister! Read the full article here.
Father Dave
Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014 attacks on Gaza, which lasted 51 days and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, are a lie. Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime.
Israel has made it clear it is ready to destroy and kill as wantonly now as it was in 2014. Israel’s defense minister Benny Gantz, who was the chief of staff during the murderous assault on Gaza in 2014, has vowed that if Hamas “does not stop the violence, the strike of 2021 will be harder and more painful than that of 2014.” The current attacks have already targeted several residential high rises including buildings that housed over a dozen local and international press agencies, government buildings, roads, public facilities, agricultural lands, two schools and a mosque.
I spent seven years in the Middle East as a correspondent, four of them as The New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief. I am an Arabic speaker. I lived for weeks at a time in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison where over two million Palestinians exist on the edge of starvation, struggle to find clean water and endure constant Israeli terror. I have been in Gaza when it was pounded with Israeli artillery and air strikes. I have watched mothers and fathers, wailing in grief, cradling the bloodied bodies of their sons and daughters. I know the crimes of the occupation—the food shortages caused by the Israeli blockade, the stifling overcrowding, the contaminated water, the lack of health services, the near constant electrical outages due to the Israeli targeting of power plants, the crippling poverty, the endemic unemployment, the fear and the despair. I have witnessed the carnage.
I also have listened from Gaza to the lies emanating from Jerusalem and Washington. Israel’s indiscriminate use of modern, industrial weapons to kill thousands of innocents, wound thousands more and make tens of thousands of families homeless is not a war: It is state-sponsored terror. And, while I oppose the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinians into Israel, as I oppose suicide bombings, seeing them also as war crimes, I am acutely aware of a huge disparity between the industrial violence carried out by Israel against innocent Palestinians and the minimal acts of violence capable of being waged by groups such as Hamas.
The false equivalency between Israeli and Palestinian violence was echoed during the war I covered in Bosnia. Those of us in the besieged city of Sarajevo were pounded daily with hundreds of heavy shells and rockets from the surrounding Serbs. We were targeted by sniper fire. The city suffered a few dozen dead and wounded each day. The government forces inside the city fired back with light mortars and small arms fire. Supporters of the Serbs seized on any casualties caused by Bosnian government forces to play the same dirty game, although well over 90 percent of the killings in Bosnia were the fault of the Serbs, as is also true regarding Israel.
The second and perhaps most important parallel is that the Serbs, like the Israelis, were the principal violators of international law. Israel is in breach of more than 30 U.N. Security Council resolutions. It is in breach of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that defines collective punishment of a civilian population as a war crime. It is in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for settling over half a million Jewish Israelis on occupied Palestinian land and for the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians when the Israeli state was founded and another 300,000 after Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank were occupied following the 1967 war. Its annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights violates international law, as does its building of a security barrier in the West Bank that annexes Palestinian land into Israel. It is in violation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 that states that Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”
This is the truth. Any other starting point for the discussion of what is taking place between Israel and the Palestinians is a lie.
Israel’s once vibrant peace movement and political left, which condemned and protested against the Israeli occupation when I lived in Jerusalem, is moribund. The right-wing Netanyahu government, despite its rhetoric about fighting terrorism, has built an alliance with the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, which also views Iran as an enemy. Saudi Arabia, a country that produced 15 of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks, is reputed to be the most prolific sponsor of international Islamist terrorism, allegedly supporting Salafist jihadism, the basis of al-Qaeda, and groups such as the Afghanistan Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Al-Nusra Front.
Saudi Arabia and Israel worked closely together to back the 2013 military coup in Egypt, led by General Adbul Fattah el Sisi. Sisi overthrew a democratically elected government. He has imprisoned tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists and human rights defenders, on politically motivated charges. The Sisi regime collaborates with Israel by keeping its common border with Gaza closed to Palestinians, trapping them in the Gaza strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Israel’s cynicism and hypocrisy, especially when it wraps itself in the mantle of protecting democracy and fighting terrorism, is of epic proportions.
read the rest of the article here.
Filed under Israel and Palestine by on May 21st, 2021. Comment. 
August 26, 2014
The following speech was given by Father Dave at the Al Quds Day rally in the Sydney CBD – July 26th, 2014
In the name of God, merciful and compassionate (bismi-llahi r-ra.mani r-ra.im), and with respect to the traditional custodians of this land (the Gadigal people), let me thank you (my Muslim sisters and brothers) for the privilege of standing with you today in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine.
The tears of Jesus mingle with the blood of the innocent of Gaza. The brutality of this latest assault seems to surpass even the violence of the Israeli government’s previous attacks on this beleaguered civilian population. Whole families are killed, children die in their beds, mosques and schools and hospitals are targeted for destruction. Jesus weeps. How can we but weep with him?
When I was asked to speak at this gathering, more than a month ago, our primary concern was with the Australian government’s refusal to acknowledge the Israeli Occupation. Since that time the gates of hell have opened up again in Gaza, and now the terrible refusal of the Australian government to acknowledge the Palestinian Occupation has been eclipsed by their even more appalling silence in the face of the horrendous holocaust of human suffering our sisters and brothers in Gaza are enduring.
Jesus weeps for the people of Gaza and we weep with him, and yet we must do more than weep. We must move our government to act in support of our suffering brothers and sisters! How we accomplish that, I am not sure, but what I am sure about is that if we are going to be effective we must work on this together!
Sisters and brothers, in this great tragedy I also see a great opportunity – an opportunity that people of faith everywhere (and most especially Christians, Muslims and Jews) might be drawn together from across the globe to stand together in solidarity with the Palestinian people! Jesus weeps and there is no way that any person of faith can be blind to the injustice that is being visited upon Gaza. We weep, and as we weep my hope and prayer is that God will draw us together in love!
A Muslim brother of mine once said to me “do you know that before I was a Muslim I was a Christian”. I was surprised until he added “and before I was a Christian I was a Jew!” I don’t know if all of you all of my Muslim sisters and brothers here share this perspective – that before you were Muslims you were Christians – but if you do then we must also acknowledge that before we were Christians we were Jews!
We have all sprouted from the same seed, and that seed was planted in Palestine! Since that original seed was planted we have branched out in very distinct ways and we have grown apart and indeed there has indeed been a tragic history of violence between us, the vast bulk of which has been the responsibility of the Christian branch of that tree! Even so, would it not be wonderful if our love for our common birthplace and our love for the people of that land where our seed was first sown – would it not be wonderful if that love for Palestine could draw us back together?
We are of different faiths (and I do not intend to minimise any of those differences). Even so, while we are different in many ways, our love for Palestine is one! We may be divided by culture and race and creed, but we are united in our love for Palestine, we are united in our thirst for justice, and we are united in our commitment to ending the Occupation and the oppression of the Palestinian people!
Brothers and sisters, let us stand together for Palestine. The forces of injustice and oppression are strong. The propaganda ministry of the State of Israel functions like a well-oiled machine. Their narrative is well rehearsed, they are well financed and powerful and they speak with one voice! If we are going to stand against them we too must be united.
This is my prayer and my hope – that, enshallah, this tragedy might draw us together in solidarity with the people of Palestine, for if we stand together – Muslims, Christians and Jews – against the Palestinian Occupation and against the genocide being enacted in Gaza, I believe we will see change. Justice will come, and our tears of sorrow will be replaced by tears of joy as we celebrate a free, free Palestine. Enshallah!
Filed under israel and palestine conflict by on Aug 26th, 2014. Comment.
December 1, 2012
This is a bizarre angle on operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’, and it’s the first time I’ve heard of it! Could it be that there was another factor motivating the assault, beyond the timing of the next Israeli election!
Most wars in this generation seem to be about controlling oil reserves. Why should the IDF’s wars be any different?
source: mondediplo.com…
Israel’s War for Gaza’s Gas
EXCLUSIVE28 NOVEMBER, by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
“It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement.”
Moshe Ya’alon,
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs
Over the last decade, Israel has experienced a growing energy crisis. Between 2000 and 2010, Israel’s power consumption has risen by 3.5 per cent annually. With over 40 per cent of Israel’s electricity dependent on natural gas, the country has struggled to keep up with rising demand as a stable source of gas is in short supply. As of April, electricity prices rose by 9 per cent, as the state-owned Israeli Electricity Company (IEC) warned that “Israelis may soon face blackouts during this summer’s heat” – which is exactly what happened.
The two major causes of the natural gas shortage were Egypt’s repeated suspension of gas supplies to Israel due to attacks on the Sinai pipeline, and the near-depletion of Israel’s offshore Tethys Sea gas fields. By late April, a trade deal that would have continued natural gas imports from Egypt into Israel collapsed, sending the Israeli government scrambling to find alternate energy sources to meet peak electricity demands. Without a significant boost in gas production, Israel faced the prospect of debilitating fuel price hikes which would undermine the economy.
By late June, Israel was tapping into the little known Noa gas reserve in the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza. Previously, Israel had “refrained from ordering development of the Noa field, fearing that this would lead to diplomatic problems vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority”, according to the Israeli business daily Globes. The Noa reserve, whose yield is about 1.2 billion cubic metres, “is partly under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in the economic zone of the Gaza Strip” – but Houston-based operator *Noble Energy apparently “convinced” Israel’s Ministry of National Infrastructures that their drilling would “not spill over into other parts of the reserve.”
But the Gaza Marine gas reserves – about 32km from Gaza’s coastline – are unmistakeably within Gaza’s territorial waters which extend to about 35km off the coast. Israeli negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) over the gas reserves have stalled for much of the last decade since their discovery in the late 1990s by the British Gas Group (BG Group). The main reason for the failure of negotiations was Israel’s demand that the gas should come ashore on its territory, and at below market price.
Estimated at a total of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, the market value of the reserves is about $4 billion. On 8th November 1999, the late Yasser Arafat signed a 25-year deal on behalf of the PA, granting 60 per cent rights to BG Group, 30 per cent to Consolidated Contractors Company – a Palestinian private entity linked to Arafat’s PA – and finally only 10 per cent to the PA’s Palestine Investment Fund (PIF).
At first, BG Group signed a memorandum with Egypt to sell them Gaza’s gas through an undersea pipeline in 2005. But the ’man of peace’, former Prime Minister Tony Blair – official Middle East envoy of the Quartet – intervened to pressure BG Group to instead sell the gas to Israel.
One informed British source told journalist Arthur Neslen in Tel Aviv at the time: “The UK and US, who are the major players in this deal, see it as a possible tool to improve relations between the PA and Israel. It is part of the bargaining baggage.” The gas would be piped directly onshore to Ashkelon in Israel, but “up to three-quarters of the $4bn of revenue raised might not even end up in Palestinian hands at all.” The “preferred option” of the US and UK is that the gas revenues would be held in “an international bank account over which Abbas would hold sway” – effectively circumventing Hamas-controlled Gaza.
One of the first things Hamas did after winning elections was to reject the PA’s agreement with BG Group as “an act of theft”, before demanding a renegotiation of the agreed percentages to reflect its inclusion.
Operation Cast Lead launched in December 2008 was directly, though not exclusively, motivated by Israel’s concerns about the Blair-brokered gas deal. Upon assessing the prospects for accessing Gaza’s gas, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon – also Minister of Strategic Affairs and a former IDF Chief of Staff – advocated a year before Operation Cast Lead that the gas deal “threaten’s Israel national security” as long as Hamas remains in power. “With Gaza currently a radical Islamic stronghold, and the West Bank in danger of becoming the next one, Israel’s funneling a billion dollars into local or international bank accounts on behalf of the Palestinian Authority would be tantamount to Israel’s bankrolling terror against itself”, Ya’alon wrote for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. “It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement.”
So why Operation Pillar of Defence, and why now? On 23rd September, Israel and the PA announced the renewal of negotiations over development of Gaza’s gas fields. But Hamas, still in control of Gaza, stood in the way of these negotiations. Both the PA and Tony Blair “hope to have control of the marine area and levy its own fees and taxes” in partnership with Israel, reported Offshore-technology.
Exactly a week before Israel’s assassination of Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’ military wing, Israel’s ongoing energy crisis was in full swing, with the “cash-strapped Israel Electric Corp” – suffering from a short-fall of 1.5 billion shekels – planning to sell a total of 3 billion shekels of government-backed bonds as early as December.
Then on 12th November, the PA announced that the Palestinians would formally seek admission to the UN General Assembly as a non-member observer stateon the 29th. If granted, the status would add weight to the Palestinian bid for statehood encompassing the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem – pre-1967 territorial lines which would formally impinge on Israel’s ambitions to de facto control and unilaterally exploit Gaza’s largely untapped gas resources.
Simultaneously, Israel faced another complication from Hamas. Israeli peace negotiator Gershon Bashkin reports that a proposal he drafted for a long-term ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was on the verge of being accepted by senior Hamas officials, including Ahmed Jabari. On the morning of the 14th – just two days after the PA’s announcement concerning its UN bid – a revised version was being assessed by Jabari and was due to be sent to Israel. Hours later, Jabari was assassinated on Netanyahu’s orders. “Senior officials in Israel knew about [Jabari’s] contacts with Hamas and Egyptian intelligence aimed at formulating the permanent truce, but nevertheless approved the assassination”, Bashkin told Ha’aretz.
With Israel facing a race for independence from the PA, and a permanent truce with Hamas, the prospects of fully exploiting Gaza’s gas resources looked slim – unless Israel could change the political and security facts on the ground through brute force. The strike on Jabari appears to have been designed precisely to provoke a response from Hamas that would justify such military action.
Indeed, Hamas has its uses. Ya’alon’s fellow Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom once criticised Shimon Peres in a high-level Cabinet meeting back in 2001, for advocating “negotiations” with Arafat. “Between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas”, said Shalom, explaining that Arafat is a “terrorist in a diplomat’s suit, while Hamas can be hit unmercifully… there won’t be any international protests.” (Ha’aretz, 4/12/2001)
By unleashing Hamas’ rage this November, Israel was able to justify an offensive designed at least in part to begin engineering conditions conducive to its control of Gaza’s offshore gas reserves. But this is just the beginning – many analysts note that Israel is preparing the ground for a wider military assault against Iran. The tentative ceasefire announced on the 21st is, therefore, highly tenuous. If the ceasefire is breached, a military ground operation is still on the cards.
With over 160 dead in Gaza, compared to five in Israel, Operation Pillar of Defence has vindicated those in Palestine who think violence against Israel is the only option left.
But then again, perhaps that’s the idea.
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles, israel and palestine conflict by on Dec 1st, 2012. Comment.
November 24, 2012
More words of wisdom from brother Uri (founder of Gush-Shalom), and even some humour this time: “Each of the two sides is now celebrating its great victory. If they organized just one joint celebration, a lot of money could be saved.”
Of course there is really nothing to laugh about in the aftermath of this violence. The dead are being buried, the families are grieving, the hostility has increased, and, as Avnery points out, there has been a power-shift towards radicalism! What a senseless waste of human life!
Father Dave
Uri Avnery
Once And For All!
THE MANTRA of this round was Once And For All.
“We must put an end to this (the rockets, Hamas, the Palestinians, the Arabs?) Once and For All!” – this cry from the heart was heard dozens of times daily on TV from the harassed inhabitants of Israel’s battered towns and villages in the South.
It has displaced the slogan which dominated several decades: “Bang And Finish!”
It did not quite work.
THE BIG winner emerging from the cloud is Hamas.
Until this round, Hamas had a powerful presence in the Gaza Strip, but practically no international standing. The international face of the Palestinian people was Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian National Authority.
No more.
Operation Pillar of Cloud has given the Hamas mini-state in Gaza wide international recognition. (Pillar of Cloud is the official Hebrew name, though the army spokesman decreed that the English name, for foreign consumption, should be Pillar of Defense.) Heads of state and droves of other foreign dignitaries made their pilgrimage to the Strip.
First was the powerful and immensely rich Emir of Qatar, owner of Aljazeera. He was the first head of state ever to enter the Gaza strip. Then came the Egyptian prime minister, the Tunisian foreign minister, the secretary of the Arab League and the collected Arab foreign ministers (except the one from Ramallah.)
In all diplomatic deliberations, Gaza was treated as a de facto state, with a de facto government (Hamas). The Israeli media were no exception. It was clear to Israelis that any deal, to be effective, must be concluded with Hamas.
Within the Palestinian people, the standing of Hamas shot sky-high. The Gaza Strip alone, smaller than an average American county, has stood up to the mighty Israeli war machine, one of the largest and most efficient in the world. It has not succumbed. The military outcome will be at best a draw.
A draw between tiny Gaza and the powerful Israel means a victory for Gaza.
Who remembers now Ehud Barak’s proud declaration in the middle of the war: “We shall not stop until Hamas gets on its knees and begs for a cease-fire!”
WHERE DOES that leave Mahmoud Abbas? Actually, nowhere.
For a simple Palestinian, whether in Nablus, Gaza or Beirut, the contrast is glaring. Hamas is courageous, proud, upright, while Fatah is helpless, submissive and despised. Pride and honor play a central role in Arab culture.
After more than half a century of humiliation, any Palestinian who stands up against the occupation is the hero of the Arab masses, in and outside the country. Abbas is identified only with the close cooperation of his security forces with the hated Israeli occupation army. And the most important fact: Abbas has nothing to show for it.
If Abbas could at least show a major political achievement for his pains, the situation might be different. The Palestinians are a sensible people, and if Abbas had come even one step closer to Palestinian statehood, most Palestinians would probably have said: he may not be glamorous, but he delivers the goods.
But the opposite is happening. The violent Hamas is achieving results, the non-violent Abbas is not. As a Palestinian told me: “He (Abbas) has given them (the Israelis) everything, quiet and security, and what did [or “does”] he get in return? They spit in his face!”
This round will only reinforce a basic Palestinian conviction: “Israelis understand only the language of force!” (Israelis, of course, say exactly the same about the Palestinians.)
If at least the US had allowed Abbas to achieve a UN resolution recognizing Palestine as a non-member state, he might have held his own against Hamas. But the Israeli government is determined to prevent this by all available means. Barack Obama’s decision, even after re-election, to block the Palestinian effort is a direct support for Hamas and a slap in the face of the “moderates”. Hillary Clinton’s perfunctory visit to Ramallah this week was seen in this context.
Looked at from the outside, this looks like sheer lunacy. Why undermine the “moderates” who want and are able to make peace? Why elevate the “extremists”, who are opposed to peace?
The answer is openly expressed by Avigdor Lieberman, now Netanyahu’s official political No. 2: he wants to destroy Abbas in order to annex the West Bank and clear the way for the settlers.
AFTER HAMAS, the big winner is Mohamed Morsi.
This is an almost incredible tale. When Morsi was elected as the president of Egypt, official Israel was in hysteria. How terrible! The Islamist extremists have taken over the most important Arab country! Our peace treaty with our largest neighbor is going down the drain!
US reactions were almost the same.
And now – less than four months later – we hang on every word Morsi utters. He is the man who has put an end to the mutual killing and destruction! He is the great peacemaker! He is the only person who can mediate between Israel and Hamas! He must guarantee the cease-fire agreement!
Can it be? Can this be the same Morsi? The same Muslim Brotherhood?
The 61 year old Morsi (the full name is Mohamed Morsi Isa al-Ayyad. Isa being the Arab form of Jesus, who is regarded in Islam as a prophet) is a complete novice on the world stage. Yet at this moment, all the world’s leaders rely on him.
When I wholeheartedly welcomed the Arab Spring, I had people like him in mind. Now almost all the Israeli commentators, ex-generals and politicians, who uttered dire warnings at the time, are lauding his success in achieving a cease-fire.
THROUGHOUT THE operation I did what I always do in such situations: I switched constantly between Israeli TV and Aljazeera. Sometimes, when my thoughts wander, I am unsure for a moment which of the two I am looking at.
Women weeping, wounded being carried away, homes in shambles, children’s shoes strewn around, families packing and fleeing. Here and there. Mirror images. Though, of course, Palestinian casualties were 30 times higher than the Israeli ones – partly because of the incredible success of the Iron Dome interception missiles and home shelters, while the Palestinians were practically defenseless.
On Wednesday I was invited to air my views on Israel’s Channel 2, the most popular (and patriotic) Israeli outlet. The invitation was of course withdrawn at the last moment. Had I been on air, I would have posed to my compatriots one simple question:
Was It Worthwhile?
All the suffering, the killed, the injured, the destruction, the hours and days of terror, the children in trauma?
And, I might add, the endless TV coverage around the clock, with legions of ex-generals appearing on the screen and declaiming the message sheet of the prime minister’s office. And the blood-curdling threats of politicians and other nincompoops, including the son of Ariel Sharon, who proposed flattening neighborhoods in Gaza City, or even better, the whole Strip.
Now that it is over, we are almost exactly where we were before. The operation, commonly referred to in Israel as “another round”, was indeed round – leading nowhere than to where it started.
Hamas will be firmly in control of the Gaza Strip, if not more firmly. The Gazans will hate Israel even more than before. Many of the inhabitants of the West Bank, who throughout the war came out in their thousands in demonstrations for Hamas, will vote in even greater numbers for Hamas in the next elections. Israeli voters will vote in two months as they intended to vote anyhow, before the whole thing started.
Each of the two sides is now celebrating its great victory. If they organized just one joint celebration, a lot of money could be saved.
WHAT ARE the political conclusions?
The most obvious one is: talk with Hamas. Directly. Face to face.
Yitzhak Rabin once told me how he came to the conclusion that he must talk with the PLO: after years of opposing it, he realized that they were the only force that counted. “So it was ridiculous to talk with them through intermediaries.”
The same is now true for Hamas. They are there. They will not go away. It is ridiculous for the Israeli negotiators to sit in one room at the Egyptian intelligence service HQ near Cairo, while the Hamas negotiators sit in another room, just a few meters away, with the courteous Egyptians going to and fro.
Concurrently, activate the effort towards peace. Seriously.
Save Abbas. As of now, he has no replacement. Give him an immediate victory to balance the Hamas achievements. Vote for the Palestinian application for statehood in the UN General Assembly.
Move towards peace with the entire Palestinian people, including Fatah and Hamas – so we can really put an end to the violence,
ONCE AND FOR ALL!
More Avnery articles online: zope.gush-shalom.org……
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles, israel and palestine conflict by on Nov 24th, 2012. Comment.
Sonja Karkar, editor of Australians for Palestine writes:
So, there is a ceasefire now, but no one should breathe a sigh of relief for too long nor should we forget that the fury Israel wrought over the last 8 days has destroyed many people’s lives – and not for the first time either.
Gaza is still under a tight, suffocating siege and Israel still has drones flying over the skies in Gaza. We must remember that Israel’s latest attack is part of an ongoing campaign to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland whether in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem. Any ceasefire is fragile as we know only too well and while there might be respite now, the Palestinians in Gaza remain on high alert. In the meantime, the lives which have been tragically lost and irreparably damaged are the evidence of war crimes for which Israel needs to be held to account.
There simply cannot be claims of hundreds of accidents to smooth away Israel’s culpability and it is past time that the international community calls Israel out on its criminal acts. If we fail in that, then Israel will simply continue the same pattern of behaviour, smug in the knowledge that it will be protected by its fawning friends. One can only imagine the outcry if these people had to endure the terror and oppression that is the lot of Palestinians. There is NO justification for what Israel has done or continues to do and for this reason the protests will go on around the world until Israel ends the siege and occupation and fully respects Palestinian human rights. That means that we must also demand from our own leaders that they hold Israel accountable for its crimes.
The utter silence of the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) – to which Australia is a signatory – regarding the serious violations and war crimes perpetrated against Palestinian civilians in the OPT, calls into question the respect of the Parties for Article 33 of the Convention which states that “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed . . . Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited” – a provision which obliges the Parties to call for compliance when it is being breached. The Parties response to Israel’s violations against Gaza was abysmal. There was not even regret for the Palestinian lives lost, not even the children.
Perhaps mentioning that would have required condemnation of Israel for its crimes. As American journalist Chris Hedges said “The refusal of our political leaders . . . to speak out for the rule of law and fundamental human rights exposes our cowardice and our hypocrisy. This blind defence of Israeli brutality towards the Palestinians is a betrayal of the memory of all those killed in other genocides in other time . . . When you have the capacity to halt genocide and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide or who it is directed against, you are culpable.” Take heed Australia!
Sonja Karkar
Sonja Karkar
Gaza after the ceasefire
by Stuart Littlewood
Sabbah report
21 November 2012
Oppression will resume, the land-grab will continue, more rewards for Israel will flow… And it will be business as usual for Western leaders and their Zionist friends
In 2009, when Israel’s 22-day blitzkrieg was over, nearly 1,400 Palestinians had been wiped off the planet of whom four-fifths were civilians and 350 children, and over 5,000 wounded.
Israel had destroyed or damaged 58,000 homes, 280 schools, 1,500 factories, water and sewage installations, and 80 per cent of agricultural crops. The cost to Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was estimated at 660 to 900 million US dollars while the total economic cost was put at 3 to 3.5 billion dollars.
It was really a non-war, said Norman Finkelstein in his book This Time We Went Too Far, and testimonies of Israeli soldiers included remarks like: “There was nothing there … nothing moved”; “No real resistance”; “Everyone was disappointed about not engaging anyone”.
Towards the end of the invasion the then Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, said: “Hamas now understands that when you fire on Israel’s citizens it responds by going wild – and this is a very good thing.” She later waxed proud of how Israel had “demonstrated real hooliganism” and said she would happily repeat her decisions because they were meant to restore Israel’s deterrence and had done so.
And after that slaughter binge in which Gaza has been reduced to rubble and its civilian population devastated, what did the European Union’s 27 foreign ministers do?
They sat down to dinner in Brussels with Livni.
This must have come as a slap in the face for the millions of justice-loving EU citizens who were expecting to see Ms Livni arrested for crimes against humanity the minute she set foot outside Israel.
But no. All was forgiven. Normal poodle service was resumed. Israel’s admirers in Europe queued up to pay with our tax money for the humanitarian mess and the economic wreckage, and to offer Israel the services of EU member states in helping to turn the screw yet again on the people Israel had terrorized, abused and dispossessed for 60 years.
Never mind that the EU had spent billions over the years on infrastructure projects in Gaza, only to see them wantonly smashed by Israel’s military.
The EU was especially eager to help with stopping the “smuggling” of arms to the Palestinians, who by then were crushed and stripped of everything amid the ruins of their homes, their wrecked utilities, their shattered hospitals and schools, and faced with a public health disaster. That’s what happens when people have only AK47s, RPGs and ineffective rockets to fend off a ruthless occupying force bristling with all the armour and high-tech weaponry of modern warfare.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that a people under illegal occupation and siege are entitled in international law to take up arms against their oppressor. Israel’s relentless assaults to annihilate Gaza’s civil society was unlawful and a war crime then, and is today. Who are we to interfere and deny their right of self-defence?
Nevertheless six European leaders – including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and our very own British Prime Minister Gordon Brown – pledged ships, troops and technology for anti-smuggling operations. “We will do everything that we can to prevent the arms trafficking that is at the root of some of the problems that have caused the conflict,” Mr Brown said, offering the services of the Royal Navy.
But he couldn’t possibly send navy ships to protect British flag vessels carrying medics and humanitarian supplies from lethal acts of piracy by Israeli gunboats.
He wouldn’t send ships to ensure the freedom of the seas, or even the freedom of their own territorial waters for Gaza’s fishermen.
He wouldn’t send ships to shoo away Israeli gunboats shelling Gaza’s beaches.
But he’d happily send ships to make sure Palestinians have no weapons with which to exercise their right of self-defence.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that a people under illegal occupation and siege are entitled in international law to take up arms against their oppressor. Israel’s relentless assaults to annihilate Gaza’s civil society was unlawful and a war crime then, and is today.
But I was forgetting – our political élite know which side their bread is buttered.
Meanwhile, in the British Parliament Sir Gerald Kaufman was congratulating Foreign Secretary David Miliband on steering Resolution 1860 through the Security Council of the United Nations. Its aim, apart from a durable ceasefire, was to ensure the sustained reopening of crossing points on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access. The US abstained.
“May I ask him what the international reaction would be if Hamas had slaughtered nearly 900 Israelis [the blitz was only 13 days old at that point] and subjected nearly 1.5 million Israelis to degradation and deprivation?” enquired the feisty Jewish MP.
Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass-murderers and war criminals? Yes. And they bring shame on the Jewish people whose Star of David they use as a flag in Gaza, but whose ethos and morals go completely against what this Israeli government are doing.
I’m itching to hear what Kaufman says about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in regard to this repetition of the Cast Lead murder spree.
Miliband, apparently in all seriousness, said:
It is important to point out that people talk about Hamas being the representatives of Palestinians, without recognizing that there is an elected leader of all the Palestinians – a president of the Palestinian Authority, elected in 2004 by all Palestinians to represent them. A further president will be elected this year or next year. That is a vital part of the issue, and we should not fall into the trap of allowing Hamas’s leadership in Gaza to claim that it represents all the Palestinians.
But the 2006 general election established precisely that! What Miliband omitted to say was that Mahmoud Abbas “won” the presidency in January 2005 in a dodgy and lopsided contest – let’s not dignify it with the word “election” – in which Israel seriously interfered to obstruct other candidates. Abbass’s term ran out in 2009 but he’s still there. He is now regarded as having no legitimacy and no popular mandate. However, he continues to be propped up by those mighty champions of democracy, the US, Israel and Britain.
And what help has this loser been in the crisis? He clearly feels he doesn’t represent the Palestinians of Gaza or he’d be fighting tooth and nail for them instead of skulking in the shadows.
I close in despair. This message has just arrived from MAP (Medical Aid for Palestine): “Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai has said openly that “the goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages”. Palestinians in Gaza have been living under blockade for over five years and have still not recovered from the last war. Health facilities were severely overstretched before the current bombardment and hospitals are facing critical shortages, with 40 per cent of essential medicines and 65 per cent of medical disposables at zero stock.”
What despicable world leaders we are cursed with.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.
source: sabbah.biz…
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles, israel and palestine conflict by on Nov 24th, 2012. Comment.
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