By Jules Rabin | Counterpunch, January 15, 2009
First, a story—a true one. On February 28, 1994, in a funeral eulogy for an American-born Israeli who had been beaten to death by a Palestinian mob a few days before, a certain Rabbi Perin declared, “A million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail.” The world was shocked by the statement when it was reported in the New York Times, and the Israeli prime minister himself denounced it. The murdered Israeli was Baruch Goldstein, who, on February 25, 1994, had stepped into a mosque carrying an assault rifle and killed 29 Palestinian men and boys bowed in prayer before his gun jammed. He was then killed with iron bars by surviving worshipers.
Now in Gaza, a more modest version of the stunning ratio suggested by Rabbi Perin, the worth of the million and the worth of the one, is being enacted. The tally to this date in the mutual killing taking place in Gaza and the adjoining Israeli territory since the end of December is 979 Palestinian dead and 13 Israeli dead, a proportion of 75 to 1. Of the Palestinian dead, 292 were children and approximately 75 were women. In one Palestinian family, five sisters, ages 4 to 17, were killed; in another, two sisters, ages 5 and 12 were killed. A 2,000 pound bomb dropped on the home of a Hamas leader killed not only him but his four wives and 13 of his 17 children.
Of the total of 13 Israeli dead in the current phase of the decades-long conflict, three were civilians, killed by rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory beginning December 19, when a six-month cease-fire agreed to by Israel and the Hamas government of Gaza expired. To “teach Israel a lesson,” Hamas had summoned up the heaviest weaponry in its arsenal: an assortment of crude rockets with notoriously wild aim. To “teach Hamas a lesson” in turn, Israel launched day and night bombing attacks on all of Gaza, of less than pinpoint accuracy, starting two weeks ago, on December 27. In the first four days of the new lesson, those aerial attacks killed more than 400 Palestinians, of all sizes and all places in Gaza society, and made rubble a familiar sight throughout the city. Those 400 and more Palestinian deaths stood as first payment for the three Israelis who had been killed by Palestinian rockets.
Gaza, be it noted, with three times the population of Vermont and 1.5 percent of Vermont’s land area, is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The people of Gaza are most of them refugees of the 1967 war, and their descendants. They don’t merely live and survive as best they can in Gaza. As life-long refuges, they are locked in place by the Israeli military, who since decades past have exercised total control over what persons and what goods will enter and leave the territory.
Especially since the imposition of the stricter blockade of the last 18 months, Gaza has come to resemble an open-air prison where a million-and-a-half virtual inmates, cut off from the rest of the world, struggle to piece together an existence.
The effect of the blockade on the health of the population of Gaza has been severe in the extreme. In the period before the new outbreak of violence a couple of weeks ago, investigators found that 75 percent of Gazans were undernourished. The children of Gaza, who number 58 percent of the population and whose bodies persist in wanting to grow, have been the greatest sufferers: 46 percent suffer from acute anemia, 45 percent have an iron deficiency, and 18 percent have been stunted in their growth. Because of lack of fuel, provision of electricity and water has been sketchy and scarce. And now, since the assault by Israel, beginning on December 27, the condition of Gaza has gone from calamitous to catastrophic: a humanitarian disaster, in the view of both the International Red Cross and the United Nations Relief Agency, who have a certain expertise in these matters.
With such punishing effects on the civilian population, the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza, now of 18 months duration, constitutes “collective punishment,” a belligerent action that besides being abhorrent to most people is expressly forbidden under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the controlling international law on the conduct of war.
So who started it? Who first violated the six-month cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas government of Gaza, that began on June 19, 2008?
Was it Gaza and Hamas? During the period of the cease-fire, from June 19 to December 19, 2008, rockets continued to be fired from Gaza into neighboring Israeli communities, with their usual vague aim and murderous intent. But their numbers had dropped dramatically, even according to the Israeli military. Hamas claims that those rockets were fired by rogue parties over whom it had no control.
Whoever fired them, there were no deaths resulting from them in the period of the cease-fire. But whether deaths resulted or not, all Israelis within range of Gaza’s rockets have lived for months in states of daily anxiety.
Hamas, for its part, accuses Israel of violating the cease-fire in two different ways. It claims that the tight blockade of Gaza maintained by Israel for the past year and a half, and including the period of the cease-fire, had become unendurable. It has claimed that the protracted blockade, with its punishing effects on the health of the population at-large, was in itself an illegal action both under the rules of the Fourth Geneva Convention and under the terms of the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire of June 2008, and that of itself it constituted a casus belli that gave Hamas the right to pick up arms in its own defense.
Hamas makes also the more punctuated claim that Israel had openly violated the mutual cease-fire on November 4, 2008, 50 days before Hamas formally declared an end to its own observance of it, when Israeli troops broke into Gaza, killing six Palestinians and carting off six others.
With its back to the wall because of the blockade, and lacking planes, helicopters, and tanks of its own, Hamas resumed the only form of warfare it was capable of, the frank terror of rockets aimed in the direction of nearby Israeli communities.
It is these current rocket attacks from Gaza which, taken together with similar attacks carried out over the last eight years have inflicted a total of 28 Israeli civilian deaths, that Israel has cited as grounds for attacking Gaza now, from the air and sea and ultimately by land, with overwhelming force. The death counts are eloquent of a great moral equation that I leave it to the reader to judge: those 28 Israeli deaths in eight years of on-and-off Palestinian rocket attack on the one hand; and 979 Palestinian deaths, suddenly, in the little more than two weeks of the blitzkrieg that Israel is currently waging on Gaza.
Enter also into the moral equation also the enormous damage done to the housing and civic structures of Gaza—schools, hospitals, university buildings—and the psychological effects on the children of Gaza who, while enduring cold and hunger, have been witnessing death all around them, and are emotionally petrified by the mayhem raining down on them, from which there is no escape within the confines of crammed, crowded, and locked down Gaza.
Will the people of Gaza and the Hamas government they saw fit to elect two years ago, now under day and night attack of breathtaking severity, “learn the lesson” that Israel seeks to teach them? While at the same time and in the same spirit of rough pedagogy, Hamas tries to teach Israel a parallel lesson with its scatter-shot of rockets.? So far, not. Neither side, in its outrage, chooses to understand the rough “lesson” the other side is teaching. It is as though the human brute had lost its tongue and its power of reason.
Gaza under punishment, I submit, locked down, sealed in, half starved, terrified, and overpowered as it is now, with elements still resisting, is acquiring an eerie resemblance to the Warsaw ghetto of the 1940s: a resemblance still small, but increasing.
In a comment on the current bombing of Gaza, Titus North, an American professor of political science, called attention to the anomaly of Israel. “A state founded by Holocaust survivors,” he wrote, “should be a beacon of morality, not a black hole for it.”
That terrible loop the course of history has taken, with descendants of the historic victims of the Holocaust now wearing the jackboots of the dominant warrior, is a bitter thing for a Jew like myself to contemplate.
Postscript: A few days ago, Congress pledged its “unwavering support for Israel” in this hottest of little wars. While at the same time, in capital cities throughout the world, people have been demonstrating in the tens and hundreds of thousands, to express their outrage at the violent disproportion of Israel’s response to the provocation of the rocket attacks that keep coming from Gaza.
My word to our representatives in Washington: By making the United States Israel’s Siamese twin in this affair, joined to it at hip, and ankle, you not only fail to reflect the views of a great part of your constituency, but also expose us to the kinds of international anger and hatred that Israel is incurring throughout the world, with the lord knows what consequences for our own safety and standing in the world.
Jules Rabin is a writer, political critic, and longtime resident of Marshfield, Vermont.
Peace and Justice Post 
The sources of Arabs’ Shame – Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
January 16, 2009By Abbas Bakhtiar, Tehran Times, January 12, 2009
Israel is continuing its bombing of workshops, administrative buildings, roads, bridges, fuel depots, prisons, schools and mosques; killing and injuring large number of civilians in one of the world’s most impoverished and densely populated areas of the world.
The Israelis are following their old method of destroying everything that makes a society a society, the infrastructure. The collective punishment of the Palestinians for what Hamas or Islamic Jihad is supposed to be doing or has done, reminds one of the collective punishments that Nazis meted out in the occupied areas in Eastern Europe during the WWII.
International Red Cross just issued a statement condemning Israel for its brutality against civilians. There are several things that seem to have shocked the Red Cross. In one episode after several days of heavy pressure from the Red Cross, several ambulances were allowed to enter a neighborhood to evacuate the injured civilians. In one house they found 12 bodies all civilians and mostly women and children. They also found four very young children still alive next to their dead mothers, too weak to stand. They have been holed-up in the same house for close to 4 days.
Apparently the whole neighborhood was full of dead and injured civilians with Israeli forces only 80 meters away. According to the Red Cross the Israeli forces knew of the situation and not only didn’t do anything to help the civilians, but also were stopping Red Cross from providing assistance. Representative of the Norwegian Red Cross’ People’s Action calls this a war crime.
But this is only the tip of the ice berg. The Israeli forces have begun to use civilians as human shields. According to Amnesty International Israeli forces occupy civilian houses and keep the civilians as hostages on the first floor, while they position their soldiers on the second floor; ensuring that any fire on the house (especially with anti-tank or RPG missiles) kills the civilians as well.
In yet another report, the United Nations condemned Israel for targeting civilians. The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces categorically rejected the claim by Israel that Hamas fighters were in or even near the school. Israel bombed the UN run school, killing 43 children and injuring 100.
Israel also targets ambulances and humanitarian relief convoys in Gaza. According to UN, at least one Palestinian was killed when UN relief convoy came under fire from Israeli forces. “The attack took place as the lorries traveled to the Erez crossing to pick up supplies that were to have been allowed in during a three-hour ceasefire.”
The atrocities committed by Israel is a genocide of a conquered people. Gaza is a concentration camp and no amount of PR can reduce the magnitude of this horrible crime against humanity and decency.
But Israel is Israel. She has shown that cruelty is in her nature. Here I am talking about the successive Israeli governments and not Israeli people in general. I am sure there are many in Israel that if became aware of what really is happening would not approve of it. This of course excludes the settlers and the Zionist movement. These groups like the South African white supremacists consider others to be inferior to them; or that they have the God given right to do as they please.
But states seldom are representative of their people. It is the elite and / or the governing class that makes the decisions. The state of Israel is determined to never allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. The maximum that they are willing to allow is some form of Bantustan (South African) or North American reservation (for Native Americans). With carte blanche from U.S. and most of the European powers, Israel has been implementing this policy. Setting-up such a system takes many years. People’s spirit has to be crushed through collective punishment, economic strangulation and above all excessive and continuing violence. This has to continue for many years so the people lose hope of ever achieving anything more than what is on offer.
This of course cannot be done without the approval of other countries. Israel has the approval of the world’s most powerful nation, the United States. In addition, because of her U.S. connections, she has managed to get a nod and a wink from the Europeans as well. So with this carte blanche in hand she has set forth to change the “reality” on the ground in her favor.
By systematically settling extremists in the middle of populated Palestinian areas, she has made the creation of a viable Palestinian state almost impossible. A simple look at the map of the Palestinian territories resembles a Swiss cheese, with pockets of densely populated Palestinian areas surrounded by settlements and their protective military garrisons.
The violence both official (state sponsored) and unofficial (settlers) has been incessant. Couple this violence with economic strangulation and you will see the reasons behind the Palestinians’ anger and frustration. Any resistance is automatically branded as an act of terrorism and punished with even more violence, with U.S. and Europeans cheering the Israelis on the side lines.
If you recall when Georgia invaded the Russian protected enclave of Abkhazia, and met Russian counter attack, the whole Western world with U.S. at its head condemned Russia. Pushing for UN action and even sending warships with “humanitarian” supplies. Russians did not commit one thousandth of the Israeli atrocities and we had the Georgian president and other politician talking day and night about the horrible things the Russians were doing.
Yet today we have U.S. and European governments sitting silently watching this genocide taking place without doing anything. U.S. even vetoes resolutions condemning Israeli actions, forgetting that no peace is ever made possible by killing so many innocent women and children.
But whenever a power tries to relocate a group of people by force, the Newton’s Third Law of Motion comes into effect. Newton’s Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that if you try to imprison a person that person will try to break out. If you try to subjugate a people they will resist. This is the underlying causes of most liberation movements. The same applies to the Palestinians. They are resisting. We can agree or disagree with their methods, but theirs is a reaction to actions taken against them; we call this self-defense.
Israel is trying to push Palestinians into submission and in the process forcing many to leave the occupied territories. They are trying to show the Palestinians that they are alone and resistance in the face of an overwhelming force is suicide. Israel has tried this tactics before and has failed. The children that had to stay with their dead mothers for four days will not forget. The starved people of Gaza are not going to forget this barbarity; and neither shall the people of honor and conscious, regardless of their nationality, Israelis included.
But as for one of those who have followed the Israel’s actions for the past 30 years, I can say that I didn’t expect anything different from Israel. The lies and deceits are all too familiar to fall for again. The current Israeli action in Gaza was not a reaction to the recent event, but planned a year ago. Just read the New York Times article in which among others they interview a senior Israeli military officer.
Israel is now trying to portray herself as a nation that is defending itself, while the truth is that Israel is a cruel occupying power trying to force a people out of their land. And this is being done with the help of some Arab nations; the very same nations that constantly talk about Arab and Muslim solidarity. These nations are: Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
—— The Arab collaborators ———
The often asked question, when it comes to the Palestinians, is about the role of Arab countries in the Palestinian struggle for freedom. The people not familiar with the political landscape of the area often see the Middle East as two camps, Arab countries on one side and Israel on the other. The reality is totally different. Israel has seldom been alone. Beside its usual American, French, British and other staunch allies, she has had the hidden backing of several Arab countries.
For close to 30 years now, many Arab countries have been collaborating with Israel; some like Egypt (gained independence: 1922) and Jordan (gained independence: 1946) openly while others like Saudi Arabia (founded: 1932), UAE (founded: 1972) and Kuwait (founded: 1961) from behind the scenes.
The reasons for this collaboration vary from country to country but they all have one thing in common: the rulers of these countries are all dictators and need foreign protection from their own people. Some such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and UAE were put in power by the British. The founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (the kingdom is name after him) was put in power by the British. The same goes for the others, except Egypt which experienced a coup by the army officers in 1952 resulting in the ousting of the monarchy and the accompanying British influence.
But the Western influence returned with Anwar Sadat. All these countries are dictatorships and all are under pressure from their people. What they cannot accept is any democratically elected form of government in their mist. They fear that if an Arab government becomes democratic they may have to become one themselves, hence losing power.
One of the things that they love about Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is that he won the election not by popular vote but by popular method of rigging the election; something that these Arab leaders understand and respect.
In contrast Hamas really represented the aspiration of the people. Soon, Mahmood Abbas term as president is over and he had to stand for re-election something that he would surely lose. In contrast Hamas really won the municipal elections in 2005 and the Parliamentary election in 2006. The elections were supervised by international observers, many from Europe, and U.S.
Palestinians were fed-up with the corrupt regime of Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah. They wanted to clean house. But as soon as Hamas took over, the U.S. and the Europeans put an embargo on Hamas. Israel closed the borders and refused to let anything into Gaza. Egypt also did the same.
What is not mentioned much in the media is that this was done with the complete approval of the Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. After all, Egypt could have opened its border for transfer of food and fuel.
Muslim Brotherhood has a branch or related organization in Jordan as well. Egypt and Jordan are worried that should Hamas survive and show its resistance, their people may get the idea that they can also resist the tyrannical rule of these despots. One must not forget that Muslim Brotherhood represents the only serious challenge to the Mubarak’s rule in Egypt.
—- Egypt ——-
The 81 year old Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has been “president” since 1981 (28 years). He has won every election with a comfortable majority. He is much loved by his secret services. Prior to every election he arrests and imprisons all the opposition, ensuring a “clean” election.
Torture is so widely used and accepted in Egypt that U.S. out sources torturing of some its prisoners to Egypt. This alone should tell you volumes about the nature of Mubarak’s rule. He is now trying hard to crown his playboy son as his successor. But the Americans are not so sure if the son is capable of keeping the 80 million Egyptians in line and is therefore looking for alternative candidates.
The head of the feared main secret service is one of the prime candidates along with some of the top generals. Challenging him is the Muslim Brotherhood organization, enjoying grass root support from all sections of the Egyptian society including lawyers, doctors, judges and student associations. Not surprisingly, U.S. and Israel call Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
By all accounts, the Muslim Brotherhood be it in Jordan, Egypt or the occupied territories such as Gaza runs a clean operation, running many charity organizations and providing services to the poor and the needy. As such wherever they are, they pose a threat to the corrupt regimes, since they provide an alternative to the people of that area.
—– Jordan——
King Abdullah II of Jordan, born of a British mother, educated in the West, including the Jesuit Center of Georgetown University, was brought to power by the CIA. His Uncle was a long time crown prince, yet after his father died in a U.S. hospital, Madeline Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of Estate flew to Jordan to inform the Jordanians that the King on his death bed had changed his will and named his son Abdullah as his successor.
The majority of this Kingdom of 5 million people are Palestinians who are not very friendly to this King. In 1971 there was a Palestinian uprising (led by PLO) against King Hussein (ruled: 1952-1999, the father of the current king), which resulted in heavy casualties among Palestinians.
In addition, the Kingdom is currently full of Iraqi refugees who resent the King’s help to the Americans in invasion of their country. On top of all this, we have the Muslim Brotherhood which tries hard to abolish the monarchy. King Abdullah relies heavily on the U.S. support and backing for staying in power. King Abdullah also sees a natural ally in Israel, a country that can come to its aid in case of another uprising.
—Saudi Arabia (House of Saud)——
I don’t have to tell you much about Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is run by the 84 year old, ailing Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. His personal wealth is estimated at $21 billion USD. He rules a clan of 8000 princes who in turn rule the country. Saudi Arabia is the centre of corruption in the Arab world. The Saudi rulers corrupt everything with their money. Lacking the necessary mental power or physical courage, they try to stay in power by subterfuge, lies, and deception.
They fund the real extremists on the one hand while portraying themselves as the protectors of the Western interest on the other. They preach intolerance and xenophobia to their people decrying the Western decadence, while spending a lot of time enjoying the life in the West. They pay the West for protection against their own people and they pay the extremists to do their fighting elsewhere. Saudi rulers are indeed the worst of them all.
House of Saud is also the financier of the so called “Arab Moderates” and extremism that they cause. House of Saud financed the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. They later financed the Taliban. They also paid the Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. Then they paid the Americans and Egyptians to fight Saddam Hussein. They are the financiers of death and misery. They finance anything, anywhere, as long as this reduces the threat to their illegitimate rule.
They are currently financing the civil war in Somalia, bandits in Baluchistan and God knows what else. They are detested by their own people and neighbors yet loved by Bush, Cheney and the oil companies. As long as they provide the money and oil the U.S. is willing to tolerate them. And guess what? Muslim Brotherhood hates the House of Saud too. This makes them a threat and hence has to be dealt with.
—- The Collaboration ——-
As can be seen each country has a good reason to eliminate Hamas, but each is restrained by its population. Israel has no such a restrain imposed on it. She not only can wage a terrible war, but also get assistance from Arab countries. Indeed it is the second time (the first was the Lebanon invasion of 2006) that Israel is getting open and solid support from these Arab countries. The invasion of Gaza was discussed in Egypt before its implementation. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are Israel’s active partners.
Egypt is actively involved in stopping all aids from getting to Palestinians in Gaza save a token few trucks. These few trucks are allowed to go through so they can be filmed and shown to Egyptian people. All demonstrations are banned and all Egyptian volunteers for Gaza are either arrested or sent back.
There are hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the Muslim world that are willing to go to the aid of the Palestinians, but the Egyptian authorities don’t allow them passage. Egyptians even stop medical aid from passing through their territories.
This is part of a report from Associated Press:
“RAFAH, Egypt: Frustration is mounting at Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, where many local and foreign doctors are stuck after Egyptian authorities denied them entry into the coastal area now under an Israeli ground invasion.
Anesthesiologist Dimitrios Mognie from Greece idles his time at a cafe near the border, drinking tea and chatting with other doctors, aid workers and curious Egyptians.
“”This is a shame,”” said Mognie, who decided to use his vacation time to try help Gazans. He thought entering through Egypt, which has a narrow border with the Hamas-ruled strip, was his best bet.
“”That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won’t let us. This is crazy,”” he added.”
In addition there are many Iranian cargo planes full of food and medicine which have been sitting on the tarmacs in Egypt for days waiting for permission to deliver their cargo. Egyptians even denied the medical aid sent by the son of the Libyan President Qaddafi to land in Egypt.
One thing is clear: these three countries do not want the Israelis to fail in their mission of totally destroying Gaza. Hosni Mubarak said so himself. The daily Haaretz reported that Hosni Mubarak had told European ministers on a peace mission that Hamas must not be allowed to win the ongoing war in Gaza.
As Egypt physically aids the Israeli military by denying food, fuel and medicine to the civilians, The House of Saud helps Israel by giving her time and diplomatic cover. When Israel started its invasion there was an immediate call for an Arab summit. Saudi Arabia and Jordan (along with Egypt of course) delayed the summit.
The Saudis along with the UAE said that they had another meeting to attend to and therefore Palestinian issue had to wait. After a few days when the summit was eventually held, they issued the same old statements. Yet this time same as the Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, they blamed the victims.
In a statement Saudi Arabia blamed Hamas for Israel’s continuing offensive in the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia, after blaming Hamas, declared that it will not even consider an oil embargo on Israel’s supporters. She then again blamed Hamas.
By this time, the three Arab countries along with Kuwait and UAE began singing the old song: international community is not doing anything about the catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza. It seems that these Arab tyrants have no shame at all. This reminds me of a quote from Marquis De Sade (1740-1814): “One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.”
These Arab leaders (many are indeed too old to blush) are complicit in the murder of so many civilians, especially young children. According to Agence France-Presse, quoting the medics on the ground, fully one third of all people killed have been children. How can these Arab leaders justify this to their people?
The answer is that they cannot. Israel knows this and for the second time can show the Arab street that their leaders are nothing but a bunch of old hypocrites. These Arab leaders are now exposed and can do nothing but to cooperate fully with Israel and U.S. What stand between them and their people’s rage is their army and secret services; which in turn are supported by U.S.
Israel has cleverly exposed these leaders for what they are: collaborators of the worst kind. These Arab leaders have brought an unimaginable shame to their people. To quote Lucien Bouchard: “I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit. Our hope is now with the people of these countries to clean this stain from their honor.”
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