Archive for the ‘Zionist Israel’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Israel the exception

February 24, 2009
Al-Ahram Weekly, 19 – 25 February, 2009
The normal rules governing state conduct do not apply to Israel, it appears, writes Shahid Alam*
Critics of Zionism and Israel — including a few Israelis — have charted an inverse exceptionality, which describes an Israel that is aberrant, violates international norms with near impunity, engages in systematic abuses of human rights, wages wars at will, and has expanded its territories through conquest. This is not the place to offer an exhaustive list of these negative Israeli exceptions, but we will list a few that are the most egregious.

As an exclusionary settler-colony, Israel does not stand alone in the history of European expansion overseas. But it is the only one of its kind in the 20th and 21st centuries. Since the 16th century, Europeans have established exclusionary settler- colonies in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand — among other places — whose white colonists displaced or nearly exterminated the indigenous population to recreate societies in the image of those they had left behind. By the late 19th century, however, this genocidal European expansion was running out of steam, in large part because there remained few surviving Neolithic societies that white colonists could exterminate with ease. In tropical Africa and Asia, the climate and present pathogens were not particularly kind to European settlers.

The Zionist decision in 1897 to establish an exclusionary colonial-settler state in Palestine marked a departure from this trend. In 1948, some 50 years later, Jewish colonists from the West would create the only state in the 20th century founded on conquest and ethnic cleansing. Israel is also the only exclusionary colonial-settler state established by the modern Europeans anywhere in the Old World.

In Israel, moreover, settler-colonialism is not something that belongs to its past. After their victory in the June war of 1967, the Israelis decided to extend their colonial-settler project to the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights. In recent decades, the demand for another massive round of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the “occupied territories” — and even inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders — has moved from the extremist fringes of the Israeli right wing to the mainstream of Israeli politics.

Israel is most likely the only country in the world that insists on defining citizenship independently of geography. On the one hand, it has continued to deny the right of return — and hence rights of citizenship — to millions of Palestinians who or whose parents and grandparents were expelled from Palestine in two massive rounds of ethnic cleansing since 1948. At the same time, under its law of return, Israel automatically and instantly grants citizenship to applicants who are Jews, persons of Jewish parentage, or Jewish converts. Under this law, as Mazin Qumsiyeh puts it succinctly, “no Jew emigrates to Israel; Jews [including converts] ‘return’ [hence the name of the law].” In addition, Jewish immigrants receive generous support from the state upon their arrival in Israel. In other words, Israel turns internationally recognised rights of residence and citizenship on their head, denying these rights to those who have earned them by birth, while granting them freely to those who claim them because of ancient religious myths.

In recent years, critics have increasingly charged Israel with practising legal discrimination against Palestinians. Such discrimination is massive and blatant in the occupied territories where Israel has established Jewish-only settlements, connected to pre-1967 Israel by Jewish-only roads. Since June 1967, the Palestinians in these territories have suffered under a system of military occupation that shows even less regard for their human rights than South Africa’s apartheid system. Former US president Jimmy Carter has recently dared to acknowledge the existence of apartheid in the occupied territories in the title of his new book, Palestine : Peace not Apartheid. Instantly, America’s mainstream media — led by Zionist censors — began savagely attacking president Carter for mentioning the unmentionable. Not a few political and academic careers in the United States have met a premature end for lesser offences. Jimmy Carter, the octogenarian former president, had little to lose.

Inside its pre-1967 borders, too, Israel has allocated rights based on ethnicity. Until 1966, Palestinians in Israel were governed under martial law, which severely restricted their civil and political rights, including their right to free movement, to establish their own media, and to protest or form political parties. Since its founding, Israel has openly tied its immigration policy to Jewish ethnicity. Israeli law defines land to be a property of the Jewish people, owned on their behalf by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a quasi-governmental organisation. Israel nationalised all the lands belonging to the Palestinians it expelled in 1948, and it has continued to expropriate Palestinian lands under a variety of arbitrary measures. As a result, the JNF today owns 93 per cent of all the lands in pre-1967 Israel. Yet, even in his moment of daring, president Carter shrank from addressing the presence of apartheid inside pre-1967 Israel.

Israel is the only country in the world that refuses to define its borders. Its de facto borders have shifted with impressive frequency. At first, the armistice line of 1948 served as Israel’s borders; but they expanded outwards in 1956, 1967 and 1982, because of its wars and conquests. On a few occasions, Israel had to retract from the territories it had conquered: from the Sinai in 1957, from the Sinai again in 1978, from South Lebanon in May 2000, and from South Lebanon again in August 2006. In addition, since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israel has defined a new set of internal “borders” inside the West Bank to contain and neutralise the Palestinian resistance in a set of regulated Bantustans.

If Israel has not yet reached or exceeded the borders of the mythic Kingdom of David, it is not because of any lack of ambition. The constraint is demographic. In order to expand beyond its present borders, Israel would need a more ample supply of Jewish colonists willing to assume the risks of colonisation. Fortunately, for the Arabs, these colonists are in short supply, as they were before the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Had Israel succeeded in attracting five million Jewish colonists after 1967, the Sinai would still be under Israeli occupation, and its borders in the north would extend to the Litani River and across the Jordan River in the east. Luckily, for the Arabs, Israeli expansionism has been stalled by the poverty of Jewish demography. That could change very quickly, however, if Israel decides to soften the requirements for conversion to Judaism. Millions of Jewish converts from the poorest countries in the world, attracted by the promise of a “better life”, could start pouring into Israel under its law of return.

* The writer is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He is author of Challenging the New Orientalism .

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Time to Stop Playing the Victim Role

February 24, 2009

By Philip Slater | The Huffington Post, Feb 23, 2009

I can understand that after centuries of persecution it’s satisfying for a Jewish state to be the aggressor for a change, but there’s a codicil that goes with that role. You don’t get to act like a victim any more. “Poor little Israel” just sounds silly when you’re the dominant power in the Middle East. When you’ve invaded several of your neighbors, bombed and defeated them in combat, occupied their land, and taken their homes away from them, it’s time to stop acting oppressed. Yes, Arab states deny your right to exist, threaten to drive you into the sea, and all the rest of their futile, helpless rhetoric. The fact is, you have the upper hand and they don’t. You have sophisticated arms and they don’t. You have nuclear weapons and they don’t. So stop pretending to be pathetic. It doesn’t play well in Peoria.

(Yes, I know, we Americans should talk–always trembling in our boots about terrorists and ‘rogue states’ and ‘evil empires’ when we have enough nukes to blow up entire continents, and spend more on arms in an hour than most of the world’s nations spend in a year. But just because we’re hypocrites and Nervous Nellies doesn’t mean you have to be).

Calling Hamas the ‘aggressor’ is undignified. The Gaza strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy–even deprived of hospital supplies. They cannot come and go freely, and have to build tunnels to smuggle in the necessities of life. It would be difficult to have any respect for them if they didn’t fire a few rockets back.

The Israel lobby has a hissy fit when anyone points out that Israel has been borrowing liberally from the Nazi playbook, but to punish a whole nation for the attacks of a few–which Israel has been doing consistently in Gaza–is a violation of international law–a law enacted in response to the Nazi practice. And please, spare us the hypocrisy–borrowed, I’m ashamed to admit, from my own government–of saying ‘every effort is made to avoid civilian casualties’. When you drop bombs on a crowded city you’re bombing civilians. Bombs don’t ask for ID cards. Bombs are civilian killers. That’s what they do. They’re designed to break the spirit of a nation by slaughtering families. They were used all through World War II by all sides for that very purpose. And that’s what they’re intended for in Gaza.

And please, Israel, try to restrain yourself from using that ridiculous argument, borrowed again from Bush (how low can you get?), that Hamas leaders “hide among civilians”, by living in their own homes. Apparently, in the thinking of Israelis, they should all run out into an uninhabited area somewhere (try to find one in Gaza), surround themselves with flares and write in the sand with a stick, “Here I am!”

Yesterday you shelled three UN-run schools, killing several dozen children and adults, despite the fact that the UN had given you the precise coordinates of all its schools in Gaza. So much for ‘taking every care to avoid civilian casualties’. You seem to feel you can kill whomever you like, whenever you like, and wherever you like, just because you have a blank check from the United States. Every day this assault goes on you’re demonstrating contempt for the UN, the international community, and human life. Talk about a rogue state.

You might also pay attention to the fact that your outdated policy of macho bullying–the policy you’ve been following for decades–isn’t working! The Palestinians are human. They’re not dogs you can beat into submission. The worse you treat them, the more they’ll fight back. That’s what it means to be human. The more you oppress people, the more people resist. We dropped more bombs on Viet Nam than all the bombs dropped by all nations in World War II. Not to mention napalm, herbicides and all kinds of sophisticated land mines. But did they bow down and kiss the feet of their conquerors? They did not.

You’ll have to kill them all. And when you do, you may finally lose the support even of the United States.

Remember that American support is based entirely on the notion that no politician can win without the Jewish vote. But not all American Jews think Israel is on a divine mission from God. A great many American Jews believe in international law and justice.

I can understand how Israel could resent this lecture coming from an American. After all, isn’t this what we Americans did? Came into someone else’s country, slaughtered 95% of its inhabitants and took over? And didn’t we go all Nervous Nellie whenever they fought back, accusing them of aggression to justify even more genocidal slaughter? And didn’t we get away with it?

Yes, but I’m sorry to tell you, Israel, you came on the scene too late. Genocide just doesn’t fly any more. I know it isn’t fair, you have every right to feel aggrieved about this, but the world’s smaller, cowboys are passé, and bullies aren’t heroes any more.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Palestine, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Israel: End Ban on Human Rights Monitors

February 23, 2009

IDF Denies Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem Access to Gaza

Human Rights Watch, February 22, 2009

Israel’s refusal to allow human rights groups access to Gaza raises a strong suspicion that there are things it doesn’t want us to see or the world to know about its military operation there. If Israel has nothing to hide, why is it refusing to allow us in?

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch

(Jerusalem) – Israel continues to obstruct independent investigations into allegations of laws of war violations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas military forces in Gaza by preventing independent human rights monitors from entering Gaza, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem said today. After submitting applications for permission to enter via the Erez crossing in January 2009, the groups faced continued delays from the IDF unit reviewing the applications. In February, the IDF told Human Rights Watch that it had rejected its application. The Israeli military denied B’Tselem’s first request to enter Gaza and has failed to respond to a second.

“Israel’s refusal to allow human rights groups access to Gaza raises a strong suspicion that there are things it doesn’t want us to see or the world to know about its military operation there,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If Israel has nothing to hide, why is it refusing to allow us in?”

Human Rights Watch requested permission to enter Gaza on January 5. After weeks of delay, the IDF rejected the application on February 9, on the grounds that Human Rights Watch “was not registered with the [Israeli] Ministry of Social Affairs.” On all previous occasions, including several times in 2008, Israeli authorities permitted Human Rights Watch staff to enter and leave Gaza via the Erez crossing. The IDF never previously suggested such a requirement for access to Gaza, and Human Rights Watch is not aware of any such Israeli law or regulation. The IDF has not responded to Human Rights Watch’s requests for clarification.

Israel does not allow Jewish citizens of Israel, other than security forces, to enter Gaza on the grounds that their security would be at risk. B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, on January 20 requested permission from the IDF to allow the organization’s fieldwork director (a Palestinian citizen of Israel) to enter Gaza. The IDF refused the request nine days later. B’Tselem submitted an additional request on January 29 for entry for three staff members and an international consultant. The Israeli military has not responded to this request.

Human Rights Watch and other international human rights groups were able to enter Gaza via Egypt in late January to carry out initial investigations. The international researchers left Gaza just before February 5, when Egypt had announced it would close the Rafah crossing. The IDF had told Human Rights Watch that because its researchers had entered Gaza through Rafah, they would not permit the researchers to exit through Erez.

B’Tselem has not managed to gain access for its Israeli or West Bank staff, or for international consultants. Only the organization’s two field researchers, who are residents of the Gaza Strip, have been able to conduct research on the ground.

“Israel puts itself in the same league as Burma, North Korea, and Syria in keeping out independent human rights monitors,” said Jessica Montell, executive director of B’Tselem. “The people of Israel deserve to know the truth about the conduct of our forces in Gaza. It is also in Israel’s best interest that the full picture comes out.”

The IDF prevented journalists from entering Gaza during the 22-day military operation, called “Operation Cast Lead,” even after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling on January 2 ordered the state to allow entry to members of the Foreign Press Association.

Since the escalation of fighting in Gaza on December 27, 2008, both Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem have documented serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israel and Hamas. On January 10, Human Rights Watch exposed Israel’s unlawful use of white phosphorus in civilian areas, an allegation the IDF initially denied but now claims to be investigating. B’Tselem has expressed grave concern over violations of the principles of proportionality and distinction, including the deliberate targeting of civilian installations, such as government ministries and the Palestinian Legislative Council. Both organizations have, for over two decades, documented violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Article 6 of the Human Rights Defenders Declaration ensures that everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, “To know, seek, obtain, receive, and hold information about all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

In addition, the apparent blanket denial of access to Gaza by human rights groups violates the right to freedom of movement. Although human rights law permits restrictions on freedom of movement for security reasons, the restrictions must have a clear legal basis, be limited to what is necessary, and be proportionate to the threat.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Human rights, Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Suspend military aid to Israel, Amnesty urges Obama after detailing US weapons used in Gaza

February 23, 2009

• White phosphorus shells traced back to America
• Activists call for arms embargoes on both sides

Relatives mourn a Palestinian man killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza

Relatives mourn a Palestinian man killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, last month. Photograph: Eyad Baba/AP

Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel’s extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.

In a report released today, Amnesty International detailed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the Obama administration to suspend military aid to Israel.

The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict “will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated”.

The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a current 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel.

“As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa programme director. “To a large extent, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers’ money.”

For their part, Palestinian militants in Gaza were arming themselves with “unsophisticated weapons” including rockets made in Russia, Iran and China and bought from “clandestine sources”, it said. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,000 injured during the three-week conflict. On the Israeli side 13 were killed, including three civilians. Amnesty said Israel’s armed forces carried out “direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Gaza, and attacks which were disproportionate or indiscriminate”. The Israeli military declined to comment yesterday.

Palestinian militants also fired “indiscriminate rockets” at civilians, Amnesty said. It called for an independent investigation into violations of international humanitarian law by both sides.

Amnesty researchers in Gaza found several weapon fragments after the fighting. One came from a 500lb (227kg) Mark-82 fin guided bomb, which had markings indicating parts were made by the US company Raytheon. They also found fragments of US-made white phosphorus artillery shells, marked M825 A1.

On 15 January, several white phosphorus shells fired by the Israeli military hit the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, destroying medicine, food and aid. One fragment found at the scene had markings indicating it was made by the Pine Bluff Arsenal, based in Arkansas, in October 1991.

The human rights group said the Israeli military had used white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas, which it said was an indiscriminate form of attack and a war crime. Its researchers found white phosphorus still burning in residential areas days after the ceasefire.

At the scene of an Israeli attack that killed three Palestinian paramedics and a boy in Gaza City on 4 January, Amnesty found fragments of an AGM114 Hellfire missile, made by Hellfire Systems of Orlando, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The missile is often fired from Apache helicopters.

Amnesty said it also found evidence of a new type of missile, apparently fired from unmanned drones, which exploded into many pieces of shrapnel that were “tiny sharp-edged metal cubes, each between 2 and 4mm square in size”.

“They appear designed to cause maximum injury,” Amnesty said. Many civilians were killed by this weapon, including several children, it said.

Rockets fired by Palestinian militants were either 122mm Grad missiles or short-range Qassam rockets, a locally made, improvised artillery weapon. Warheads were either smuggled in or made from fertiliser.

The arsenal of weapons was on a “very small scale compared to Israel”, it said, adding that the scale of rocket arsenal deployed by Hizbullah in the 2006 Lebanese war was “beyond the reach of Palestinian militant groups”.

Armed for war

Israelis Missiles launched from helicopters and unmanned drones, including 20mm cannon and Hellfire missiles. Larger laser-guided and other bombs dropped by F-16 warplanes. Extensive use of US-made 155mm white phosphorus artillery shells and Israeli-made 155mm illuminating shells that eject phosphorus canisters by parachute. Several deaths caused by flechettes, 4cm-long metal darts packed into 120mm tank shells, and fragments of US-made 120mm tank shells.

Palestinians Militants fired rockets into southern Israel including 122mm Grad rockets of either Russian, Chinese or Iranian manufacture, and smaller, improvised Qassam rockets often made inside Gaza and usually holding 5kg of explosives and shrapnel.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Palestine, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Gazans: IDF used us as ‘human shields’ during offensive

February 21, 2009

By Amira Hass | Haaretz, Israel, Feb 20, 2009
GAZA – The question “Who is it?” was answered with: “The Israel Defense Forces.” Majdi Abed Rabbo, 39, who is a Palestinian Authority (Ramallah) employee and a member of its intelligence apparatus, went down to open the door. Standing there was the son of his neighbors, Mahmoud Daher, and behind him a soldier whose rifle was jammed into Daher’s back. The soldier pushed Daher aside and aimed the rifle at Abed Rabbo.

“He ordered me to pull down my pants. I pulled them down. He demanded that I raise my shirt. I raised it. That I turn around. I turned around,” Abed Rabbo related. And then the room filled up with soldiers. “Twelve, or something like that.”

This was in the morning of Monday, January 5, 2009, about 40 hours after the start of the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza.

The soldiers had already taken over Daher’s house on Sunday evening, located in I’zbet Abed Rabbo, an eastern neighborhood of Jabaliya city. First they gathered the family on the ground floor. Gunfire rang out around the house. Then they moved the family up to the first floor. The family wondered why the soldiers had taken them upstairs, to the cold, uncomfortable room – parents, children, two infants and an elderly mother. But they could not refuse, and they did not yet know that the move upstairs brought them closer to the range of fire. Only later did they learn about the three fighters from Iz al-Din al-Qassam, Hamas’ military wing, positioned in the empty house to the northeast of them. The regular occupants of the house, owned by their neighbor Abu Hatem, had long since gone abroad. Abed Rabbo’s tall house stood next to Abu Hatem’s narrow, empty one.

At about 7 A.M. on Monday, the soldiers took Shafiq Daher – a 53-year-old financial manager who gets his salary from the PA in Ramallah – as well as Mahmoud and two other sons from their home, and then separated them from each other.

The soldiers took the elder Daher to the house of his neighbor to the east, Jaber Zeydan. The door had already been broken, and the neighbors were huddled in one room. The search here, as in the four other homes Daher was forced to enter that day, was conducted in the same way: He entered first, with the soldiers behind him. One soldier placed his rifle on Daher’s right shoulder, and pressed down on his left shoulder. The members of the Zeydan family were taken into the adjacent house, owned by Tawfiq Katari. The hands of all the men, including boys of 14 and 16, were tied, some behind the back, some in front.

Protecting soldiers

The soldiers also took over Katari’s house on Sunday night, January 4. The Kataris, too, were rounded up and taken to the ground floor. There was shooting all around. The soldiers took up positions on one of the upper floors and turned the northeast window, close to the Abu Hatem home, into a firing position. “There was one nice soldier who told us that where we were sitting was dangerous and moved us next to an inner wall,” one of the women related.

At about 9 A.M. on Monday, the soldiers took Katari’s son Jamal from the house. During the next four days Jamal accompanied the soldiers and performed several tasks. He was made to enter what he estimates were 10 houses, going in first and calling on the occupants to come downstairs. He preceded the huge army bulldozer that forced its way through the neighborhood, ripping up the streets. “I am afraid the soldiers will shoot me,” he told a soldier, who replied: “Don’t be afraid.”

In the meantime, that same Monday morning, Shafiq Daher, too, was continuing his mission of protecting Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The second house he was made to check was also empty. It belonged to the Al-Ajarmi family. Daher did not know that his two oldest sons were accompanying other groups of soldiers, and were being forced to smash holes in the walls of houses using sledgehammers. Nor did he know that at that very moment, a soldier was jamming his rifle into the back of his third son, standing at the door of Abed Rabbo’s home.

Abed Rabbo himself, after being forced to smash a hole in the wall that separated his roof from his neighbors’ roof and to accompany the soldiers inside, was made to enter several houses near the mosque, break into a car and then go into the Zeydan house. He was then taken to the Katari family’s home, where he met Shafiq Daher and told him that his son was all right. At about 2 P.M., a soldier took him outside, pointed to the Abu Hatem house and said, according to Abed Rabbo’s testimony: “There were armed people in that house. We killed them. Take off their clothes and take their weapons.” At first he refused and said that was not his job. “Obey orders,” he was told.

Dead or alive?

Abbed Rabbo went to the Abu Hatem house, shouting in Arabic that he was the owner. In the house, he found three very much alive members of Iz al-Din al-Qassam. They told him to leave and threatened him not to come back, “because we will shoot you.” He returned to the soldiers, who made him undress and turn around, and then told them that the three were alive. The officer on hand asked to see his ID card and discovered that Abed Rabbo was a member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ intelligence. He was handcuffed and moved aside. He heard shooting. Then he was again sent to check the Abu Hatem house, after being told the three militants were now dead; he found one wounded and the others “all right.” One of them said: “Tell the officer that if he is a man, he can come up here himself.”

The soldiers didn’t like what they heard. One of them cursed, said Abed Rabbo, who was handcuffed again and made to wait. It began to grow dark when he heard a helicopter approaching, followed by the sound of a missile exploding. One of the soldiers said: Now we have killed them, with a missile. Come over here. Abed Rabbo complied and saw, with horror, that the missile had struck his house.

He told the soldier that the missile had missed. “Are you majnoun [nuts]?” the soldier asked him. “No,” Abed Rabbo replied. “The missile hit my house.”

There was a huge mess: Water was bursting out of pipes, pieces of concrete were lying all over. And all around the shooting continued unabated, interspersed with the sounds of many explosions and helicopters flying overhead.

At about midnight, between Monday and Tuesday, Abed Rabbo was forced to go for a third time, to ascertain whether the three Hamas militants were dead. The soldiers lit the way for him. He found two of the gunmen, still alive, but buried under the rubble; the third was still holding his weapon. Abed Rabbo returned to the soldiers, stripped down again and repeated that the three were alive.

“Are you majnoun?” they demanded.

“No, I am not majnoun, I am telling you what I saw,” he replied. Hungry, thirsty and with a throbbing headache, Abbed Rabbo was taken back to the Katari house.

At 6:30 A.M. he was brought out, in front of what was once his house. Soldiers brought a megaphone, he recalled later, and started to shout: “Ya, armed people, you have 15 minutes to turn yourselves in. Come down, remove your clothes, the Red Cross is here, the journalists are here, we will treat the wounded men.”

The soldiers then sent a dog into the house. One of the Hamas fighters shot and killed it. The soldiers again started calling on them to come out. There was no reply. “And then a bulldozer arrived and started to demolish my house, right before my eyes.” Abed Rabbo was sent into the Katari house as the bulldozer started to wreck Abu Hatem’s house. He heard sporadic gunfire shots. When he emerged, two hours later, he found two of the armed men “sprawled on the demolished concrete, dead.” He did not see the third man.

“What kind of army is this, which can’t break into one house where there are armed men?” Abed Rabbo asked himself.

The IDF responds

Haaretz spoke with eight residents of I’zbet Abed Rabbo neighborhood, who testified that they were made to accompany IDF soldiers on missions involving breaking into and searching houses – not to mention the family members who remained in the houses the army took over, which were used as firing positions. The eight estimated that about 20 local people were made to carry out “escort and protection” missions of various kinds, as described here, between January 5 and January 12.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stated in response: “The IDF is a moral army and its soldiers operate according to the spirit and values of the IDF, and we suggest a thorough examination of the allegations of Palestinian elements with vested interests. The IDF troops were instructed unequivocally not to make use of the civilian population within the combat framework for any purpose whatsoever, certainly not as ‘human shields.’

“Following an examination with the commanders of the forces that were in the area in question, no evidence was found of the cases mentioned. Anyone who tries to accuse the IDF of actions of this kind creates a mistaken and misleading impression of the IDF and its fighters, who operate according to moral criteria and international law.”

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Palestine, War Criminals, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Israel’s Dirty War in Gaza and Complicity of Her Allies

February 20, 2009

Marc Herbermann | uruknet.info, Feb 19, 2009

‘How did the current mess in the Gaza Strip begin?’

In recent years, life had become more and more unbearable in the area which once was called Palestine. Palestinians today, under a Jewish state that allows them no autonomy, suffer from miserable living conditions in a land that was theirs more than 60 years ago.

Jews, separated by huge concrete walls from the Palestine population, are scared of continuous rocket fire and the notion of being a victim of another devastating suicide attack. And now, Palestinians, expelled from their former homeland, crammed and trapped in a ghetto in the Gaza Strip, are the victims of a criminal military campaign.

Let’s get it right; we should respect people’s wish to live in peace, no matter in which country they live, whether they are Jews, Muslims or Buddhists. The brutal murder of civilians is a crime, the summary execution of people that are not involved in military operations and the deliberate shelling of U.N. buildings, convoys, hospitals, media installations and mosques are war crimes.

Over a period of 22 days, covered by the complicit apathy of the U.S., which is leading a disgraceful war in Iraq which it started illegally, the Israeli military operation in Gaza had claimed over 1300, at least half of them are civilians.

Thousands are wounded and traumatized. The attacks were meant to destroy the “infrastructure of terror,” yet they are ruining the social and cultural infrastructure of a community that has already been suffering under a harsh blockade Egypt and Israel imposed nearly 18 months ago.

Similarities between the current onslaught and the Lebanon War are evident. More than two years ago, Israel concocted a casus belli to attack Lebanon, half the size of Israel, with overwhelming air power, in utter contempt for civilian life and international institutions. Remember the deadly bombing of the apartment building in Qana and the destruction of the U.N. post that killed four U.N. observers.

And yet this small, relatively prosperous land, Lebanon, has nearly 30 times the landmass of the Gaza Strip, where desperate population is hiding and trembling between shattered walls, waiting for the next fatal blow, unable to sleep, drink clean water, eat or seek refuge in mosques or hospitals.

Even clearly marked international buildings are intentionally shelled. More than 40 people died after an Israeli attack on a U.N. school in the Jabalya refugee camp, where there were no fighters. In the Shifa and other hospitals, the situation is disastrous.

The recent mass executions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDFs) were not meant to destroy a well equipped enemy, as Israeli commanders suggest, but they knocked down an impoverished population administrated by Hamas, a political organization with a militant ideology, which was elected democratically in January 2006.

What are the underlying reasons for Israel’s assault on Gaza? Mark Regev, spokesman for the prime minister of Israel, repeatedly claims that the IDFs want to stop the firing of rockets, which fly out of the Gaza Strip everyday, flying deeper and deeper into the south of Israel.

If so, why is the best equipped army in the Middle East, which receives billions of dollars in military aid and uses the latest weapons from its American ally (including precision-guided munitions, phosphor bombs and depleted uranium shells) incapable of preventing these crude, homemade, and mainly inaccurate rockets from firing?

The IDFs, therefore, seem to pursue other aims: restoring their prestige, damaged by the Lebanon war, by demonstrating their strength regardless of civilian causalities.

More likely, the hidden agenda of this operation is aimed at removing Hamas from the Gaza Strip and finally, as the Canadian economist Michel Chossudovsky puts it, terrorizing and expelling the Palestinians from their land.

How did the current mess in the Gaza Strip begin? The standard narration ¯ shared by mainstream media outlets and declared by the Israeli government, George W. Bush, his biased German colleague, Angela Merkel, and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy ¯ blames Hamas alone.

Yet the EU presidency conceded that “even the undisputable right of the state to defend itself does not allow actions which largely affect civilians.” United Nations Security Council Resolution 1860, intended to resolve the 2008-09 Israel-Gaza conflict, has yet to bear fruit.

But who really broke the last ceasefire? According to various sources in Western newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, The Economist and the U.S. News and World Report, the truth is that Israeli commandos killed six Hamas fighters during a raid on a tunnel they suspected was being dug for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers at the beginning of November.

According to The Guardian, “Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel.” Israeli newspaper Haaretz claims that operation “Cast Lead” had been prepared six month earlier and, coupled with a carefully staged disinformation campaign, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

– Marc Herbermann, full-time instructor at Dongduk Women’s University in Seoul, works occasionally as a journalist and lectured on methods of political science at the University of Trier. This article was contributed to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact the author at: herbermann@gmx.de .

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Miko Peled: Winning in Gaza

February 18, 2009
‘All it takes is one child who decides to take up the fight..’

By Miko Peled | The Palestine Chronicle, Feb 17, 2009

The common wisdom regarding Israel’s latest attacks on Gaza suggests that Israel is defending itself against a vicious enemy and that all means justify the cause of security for the citizens of Israeli cities. Common wisdom dictates that the US must support the Israeli Jewish population in their effort to gain recognition and acceptance, not to say security for their fledgling democracy. But here common wisdom stand stands in stark contrast to the dictates of reality because Israel is fighting a war it cannot possibly win.

For more than sixty years Palestinians have been living as refugees in the Gaza strip as well as other areas in and around what used to be Palestine. Those who live in the refugee camps have for three generations suffered unimaginable hardships that began with homelessness, poverty and deprivation and went on to include incursions by Israeli commandos, shelling by Israeli artillery and air assaults by the Israeli air force. In Gaza close to 900,000 people are refugees who were forced off of their land in 1948. They and their descendants have suffered more than their fair share of hardships.

The accepted position on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is that it began in 1967, but for Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere the Israeli occupation of Palestine began in 1948 and was only completed in 1967. Many Israelis feel this way too.  So to expect that a solution that deals only with lands occupied in 1967 will hold for any length of time is naïve at best, and the ashes of the peace process of the 1990’s lay as testament to that.

Most of the refugees in the Gaza Strip today came from the southern towns and villages of Palestine. According to UN sources, in 1948 some 200,000 refugees were concentrated in and around Gaza City whose original inhabitants numbered only 80,000. This severely burdened this narrow strip of land, an area of only 140 square miles.  Today over three-quarters of 1.4 million people in the Gaza strip are registered refugees.

The Gaza strip includes the city of Gaza which is approximately 48 miles southwest of Jerusalem, with a population of 410,000, as well as the cities of Beit Hanoun , Beit Lahia, Deir el-Balah (at the end of 1170, Saladin’s army had arrived in Palestine entering through Darum, which is now known as Deir al-Balah) Jabalia, Khan Yunis and Rafah.

The majority of the refuges live in eight refugee camps that include: Jabalia, Rafah, Beach, Nuseirat, Khan Younis, Bureij, Maghazi and Deir el-Balah.

According to the United Nations the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have one of the highest population densities in the world. For example, over 80,688 refugees live in Beach camp whose area is less than one square kilometer. This high population density is reflected in the overcrowded schools and classrooms.  Even with poverty and over population, Gaza maintains one of the highest literacy rates in the world, 92%.

Today these refuges and their descendents, who live just a short drive from their original homes who now house Jewish Israelis, are being told by the world that they must accept their fate and live as refugees with no law to protect them, no human rights and no civil rights.  They are also told quite clearly that any resistance on their part, violent or otherwise will not be tolerated. Israel, the country responsible for their present condition will never allow them to return to their homes, to resist or to become part of a larger Israel/Palestine.

Whether one agrees that Palestinians deserve the same rights as all other people or not, one has to recognize why resistance to Israel has developed in the refugee camps in Gaza. It is a vicious cycle, not unknown in the history of other nations. Since the early 1950’s refugees from Gaza tried to enter the newly establish Israel, seeking to reclaim houses, possessions, or crops. Eventually guerrilla fighters began to enter Israel and to engage in violent acts against Israeli citizens. It wasn’t long before Israel developed a policy of no tolerance whereby infiltrators were shot on sight and retaliatory strikes in response to guerrilla attacks ensued.

In 1953 Ariel Sharon, then a young officer was sent at the head of the famous Unit 101 into Gaza to cleanse it of terrorists and to stop Palestinian “infiltrators” from penetrating Israeli borders. Sharon stated: “If we don’t act against the refugee camps, they would become a murderers’ nest.” Or in other words, centers for resistance against Israel. Israeli attacks on Gaza continued throughout the 1950’s, 60’s 70’s and they continue to this very day. It is hard not to see that this is an ongoing campaign against a nation that is unwilling to give up the struggle for freedom and justice.

Gaza has a history of being tough to subdue. It is said  Alexander the Great had to fight a bitter battle to conquer it, as did the British during the First World War. While violence may quell the resistance for a short time, all it takes is one child who decides to take up the fight and as we know this is a battle that no conquering power has ever won.

-Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and peace activist living in San Diego.  His father was the later Israeli General, Matti Peled who was also the first Israeli military Governor of Gaza. For comments or contact information please go to mikopeled.wordpress.com.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Human rights, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Israel seizes West Bank land to expand settlements

February 17, 2009
Al Jazeera, Feb 16, 2009

Palestinians and peace activists have protested against Israeli settlements [GALLO/GETTY]

Israel has taken control of a large area near a prominent settlement in the Palestinian West Bank, paving the way for a possible construction of 2,500 settlement homes, officials have said.

Oded Revivi, the mayor of Efrat, said on Monday that the Israeli military has designated 425 acres near the settlement of about 1,600 families south of Jerusalem, as so-called
state land two weeks ago.

Revivi said Efrat plans to build 2,500 homes on that land, but government approval would still be needed before construction begins, a process that could take years.

Eventually, Efrat is to grow to a city of 30,000 people, he said.

The settlement is situated in one of three settlement blocs Israel expects to hold on to in any final peace deal with the Palestinians.

Revivi said nine appeals, eight of which were rejected and one was upheld, had been filed by Palestinian landowners.

‘Sticking point’

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, West Bank, said the “confiscation [of the land], which by international law is deemed illegal, has been greeted with condemnation among Palestinian circles”.

“We’ve seen statements from these leaderships describing this measure as condemnable, calling on the international community to take a firm stance,” she said.

“… This will undoubtedly be a major sticking point when the US peace envoy George Mitchell visits the region towards the end of the month.

“This is what [the] Palestinians will be concentrating on. Already we’ve heard from the Palestinian president’s office that there will be no negotiations until all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem stops.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has warned that continued settlement expansion would cripple peace talks.

His aides said recently that peace talks can only resume after a settlement freeze.

Expansion could also create friction with the US, as Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, has long called on Israel to halt construction in settlements.

Nearly 290,000 Israelis currently live in West Bank settlements.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Does Zionism legitimize every act of violence?

February 16, 2009

By Gideon Levy | Haaretz, Israel,

February 16, 2009

The Israeli left died in 2000. Since then its corpse has been lying around unburied until finally its death certificate was issued, signed, sealed and delivered on Tuesday. The hangman of 2000 was also the gravedigger of 2009: Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The man who succeeded in spreading the lie about there being no partner has reaped the fruit of his deeds in this election. The funeral was held two days ago.

The Israeli left is dead. For the past nine years it took the name of the peace camp in vain. The Labor Party, Meretz and Kadima had pretensions of speaking in its name, but that was trickery and deceit. Labor and Kadima made two wars and continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank; Meretz supported both wars. Peace has been left an orphan. The Israeli voters, who have been misled into thinking that there is no one to talk to and that the only answer to this is force – wars, targeted killings and settlements – have had their say clearly in the election: a closing sale for Labor and Meretz. It was only the force of inertia that gave these parties the few votes they won.

There was no reason for it to be otherwise. After many long years when hardly any protest came from the left, and the city square, the same square that raged after Sabra and Chatila, was silent, this lack of protest has been reflected at the ballot box as well. Lebanon, Gaza, the killed children, cluster bombs, white phosphorus and all the atrocities of occupation – none of this drove the indifferent, cowardly left onto the street. Though ideas of the left have found a toehold in the center and sometimes even on the right, everyone from former prime minister Ariel Sharon to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken in a language that once was considered radical. But the voice was the voice of the left while the hands were the hands of the right.

On the fringes of this masked ball existed another left, the marginal left – determined and courageous, but minuscule and not legitimate. The gap between it and the left was supposedly Zionism. Hadash, Gush Shalom and others like them are outside the camp. Why? Because they are “not Zionist.”

And what is Zionism nowadays? An archaic and outdated concept born in a different reality, a vague and delusive concept marking the difference between the permitted and the proscribed. Does Zionism mean settlement in the territories? Occupation? The legitimization of every act of violence and injustice? The left stammered. Any statement critical of Zionism, even the Zionism of the occupation, was considered a taboo that the left did not dare break. The right grabbed a monopoly on Zionism, leaving the left with its self-righteousness.

A Jewish and democratic state? The Zionist left said yes automatically, fudging the difference between the two and not daring to give either priority. Legitimization for every war? The Zionist left stammered again – yes to the beginning and no to the continuation, or something like that. Solving the refugee problem and the right of return? Acknowledgment of the wrongdoing of 1948? Unmentionable. This left has now, rightly, reached the end of its road.

Anyone who wants a meaningful left must first air out Zionism in the attic. Until a movement that courageously redefines Zionism arises from the mainstream, there will be no broad left here. It is not possible to be both leftist and Zionist only in accordance with the right’s definition. Who has decided that the settlements are Zionist and legitimate, and the struggle against them is neither?

This taboo must be broken. It is permissible not to be a Zionist, as commonly defined today. It is permissible to believe in the Jews’ right to a state and yet come out against the Zionism that engages in occupation. It is permissible to believe that what happened in 1948 should be put on the agenda, to apologize for the injustice and act to rehabilitate the victims. It is permissible to oppose an unnecessary war from its very first day. It is permissible to think that the Arabs of Israel deserve the same rights – culturally, socially and nationally – as Jews. It is permissible to raise disturbing questions about the image of the Israel Defense Forces as an army of occupation, and it is even permissible to want to talk to Hamas.

If you prefer, this is Zionism, and if you prefer, this is anti-Zionism. In any case, it is legitimate and essential for those who do not want to see Israel fall victim to the insanities of the right for many more years. Anyone who wants an Israeli left must say “enough” to Zionism, the Zionism of which the right has taken complete control.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

“The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes

February 16, 2009

vittime4.jpg

Dr Gideon Polya | uruknet.info, Feb 14, 2009

The horrendous mortality and morbidity statistics revealed by the paper “The Wounds of Gaza“, just published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet  are truly shocking – 1,350 killed (60% children) and 5,450 severely wounded (40% children) in reprisals for zero (0) Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets in the preceding year. This demands International Criminal Court and intra-national prosecutions (e.g. in major Israeli military R & R destination countries Australia, the US, the UK and India) and Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Israel by all decent Australians and indeed all decent people around the world.

The Gaza Strip is a self-governing Apartheid Israeli Concentration Camp ruled by the Hamas Government which won 76 out of 132 seats in the Occupied Palestinian Parliamentary elections held under Israeli guns in 2006 (Fatah won 43 seats) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas ). The Israelis responded by arresting as many Hamas MPs as they could find, the remainder fleeing to Gaza. In the current Israeli Gaza Massacre, the Israelis are evidently bent on “finishing the job” (they have already destroyed the Gaza Parliament House). The war criminal, pro-Zionist Western backers of Apartheid Israel followed suit by declaring the democratically elected Hamas MPs to be “terrorists” and only dealing with the Fatah.

Under the loathed, Nazi-style, racist Apartheid régime in South Africa its Bantustans were policed by police and the worst atrocity was the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in which South African police killed 69 African protesters (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre ) – “The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and over 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children”.

Gaza – what the Catholic Church via Vatican justice and peace minister Cardinal Renato Martino and leading US conservative Pat Buchanan both call an Israeli-guarded Gaza Concentration Camp (see:  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24888817-15084,00.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em8tREX9L8o )  – remains under blockade and under dire threat of further Israeli atrocities, this latest atrocity involving 1,350 Palestinians killed in asserted reprisals for zero (0)  Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets in the preceding year and 28 Israeli deaths from Gaza missiles in the preceding 8.25 years, this latter statistic yielding an “annual homicide rate” in “persons killed per million of population” of 0.5 (Israelis killed by Gaza missiles) – as compared to 0.5 (rapist husbands killed by raped wives), 1.0 (violent husbands killed by battered wives), 15 (Israelis by Israelis), 56 (Americans), 100 (Americans by guns), 164 (Palestinians killed violently by Israelis), 200 (African-Americans), 473 (citizens of Detroit, Michigan, USA) and 902 per million per year  (annual Palestinian non-violent deaths through war criminal, Geneva Convention-violating Israeli-imposed deprivation) (see Dr Gideon Polya, “Palestinian-Israeli Death Ratios . Nazi-style Israeli Gaza War Crimes”:  http://mwcnews.net/content/view/27795/42/ ).

However the numerically vastly greater Israel atrocity lies in the avoidable deaths (excess deaths) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory  due to Occupier refusal to supply life-sustaining food, medicine and medical services to its conquered subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”, as unequivocally demanded by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ).

3,000 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian infants die every year (about 80% avoidably), this corresponding to 3,000/ 0.7 = 4,286 total avoidable deaths annually (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ), and 4,286 x 8.25 = 35,360 non-violent Occupied Palestinian deaths since September 2000, in addition to the 6,200 violent Occupied Palestinian deaths at the hands of Apartheid Israelis in this period.

In the period 1967-2009 in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, post-invasion non-violent excess deaths totalled 0.3 million; post-invasion violent deaths at the hands of Israelis totalled about 10,000; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalled about 0.2 million; there are over 7 million Palestinian refugees (4.3 million registered with the UN) – a Palestinian Holocaust and a Palestinian Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).

Here are some shocking statistics from this report published in one of the World’s top medical journals, The Lancet (see: http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/608 ), quote: “The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000  in 1956 or the execution  of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead?  We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.

Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days.  In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years….

Death toll

As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.

Severe injuries

The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients.” End quote.

While in the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre the South African police used handguns, the weapons used by Israelis on its Gaza Concentration Camp in 2008-2009 included phosphorus bombs (inflicts horrendous burns), heavy bombs including depleted uranium and DIME bombs (limb-slicing dense inert material explosives), fuel air explosives (bunker busters and implosion bombs),  silent bombs (a new particle weapon?) and “conventional” automatic handguns (that were also used in documented executions of Gaza civilians ordered out of their homes by Israeli troops).

These atrocities demand (1) direct UN military intervention armed with already-passed UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions; (2) intra-national and inter-national Sanctions and Boycotts against Israel, its Zionist or pro-Zionist backers in the US, Canada, the UK, the EU and Australia and indeed against all the countries backing Israel; and (3) arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) of all complicit Israeli politicians, officials and military wherever they can be apprehended throughout the world.

One of the best-known Jewish scholars in the world today, Professor Jared Diamond, in his best-selling book “Collapse (Prologue, p10, Penguin edition) enunciated the “moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people” – an injunction grossly violated by Israel.

Further, “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “bear witness” are the fundamental, moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the World War 2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead) and the World War 2 Eastern Theatre Holocaust (35 million Chinese dead under Japanese occupation and 6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British in the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine – for details of the latter “forgotten” Bengali Holocaust see the BBC broadcast in which I participated together with 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Wellcome Institute, University College London, and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; see also “Media lying over Churchill’s crimes. British-Indian Holocaust”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26713/42/ ).

These fundamental moral injunctions from the Jewish Holocaust and the World War 2 Holocaust in general of “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “bear witness” are also being grossly violated by the Zionists running Israel and their racist, genocidal US Alliance backers..

If the World unjustly continues to accept that after 40 years of  Israeli Occupation it is “right” for 4 million Occupied Palestinians (50% children, 75% women and children)  to continue to be subject to highly abusive, race-based mass imprisonment without charge or trial then it should at least urgently insist  that they should be Occupied immediately by a Civilized  Country e.g. by  a peace-keeping force from a Civilized Country such as Costa Rica (no army), Switzerland (neutral country) or Fiji (distinguished record of participation in peace-keeping) with International and US Guarantees of territorial integrity and total airport level security for Nazi-style, Zionist, Apartheid Israel.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Palestine, War Criminals, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »