WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (OneWorld.net) – Decrying U.S. “complicity” in what they say amounts to Israeli violations of international law, human rights groups are calling on the U.S. government to demand an immediate cessation of indiscriminate violence against civilians and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza inhabitants.
A woman and child sit next to a bag of Mercy Corps food aid in Gaza, 2006. The flow of humanitarian assistance, including food aid, into Gaza has been severely limited by the Israeli attack. © Mercy Corps“The Israeli airstrikes represent serious violations of international law — including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law — and the U.S. is complicit in all of it,” wrote Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies as the Israeli attacks on Gaza began in late December.
Specifically, “Israel’s lethal attack today [Dec. 28] on the Gaza Strip could not have happened without the active military support of the United States,” charged Bennis, detailing the types of weapons — such as F-16 fighter planes and Apache attack helicopters — and the amount of military aid — $3 billion a year — Israel receives from Washington.
“The use and threat of use of the U.S. veto in the [United Nations] Security Council and the reliance on raw power to pressure diplomats and governments to soften their criticism of Israel all serve to protect Israel and keep it from being held accountable by the international community,” added Bennis.
The advocacy group U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is among those that agree that Israel’s assault on Gaza “would not be possible” without U.S. support in the form of military assistance and diplomatic backing at the United Nations.
Similarly, human rights monitor Amnesty International has voiced serious concern about “attacks directed at or resulting in harm to unarmed civilians,” the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, and the significant role the U.S. alliance with Israel plays in the conflict.
“Without diminishing the responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, the U.S. government must not ignore Israel’s disproportionate response and the longstanding policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster,” wrote Amnesty International Senior Deputy Executive Director Curt Goering in an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week.
Highlighting the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza and noting the disproportionate impact violence has on women and children, the women-for-peace group CODEPINK is encouraging concerned U.S. citizens to take action.
In a letter to supporters today, the group decried yesterday’s Senate resolution — passed by unanimous voice vote — “recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”
“There was nothing in this one-sided legislation…that will help the 1.5 million Gazans who are currently under siege,” the group charged, adding: “There is nothing in this bill that will do anything to support ‘the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.'”
With a similar vote expected in the House of Representatives soon, CODEPINK is rallying its supporters to urge their members of Congress to oppose any legislation that doesn’t call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire as well as unimpeded access for humanitarian aid into Gaza and a lifting of Israel’s blockade of vital household goods like cooking oil and baking flour.
OneWorld.net: Latest from Groups Inside Gaza — What’s Happening & How You Can Help
Peace and Justice Post 
Rashid Khalidi: What You Don’t Know About Gaza
January 11, 2009By Rashid Khalidi | New York Times,
Published: January 7, 2009
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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