America’s Crimes “Never Happened”
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | Counterpunch, Dec 30, 2008
The title of my article comes from the sermon of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC, John Bryson Chane, delivered on October 5, 2008, at St. Columba Church. The bishop’s eyes were opened to Israel’s persecution of Palestinians by his recent trip to Palestine. In his sermon he called on “politicians seeking the highest office in [our] land” to find the courage to “speak out and condemn violations of human rights and religious freedom denied to Palestinian Christians and Muslims” by the state of Israel.
Bishop Chane’s courage was to no avail. When America’s new leader of “change” was informed of Israel’s massive air attack on the Gaza Ghetto, an area of 139 square miles where Israel confines 1.4 million Arabs and tightly controls the inflow of all resources–food, medicine, water, energy–America’s president-elect Obama had “no comment.”
According to the Jerusalem Post ( December 26), “at 11:30 a.m., more than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters swept into Gazan airspace and dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets. . . . Thirty minutes later, a second wave of 60 jets and helicopters struck at 60 targets . . . More than 170 targets were hit by IAF aircraft throughout the day. At least 230 Gazans were killed and over 780 were wounded . . .”
As I write, news reports are that Israel is sending tanks and infantry reinforcements in preparation for a ground invasion of Gaza.
Israel’s excuse for its violence is that from time to time the Palestinian resistance organization, Hamas, fires off rockets into Israel to protest against the ghetto life that Israel imposes on Gazans. The rockets are ineffectual for the most part and seldom claim Israeli casualties. However, the real purpose for the Israeli attack is to destroy Hamas.
In 2006 the US insisted that the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank hold free elections. When free elections were held, Hamas won. This was unacceptable to the Americans and Israelis. In the West Bank, the Americans and Israelis imposed a puppet government, but Hamas held on in Gaza. After unheeded warnings to the Gazans to rid themselves of Hamas and accept a puppet government, Israel has decided to destroy the freely elected government with violence.
Ehud Barak, who is overseeing the latest act of Israeli aggression, said in interviews addressed to the British and American publics that asking Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas would be like asking the US to agree to a ceasefire with al Qaeda. The terrorism that Israel inflicts on Palestinians goes unremarked.
According to the London Times (December 28), “Britain and the United States were on a collision course with their European allies last night after refusing to call for an end to Israeli airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. The wave of attacks marked a violent end to President George W. Bush’s sporadic Middle East peace efforts. The White House put the blame squarely on Hamas.” The British government also blamed Hamas.
For the US and UK governments, Israel can do no wrong. Israel doesn’t have to stop withholding food, medicine, water, and energy, but Hamas must stop protesting by firing off rockets. In violation of international law, Israel can drive West Bank Palestinians off their lands and out of their villages and give the stolen properties to “settlers.” Israel can delay Palestinians in need of emergency medical care at checkpoints until their lives ebb away. Israeli snipers can get their jollies murdering Palestinian children.
The Great Moral Anglo-Americans couldn’t care less.
In his 2005 Nobel Lecture, British playwright Harold Pinter held the United States and its British puppet state accountable for “the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought.” Everyone knows that such crimes occurred in the Soviet Union and in its East European empire, but “US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognized as crimes at all,” this despite the fact that “the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.”
Soviet crimes, like Nazi ones, are documented in gruesome detail, but America’s crimes “never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
America’s is “a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think.”
Pinter presents a long list of American crimes and comes to Iraq: “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was . . . an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading–as a last resort–all other justifications having failed to justify themselves–as liberation.” Americans and their British puppets “have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.”
“How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?” Pinter’s question can also be asked of Israel. Israel has been in violation of international law since 1967, protected by the United States’ veto of UN Resolutions condemning Israel for its violent, inhumane, barbaric, and illegal acts.
American evangelical Christians, who are degenerating into Zionists, are Israel’s greatest allies. Jesus is forsaken as Christians swallow whole the Israeli lies. A couple of years ago the US Presbyterian Church was so distressed by Israel’s immorality toward Palestinians that the church attempted to disinvest its investment portfolio from assets tainted with Israel. But the Israel Lobby was stronger. The Presbyterian Church was unable to stand up for Christian principles and knuckled under to the Israel Lobby’s pressure.
This is hardly surprising considering that the US government doesn’t stand for Christian principles either.
America’s doctrine of “full spectrum dominance” means that, like Lenin’s dictatorship, America is not bound by law or morality, but by power alone.
Pinter sums it up in a speech he had dreams of writing for President George W. Bush:
“God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.”
If only our ears could hear, this is the speech we have been hearing from Israel for 60 years.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Peace and Justice Post 
U.N. Diplomats Frustrated at Gaza Impasse
January 6, 2009By Haider Rizvi | Inter Press Service
Riyad al-Malki (left), Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian National Authority, briefs the media on Gaza Jan. 5, 2009.
Credit:UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (IPS) – Disappointed with the Security Council’s inaction regarding the worsening situation in Gaza, diplomats from numerous nations of the global South are close to taking the case of Israeli aggression to the U.N. General Assembly.
“It seems like they will wait for another day or two about what happens at the Security Council. If the Council does not take any action, they will be going to the General Assembly soon,” a diplomatic source told IPS on condition of anonymity.
U.N. and Gaza health officials have reported more than 550 Palestinian dead and around 2,500 wounded since the offensive began on Dec. 27.
Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran and Venezuela are in favour of asking the 192-member General Assembly to adopt a resolution deploring Israeli killing of civilians and calling for an immediate ceasefire, the source said.
However, the source added that some Arab countries and others are expressing reservations about such a move.
Unlike the Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly does not have the power to implement its resolutions by force. But its verdict on international issues of war and peace is considered as important because it is based on majority vote on an equal basis.
In a statement Monday, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which enjoys a solid majority in the General Assembly, said it was deeply disappointed at the “inability of the Security Council to uphold its responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security.”
The 118-member group of developing nations called for Israel to end the “collective punishment” of the Palestinians, and abide by all its obligations as the occupying power under international law and relevant U.N. resolutions and that it does so “unconditionally”.
That demand is not acceptable to Israel’s closest ally, the United States, which enjoys veto power in the 15-member Security Council. On Saturday, the U.S. blocked a Council presidential statement calling for an immediate ceasefire by both sides.
“We want this thing to end,” argued the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, before informal Security Council consultations started Monday evening. “But [first] practical engagements that are workable and durable have to be made.”
When pressed by a journalist to explain what he really meant by the term “practical arrangements”, the U.S. envoy responded with an air of vagueness: “Ceasefire that deals with both the rockets and [the Israeli military action].”
“We want an arrangement that can endure,” he said, adding that his country was against an unconditional ceasefire because it feared that Hamas would use it to rearm itself as Hezbollah did in Lebanon in 2006.
Conversations with a number of diplomatic observers suggest the U.S. is not going to change its stance before the new administration takes charge in Washington, and that until then, the Israelis would continue their military operation Gaza.
Describing the situation as “alarming”, the U.N. chief for humanitarian operations, John Holmes, said Monday that civilian casualties were steadily rising as Israeli ground operations have now intensified with ongoing aerial bombing.
“We look urgently for a ceasefire,” he told reporters. “We don’t know the exact number of casualties. The reports say they are over 500. The casualties are rising. Hospitals are struggling with growing casualties. Power is lacking.”
The U.N. relief agency UNRWA’s John Ging called the situation in Gaza “a shocking state of affairs”. In a teleconference, Ging, who entered Gaza Monday, said: “The streets are empty. It’s really horrible. People are terrorised and terrified. There is nowhere to flee.”
Holmes said he had repeatedly called for ceasefire on humanitarian grounds but “I don’t see any response to my appeal.” The U.N. official said the aid crisis in Gaza was worsening day by day.
Facing the possibility of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann has repeatedly called for a ceasefire while terming the deadly Israeli attacks a “monstrosity”.
On Monday, his spokesperson, Enrique Yeves, strongly criticised the Council for its failure to adopt a statement. “This organisation was established to establish peace,” he said, adding that contrary to the hopes of many, it failed to stop “the massacre in Gaza”.
“Why the Council is not making decisions? Why the people are dying every day?” he asked at a briefing.
On Monday, Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the 22-member Arab League, called the Israeli actions in Gaza “naked aggression” and demanded an immediate halt to military operations in the occupied territory.
“We want the Council to act decisively and swiftly,” he told reporters before attending a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and several Arab foreign ministers at U.N. headquarters.
For his part, Ban expressed cautious optimism about the outcome of the meeting.
“We have agreed to work very closely so that the Security Council can take decisive and swift and credible action for a binding resolution,” he said. “We will continue to work closely in the coming days with the Council and other key leaders in the region.”
Ban said he was going to Washington Tuesday to discuss the current phase of the Middle East crisis with President George W. Bush, whose term expires in two weeks. When asked what he was going to tell Bush, Ban said: “I am going to stress that this situation should come to an end and [that] the civilian population should be fully protected.”
While Ban flies to Washington Tuesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is due to arrive at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Experts on conflict resolution and human rights law say it is a must that the Security Council takes a firm and immediate action to stop the killing of civilians in Gaza. In this context, they are recommending a number of practical measures.
“The Council can start by a strong resolution condemning attacks by civilians on both Israel and [the Palestinian militant group] Hamas, demanding that such acts cease immediately,” said the London-based Amnesty International’s Malcolm Smart.
In a statement, Amnesty said it wants the Council to urge Israel to lift restrictions on the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza and allow aid workers and journalists to have unhindered access to the occupied territories under attack.
Experts at the International Crisis Group (ICG) have also suggested similar measures and more.
“Third parties viewed as credible and trustworthy by both parties must push to end this before the toll escalates or before Israel’s land incursions turn into a venture of uncertain scope, undetermined consequences and all too familiar human cost,” said ICG’s Robert Belcher.
In Belcher’s view, Israel might win militarily and even topple Hamas, “but with clear exit and day-after scenario, a discredited Palestinian Authority and debilitated peace process, it might not be a political win.”
“There are signs important actors — European in particular, the U.S. far less so — have learned from the experience of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war that time is of the essence,” he said. “It’s not clear whether this bitter lesson will translate into quicker action.”
“But,” according to the ICG analyst, “devising a ceasefire acceptable to both sides is not beyond reach.”
At the moment, no one really knows if such suggestions are going to work or not.
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Tags:dead and injured Palestinians, Israeli aggression, statement by Non-Aligned Movement, UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, US policy, US stands in the way, worsening situation in Gaza
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