Backed by the U.S.: Israel Unleashes a Massacre in
Gaza
by Larry Everest
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11578
...
Israeli and U.S. government officials, as well as the U.S.
media, claim that Israel’s attack was provoked by rocket attacks by
the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas (that controls Gaza) into
Israel. The Bush regime called Hamas “thugs,” blaming Hamas for
provoking Israel and demanding it end its rocket attacks—while
pointedly refusing to call on Israel to stop its assault.
...
This step-by-step campaign of ethnic cleansing began with
violently driving some 750,000 Palestinians from their lands during
the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli war; the destruction of hundreds of
conquered Palestinian villages; the military conquest of the West
Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war; the illegal colonialization of these
“occupied territories" afterward, coupled with a steady assault on
Palestinian economy and society. Israel claimed each assault was
simply a response to Palestinian “terror,” or refusal to make
peace; while each Israeli assault furthered its strategic
objectives of destroying Palestine.
Most of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians were forced from their
homes in other parts of Palestine during the establishment of
Israel. From 1967 until 2005, Israel militarily occupied
Gaza. After ending the occupation, Israel kept complete control of
this desert strip’s land, sea and air borders. Israel sent armored
bulldozers to destroy Gaza’s fruit orchards, blockaded the fishing
port, cut off supplies to factories and other businesses, and
forbid most Gaza residents the right to work elsewhere or even
leave. Gaza today is a humanitarian crisis, its population living
in prison-like conditions.
Hamas—which governs Gaza—is not about liberating Palestine as a
secular state free of imperialist domination; it represents forces
that would restructure the oppressive relations that enslave the
people of Palestine within an Islamic theocratic framework.
Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and
offered to negotiate a permanent truce in order to lift the siege
of Gaza. A truce was finally agreed upon in June 2008,
under which Hamas agreed to stop missile attacks, and Israel was
supposed to end its blockade of Gaza. According to the
pro-Israel New York Times, Hamas was "largely successful" in
stopping the launches of the Qassam missiles, some of which are
carried out by groups other than Hamas. But Israel refused to ease
its blockade. Then, on November 4, Israel launched an
attack that killed six Palestinians. The next day, it sealed all
Gaza’s borders, intensifying what had already been a horrific
situation for the people.
Israel’s siege has turned Gaza into the world’s largest open-air
concentration camp—its impoverished inhabitants are being starved
and subject to indescribable suffering. 80% live below the
poverty line. About 97% of factories and workshops cannot operate.
Gaza’s industrial zone is completely closed. Unemployment is about
50%. In 2006 Israel bombed Gaza's only power plant, making Gaza
dependent on power supplies from Israel and Egypt. Fresh drinking
water is often not available for days at a time. Irregular power
means that sewage treatment plants cannot function and that raw
sewage gets dumped into the Mediterranean. Medicines are in short
supply, and Israeli bans on travel mean that Palestinians seeking
advanced medical care that is not available in Gaza are left to
die. (For more on the state of Gaza under siege, see the
article from A World to Win News Service, "Gaza: Tottering on the
Brink," in Revolution #150, available online at revcom.us)
In light of all this, the claims by Israel and the U.S. that the
current bloody invasion is a “response” to small-scale and largely
ineffective rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza are obscene. They
are like the method the U.S. used to justify the genocide of Native
Americans by settlers and the military: according to the official
narrative, that story “began” with claims of the first Native
American scalping of some settler family or soldier—and then
anything goes to “respond” to what is declared an atrocity. What
came before—what provoked the scalping, the genocidal lies and
brutality visited upon the indigenous peoples, and America’s actual
agenda of forcible conquest and colonialization—all this is ignored
and covered up.
Even by its own terms, Israel’s longstanding policies of
near-starvation, and the current massive reign of death from the
air are violations of international law—serving as
“collective punishment” against the entire population of Gaza. This
collective punishment of all Gaza residents is contrary to the
Fourth Geneva Convention and is illegal under international law.
Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, for example, states
that "to the fullest extent of the means available to it,
the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and
medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring
in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if
the resources of the occupied territory are
inadequate."
Israel has served as U.S. imperialism’s unsinkable aircraft carrier
and regional enforcer in the Middle East for decades, and the U.S.
has been Israel’s staunchest backer, providing it with
billions of dollars a year in aid. And, with the “war on
terror”—in reality a war for empire—Israel’s strategic relationship
with the U.S. has become even more pivotal.
According to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, in
addition to supplying the F16 fighter jets and the missiles used in
Israel’s recent attack, the U.S. transferred more than $200 million
worth of spare parts for Israel’s fleet of F16's between 2001-2006.
“In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of
JP-8 aviation jet fuel. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3
billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of
TOW, Hellfire, and ‘bunker buster’ missiles.” And according to U.S.
government officials, the U.S. was fully informed ahead of time of
Israeli plans and apparently gave them a green light.
In short, Israel’s massacre and its ongoing crimes against the
people of Gaza could not have happened without U.S. support—and
people living in the U.S. have the responsibility to oppose the
crimes of “our” government. Protests have erupted across the Middle
East, and there have also been protests (with more planned) in the
U.S. and Europe.
There needs to be massive, visible political opposition to the
U.S.-sponsored assault on Gaza, here, and now. Silence and
acquiescence to these crimes in any form is complicity. The world
needs to see that within the U.S., there are people who are not
going along with the crimes being sponsored by their
government.
Another long winded opinionated piece, ignoring facts,
from a site of no accountability.
Are you here to discuss solutions or lay blame on everyone else,
and become a tool of terrorists propaganda?
The facts are:-
1. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It broke the truce by
Egypt and fired missiles into Israel urban centres with intention
to murder innocent men, women and children.
2. Israel, which any other nation would have retaliated before
even the 2nd missile landed, had restrain themselves when faced
such oppression with more than 200 missiles daily for months. No
one called for a halt in hama's agression.
3. Israel realized they are alone, and retaliated last week, as
any nation would to prevent further dead in their homeland.
Whatever happened 1400 years ago, who was right or who was
right, what was conspired, is immaterial. The fact is that the
carnage is now happening, and death of innocents are happening on
BOTH sides which must end.
Hamas, a terrorist organisation dedicated to the death of
innocents to achieve their national agenda, recieves sympathies,
funds and recruits from faithful muslims thru a misinterpretation
on their holy book.
Faithful muslims around the world assured the human race that
they condemn terrorism and terrorists acts - killing of innocent
men, women and children - done in their religion's name, which
is a mis-interpretation of their holy book, no matter the causes,
since 911.
Therefore it is time now for the faithful muslims around the
world, without any excuses, must honour their words - to
condemn the factual terrorists acts conducted by Hamas, whom slay
innocent people in Israel thru their daily missile barrage, as well
as now hiding amongst the civilian population ensuring more
innocents die in facing Israel's wrath.
The muslims must condemn the atrocities of Hamas, capture their
terrorists and turn them over to the authorities, and place more
effort to correct the misinterpretation of their holy book so that
no more muslims be misled or used by evil men.
Terrritorial claims can be civiliy discussed, but not by piling
innocents dead in the meeting room.
I am under no illusion that my written word here will have any
effect or even read by anyone, but hope is like a droplet of water
into the ocean which will affect the tide, and when more considers
my post, it will be a Tsunami of change that will help our fellow
humans in the middle east.
