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I WAS planning on voting for barak. I'm super pissed now . . . PLEASE take the time to at the very least skim this. This is a VERY good summary of what's been going on in the Gaza strip. ""A few months after I began my assignment, at the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Rabin assassination, I bumped into James Baker, whom I had dealt with on El Salvador and Western Sahara. I asked him whether he had any advice for me. He said only, 'Be strong. These guys can smell weakness a mile away.' Sound advice, even if you represent the UN rather than the superpower. What he was warning me against, clearly, was the tendency that exists among US policy-makers and even amongst the sturdiest of politicians to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure, and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences." -Alvaro de Soto, Peruvian Diplomat and former Under-Secretary-General United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.[1]
"In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions - the first time an occupied people have been so treated. This is difficult to understand. Israel is in violation of major Security Council and General Assembly resolutions dealing with unlawful territorial change and the violation of human rights and has failed to implement the 2004 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, yet it escapes the imposition of sanctions. Instead the Palestinian people, rather than the Palestinian Authority, have been subjected to possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times. It is interesting to recall that the Western States refused to impose meaningful economic sanctions on South Africa to compel it to abandon apartheid on the grounds that this would harm the black people of South Africa. No such sympathy is extended to the Palestinian people or their human rights."[2] Recently, Israel has tightened its grip and has cut fuel and power in Gaza. The reason given for such action is to stop Qassam rockets from being launched into Israel from Gaza. Yet reality is much more troubling when one looks at both sides’ transgressions. From September 2005 to May 2007, “Palestinian armed groups fired almost 2,700 rockets into Israel, killing 4 Israeli civilians, and injuring 75 civilians and at least 9 soldiers.” In the same time period, the IDF fired 14,617 artillery shells into Gaza. This fire "killed at least 59 people, wounded another 270 people.”[3] This is to say, the story given to us in the US both exaggerates the threat posed by rockets and downplays the nature of Israeli aggression in Gaza. Notice, however, that the casualty figures only take into account Qassam Rockets and artillery shells (limited to Gaza and southern Israel). As is well known, there are other means to destroy life. The truth, again, is quite unflattering. From August 2005 (when Israel completed dismantling settlements in Gaza) to May 2007, Israeli attacks killed 668 Palestinians, including 359 that did not partake in fighting.[4] B’Tselem reports that last year, 13 Israelis were killed by Palestinian violence (including Qassam rocket casualties), while 377 Palestinians were killed by Israel, including 53 children (West Bank and Gaza).[5] For those who survive, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has become increasingly dire. Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank’s country director for the West Bank and Gaza, recently stated that “The pillars of Gaza’s economy have weakened over the years. Now, with a sustained closure on this current scale, they would be at risk of virtually irreversible collapse.” As Haaretz reports, “Almost all businesses depend on imported raw materials and other supplies that must pass through the strip’s shuttered crossing with Israel.” Hadad-Zervos estimates that unemployment may “reach the unprecedented level of 44 percent.” Further studies indicate that “more than 3,190 Gaza businesses have temporarily shut down in the last month. Some 65,800 workers have also been temporarily laid off.”[6] Israel's decision to cut fuel has had even more unsettling effects. B'tselem notes that the Palestinian Electric Company "has had to totally shut down the power station due to lack of fuel. As a result, the power supply in the Gaza Strip has been cut by 32 percent, causing a blackout in wide parts of the area. The power shortage in the Gaza Strip now stands at 43 percent of demand. The power station supplies electricity to institutions that provide vital services to the residents, such as Shifa Hospital (the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip), the sewage treatment facility in Gaza City, and dozens of wells, sewage pumps, medical clinics, and schools. The hospitals have generators, but they are unable to produce the requisite amount of electricity, and the interruption in power supply causes a variety of malfunctions, inevitably harming the patients. The residents also suffer severe cutbacks in water supply. In Gaza City, for example, the residents do not have running water eight hours a day."[7] All this has accurately been described as collective punishment by human rights organizations.[8] And yet the pretext of rocket attacks seems to justify such action to many, including Barack Obama and John McCain[9]; a couple days ago, Obama sent this message to the US Ambassador to the UN: Dear Ambassador Khalilzad, I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order. I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condenm (sic) the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel... All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this... Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians. The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks... If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all. Sincerely, Not to be outdone, McCain wrote the following: The United Nations Security Council resumed today its discussions regarding a compromise statement that would address the situation in Gaza. As you know, UN statements have often served as platforms for rhetorical attacks against Israel by various member states. I urge you to ensure that this pattern does not repeat itself. The United States should oppose any UN statement or resolution that fails to condemn vociferously the terrorist tactics employed by Hamas, including its rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. For the Security Council to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza without reference to the Israeli security situation would constitute a failure of responsibility. Hamas, which rules Gaza, has committed itself to the destruction of the Jewish state and has conducted hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel in recent days. After Israel resumed fuel supplies to the Gaza power plant yesterday and electricity was restored, rockets continued to fall on civilian areas in Israel. The United Nations charter, which makes clear the inherent right of self-defense against armed attacks, applies to all states - including the State of Israel. In the face of continued violence by Hamas, Israel has taken steps to guarantee its security. I urge you to ensure that the Security Council recognizes Israel's right to do so and condemns Hamas for its continued campaign of violence against innocent civilians. Sincerely, The fact that Hamas recently offered a truce to Israel (and that the offer was blown off by Israel) goes unnoticed by McCain and Obama.[10] Also absent from their memory is the fact that Hamas dropped its call for Israel's destruction from its election manifesto for the parliamentary elections of 2006.[11] Years of blockading, indiscriminate bombing, and raids on Gaza have not just failed to stop rocket attacks, rather it has proliferated them (as the recent rise in rockets launched from Gaza clearly illustrate this point). Despite Hamas declaring and observing a unilateral ceasefire from March 2005 to June 2006, Israel continued attacks on Gaza. It was in fact a June Israeli air strike that killed 8 Palestinian civilians that led Hamas to call off its ceasefire.[12] These deaths are not always accidents ("collateral damage") as many of Israel's apologists will claim, but they are sometimes targeted attacks on Palestinian civilians that go unpunished[13]--the very act Israel claimed to abhor in Arafat's era.[14] These are not the actions of a state really concerned about security. But even when taking Israel's supporters at their word, would anyone find it fair to apply the same standards on Israel that they have put on Gaza? As the numbers show, Israel has endangered the lives of far more Palestinian civilians than Hamas ever has Israeli civilians.[15] Would Obama and McCain be deprived enough to demand that the UN sanction Israel, close it off to the world, stop fuel shipments, cut power, shoot artillery shells by the tens of thousands, and allow Hamas to raid Tel Aviv and Haifa to hunt down IDF soldiers suspected of killing Palestinians in the name of Palestine having the right to "defend" itself? That would be cruel wouldn’t it? That would be offense (aggression), not defense. Israel, as it routinely does, could cry Auschwitz. Such is the moral amnesia Palestinians are assaulted with.
1) Alvaro de Soto, "End of Mission Report: Alvaro de Soto United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority Envoy to the Quartet," May 2007. 2) John Dugard, "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," United Nations Human Rights Council, 2nd Session, document symbol: A/HRC/2/5, September 5, 2006. 3) Human Rights Watch, "Indiscriminate Fire: Palestinian Rocket Attacks on Israel and Israeli Artillery Shelling in the Gaza Strip," July 2007, Volume No. 19, No. 1 (E). 4) B'tselem, "The Gaza Strip-One Big Prison," The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, May 2007. 5) B'tselem, "Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: 2007 Annual Report," The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, December 2007. 6) Reuters, “World Bank: Gaza Strip may face ‘irreversible’ economic collapse,” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/881324.html, 12/07/2007. 7) B'tselem, "Israeli and Palestinian organizations petition High Court to resume fuel supply to Gaza," The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, January 21, 2008. 8) B'tselem, "Israeli Human Rights Organizations: End the Siege on Gaza," The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, January 24, 2008. 9) Shmuel Rosner, "Obama: Israel was Forced to Close Gaza," "Comparing McCain and Obama on Gaza," Rosner's Blog, Haaretz.com, January 23 and 24, 2008. 10) Isabel Kershner, "Israel Cool to an Offer from Hamas on a Truce," New York Times, December 20, 2007. 11) Chris McGreal, "Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto," The Guardian, January 12, 2006. 12) Laurie Copans, "Militant Fire Rockets Into South Israel," Washington Post, June 15, 2006. 13) Conal Urquhart, "Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings by army and a culture of impunity," The Guardian, September 6, 2005. 14) Amnesty International, "Five Years after the Oslo Agreement: Human rights sacrificed for 'security,' " 1998. 15) B'tselem, "Statistics: Fatalities," The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, September 29, 2000 to December 31, 2007. |
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