Israel's crimes against Humanity

God Father · Jan 3, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/113143/

Israelâ€™s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalemâ€™s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the **** ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.

â€œThis is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality,â€ I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the Council on Foreign Relations to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. â€œI am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago.â€

The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza â€œa crime against humanity.â€ Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as â€œa flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.â€ He has asked for â€œthe International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.â€

Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that â€œsuch Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israelâ€™s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.â€

â€œIt is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,â€ Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. â€œThis is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.â€

Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gazaâ€™s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on childrenâ€”half of Gazaâ€™s population is under the age of 17â€”are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.

â€œIt is macabre,â€ Falk said. â€œI donâ€™t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.â€

â€œThere is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,â€ the rapporteur added. â€œThe magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.â€

The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.

â€œThis is a crime of survival,â€ Falk said of the rocket attacks. â€œIsrael has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.â€

Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.

â€œIsrael, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,â€ Falk said. â€œThey [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.â€

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a â€œmartyrâ€?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
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i think

israel's crimes are one of those pink elephants that the U.S refuses to do anything about, and it is terrible. What they are doing is completely unjustifiable, but unless the U.S starts threatening to cut off funding, Israel will still keep doing it. but it's disturbing that the main reason why american people support the Israeli occupation of Palestine and ignore their atrocities is because of obscure Biblical prophesies that they think are being fulfilled. i bring this up, at my own peril. often with people at my church and many agree that there is evil being done by both sides, but none of them are willing to speak out about it. there are too many vocal Jim Jenkinses and John Hagees in the world for people to realize that it's a bunch of nonsense and that Christians should NOT be supporting Israel.

dam prayer noobs · Jan 3, 2010

There are no Israelites and Palestinians, it's just a bunch of individuals killing other individuals. The whole religion crap is an illusion and people have to wake up from it.

Angelmax · Jan 6, 2010

Religion, as usual, is used as justification for heinous crimes against humanity. It's been going on for 60 years and is extremely unlikely to end now, especially with the US' renewed support of Israel.

morttt · Jan 6, 2010

It's not the US' job to make sure every corner of the world is a nice, safe and happy place to live in you know...

Angelmax · Jan 6, 2010

morttt said: ↑

It's not the US' job to make sure every corner of the world is a nice, safe and happy place to live in you know...
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In reality, that is effectively what the US has done since the Second World war.

It's also not the US' job to perpetuate illegal wars by supporting their ally in their modern crusade.

Schnell · Jan 7, 2010

morttt said: ↑

It's not the US' job to make sure every corner of the world is a nice, safe and happy place to live in you know...
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The US is fueling the conflict. I'd say it's the moral duty of any nation not to support that kind of slaughter.

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