The Boss Has Gone Mad
By Uri Avnery – Israel
169 years before the Gaza War, Heinrich Heine wrote a premonitory poem of 12 lines, under the title ‘To Edom’. The German-Jewish poet was talking about Germany, or perhaps all the nations of Christian Europe. This is what he wrote (in my rough translation):
“For a thousand years and more / We have had an understanding / You allow me to breathe / I accept your crazy raging // Sometimes, when the days get darker / Strange moods come upon you / Till you decorate your claws / With the lifeblood from my veins // Now our friendship is firmer / Getting stronger by the day / Since the raging started in me / Daily more and more like you.”
Zionism, which arose some 50 years after this was written, is fully realizing this prophesy. We Israelis have become a nation like all nations, and the memory of the Holocaust causes us, from time to time, to behave like the worst of them. Only a few of us know this poem, but Israel as a whole lives it out.
In this war, politicians and generals have repeatedly quoted the words: “The boss has gone mad!” originally shouted by vegetable vendors in the market, in the sense of “The boss has gone crazy and is selling the tomatoes at a loss!” But in the course of time the jest has turned into a deadly doctrine that often appears in Israeli public discourse: in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly.
In this war, this has become political and military dogma: only if we kill “them” disproportionately, killing a thousand of “them” for ten of “ours”, will they understand that it’s not worth it to mess with us. It will be “seared into their consciousness” (a favorite Israeli phrase these days). After this, they will think twice before launching another Qassam rocket against us, even in response to what we do, whatever that may be.
It is impossible to understand the viciousness of this war without taking into account the historical background: the feeling of victimhood after all that has been done to the Jews throughout the ages, and the conviction that after the Holocaust, we have the right to do anything, absolutely anything, to defend ourselves, without any inhibitions due to law or morality.
When the killing and destruction in Gaza were at their height, something happened in faraway America that was not connected with the war, but was very much connected with it. The Israeli film “Waltz with Bashir” was awarded a prestigious prize. The media reported it with much joy and pride, but somehow carefully managed not to mention the subject of the film. That by itself was an interesting phenomenon: saluting the success of a film while ignoring its contents.
The subject of this outstanding film is one of the darkest chapters in our history: the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In the course of Lebanon War I, a Christian Lebanese militia carried out, under the auspices of the Israeli army, a heinous massacre of hundreds of helpless Palestinian refugees who were trapped in their camp, men, women, children and old people. The film describes this atrocity with meticulous accuracy, including our part in it.
All this was not even mentioned in the news about the award. At the festive ceremony, the director of the film did not avail himself of the opportunity to protest against the events in Gaza. It is hard to say how many women and children were killed while this ceremony was going on – but it is clear that the massacre in Gaza is much worse than that 1982 event, which moved 400 thousand Israelis to leave their homes and hold a spontaneous mass protest in Tel-Aviv. This time, only 10 thousand stood up to be counted.
The official Israeli Board of Inquiry that investigated the Sabra massacre found that the Israeli government bore “indirect responsibility” for the atrocity. Several senior officials and officers were suspended. One of them was the division commander, Amos Yaron. Not one of the other accused, from the Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon, to the Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, spoke a word of regret, but Yaron did express remorse in a speech to his officers, and admitted: “Our sensitivities have been blunted”.
Blunted sensitivities are very evident in the Gaza War.
Lebanon War I lasted for 18 years and more than 500 of our soldiers died. The planners of Lebanon War II decided to avoid such a long war and such heavy Israeli casualties. They invented the “mad boss” principle: demolishing whole neighborhoods, devastating areas, destroying infrastructures. In 33 days of war, some 1000 Lebanese, almost all of them civilians, were killed – a record already broken in this war by the 17th day. Yet in that war our army suffered casualties on the ground, and public opinion, which in the beginning supported the war with the same enthusiasm as this time, changed rapidly.
The smoke from Lebanon War II is hanging over the Gaza war. Everybody in Israel swore to learn its lessons. And the main lesson was: not to risk the life of even one single soldier. A war without casualties (on our side). The method: to use the overwhelming firepower of our army to pulverize everything standing in its way and to kill everybody moving in the area. To kill not only the fighters on the other side, but every human being who might possibly turn out to harbor hostile intentions, even if they are obviously an ambulance attendant, a driver in a food convoy or a doctor saving lives. To destroy every building from which our troops could conceivably be shot at – even a school full of refugees, the sick and the wounded. To bomb and shell whole neighborhoods, buildings, mosques, schools, UN food convoys, even ruins under which the injured are buried.
The media devoted several hours to the fall of a Qassam missile on a home in Ashkelon, in which three residents suffered from shock, and did not waste many words on the forty women and children killed in a UN school, from which “we were shot at” – an assertion that was quickly exposed as a blatant lie.
The firepower was also used to sow terror – shelling everything from a hospital to a vast UN food depot, from a press vantage point to the mosques. The standard pretext: “we were shot at from there”.
This would have been impossible, had not the whole country been infected with blunted sensitivities. People are no longer shocked by the sight of a mutilated baby, nor by children left for days with the corpse of their mother, because the army did not let them leave their ruined home. It seems that almost nobody cares anymore: not the soldiers, not the pilots, not the media people, not the politicians, not the generals. A moral insanity, whose primary exponent is Ehud Barak. Though even he may be upstaged by Tzipi Livni, who smiled while talking about the ghastly events.
Even Heinrich Heine could not have imagined that.
The last days were dominated by the “Obama effect”.
We are on board an airplane, and suddenly a huge black mountain appears out of the clouds. In the cockpit, panic breaks out: How to avoid a collision?
The planners of the war chose the timing with care: during the holidays, when everybody was on vacation, and while President Bush was still around. But they somehow forgot to take into consideration a fateful date: next Tuesday Barack Obama will enter the White House.
This date is now casting a huge shadow on events. The Israeli Barak understands that if the American Barack gets angry, that would mean disaster. Conclusion: the horrors of Gaza must stop before the inauguration. This week that determined all political and military decisions. Not “the number of rockets”, not “victory”, not “breaking Hamas”.
Where there is a ceasefire, the first question will be: Who won?
In Israel, all the talk is about the “picture of victory” – not victory itself, but the “picture”. That is essential, in order to convince the Israeli public that the whole business has been worthwhile. At this moment, all the thousands of media people, to the very last one, have been mobilized to paint such a “picture”. The other side, of course, will paint a different one.
The Israeli leaders will boast of two “achievements”: the end of the rockets and the sealing of the Gaza-Egypt border (the co-called “Philadelphi route”. Dubious achievements: the launching of the Qassams could have been prevented without a murderous war, if our government had been ready to negotiate with Hamas after they won the Palestinian elections. The tunnels under the Egyptian border would not have been dug in the first place, if our government had not imposed the deadly blockade on the Strip.
But the main achievement of the war planners lies in the very barbarity of their plan: the atrocities will have, in their view, a deterrent effect that will hold for a long time.
Hamas, on the other side, will assert that their survival in the face of the mighty Israeli war machine, a tiny David against a giant Goliath, is by itself a huge victory. According to the classic military definition, the winner in a battle is the army that remains on the battlefield when it’s over. Hamas remains. The Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip still stands, in spite of all the efforts to eliminate it. That is a significant achievement.
Hamas will also point out that the Israeli army was not eager to enter the Palestinian towns, in which their fighters were entrenched. And indeed: the army told the government that the conquest of Gaza city could cost the lives of about 200 soldiers, and no politician was ready for that on the eve of elections.
The very fact that a guerrilla force of a few thousand lightly armed fighters held out for long weeks against one of the world’s mightiest armies with enormous firepower, will look to millions of Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims, and not only to them, like an unqualified victory.
In the end, an agreement will be concluded that will include the obvious terms. No country can tolerate its inhabitants being exposed to rocket fire from beyond the border, and no population can tolerate a choking blockade. Therefore (1) Hamas will have to give up the launching of missiles, (2) Israel will have to open wide the crossings between the Gaza Strip and the outside world, and (3) the entry of arms into the Strip will be stopped (as far as possible), as demanded by Israel. All this could have happened without war, if our government had not boycotted Hamas.
However, the worst results of this war are still invisible and will make themselves felt only in years to come: Israel has imprinted on world consciousness a terrible image of itself. Billions of people have seen us as a blood-dripping monster. They will never again see Israel as a state that seeks justice, progress and peace. The American Declaration of Independence speaks with approval of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. That is a wise principle.
Even worse is the impact on hundreds of millions of Arabs around us: not only will they see the Hamas fighters as the heroes of the Arab nation, but they will also see their own regimes in their nakedness: cringing, ignominious, corrupt and treacherous.
The Arab defeat in the 1948 war brought in its wake the fall of almost all the existing Arab regimes and the ascent of a new generation of nationalist leaders, exemplified by Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. The 2009 war may bring about the fall of the current crop of Arab regimes and the ascent of a new generation of leaders – Islamic fundamentalists who hate Israel and all the West.
In coming years it will become apparent that this war was sheer madness. The boss has indeed gone mad – in the original sense of the word.
- Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
01.17.09
The Massacre in Gaza: Check the Facts
‘A genuine massacre of ordinary, unarmed people has been taking place.’ (Reuters)
By Max Kantar
Israel’s operative military policy in the Gaza Strip has been fairly consistent with its stated definition of what it considers to be legitimate military targets, which in practice has amounted to mass killings of innocent Palestinian civilians.
Based on the overwhelming evidence available, one conclusion can be drawn regarding the nature of the US-backed Israeli attacks on Gaza: a genuine massacre of ordinary, unarmed people has been taking place for over two weeks.
Here is just a small part of the documentary evidence to prove it.
Targeting Civilian Police Stations and Officers
In the opening days of Israel’s aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, its main targets were police stations and officers. For civilian police officers to be considered legitimate military targets, they must be directly engaged in hostilities, in this case, towards Israel. No evidence has been presented by Israel, or anyone else, that even reasonably suggests that the police officers in Gaza fall into this category. Therefore, the police officers that were targeted and murdered by Israel were clearly civilians: not lawful military targets.
“The First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions establishes two conditions that must be met for an object to be considered a legitimate military target: it must effectively contribute to military action and its total destruction or partial neutralization offers a clear military advantage.” — B’tselem, Dec. 31, 2008 [1]
“Police were not combatants and could not represent legitimate targets unless actively engaged in hostilities…it was Israel’s burden of proof to show [that] the police they targeted were, indeed, Hamas militants.” — Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch (Middle East & North Africa Division), January 7, 2009 [2]
“Police members who do not take part in any hostilities are not considered legitimate military targets under international humanitarian law and must not be deliberately targeted.” — Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, December 28, 2008 [3]
“Police stations, police officers and law enforcement officials are classified under the international law as civilians, and targeting them as such while they were not engaged in military action constitutes a violation of the international law.” — Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, December 27, 2008. [4]
“[The Israeli Air Force] bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, forty-two Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth.” — B’tselem, December 31, 2008 [5]
“[During the week of December 24-31, 2008] 165 civil police officers were killed on the first day of the IOF offensive, when they were not engaged in any hostilities.” — The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, December 31, 2008 [6]
Targeting Civilians and Civilian Objects
Every relevant human rights group and international body has documented and denounced Israel’s military practice of “targeting civilians” and “civilian objects” in the Gaza Strip. As a result, human rights groups and medical officials in Gaza have reported that the vast majority of the (currently) 900 Palestinian causalities have been unarmed civilians.
The IDF, by its own admission, is unilaterally redefining who is a “civilian” and what is a “legitimate military target” to suit Israel’s political aims. While justifying Israeli attacks on civil and public institutions in Gaza, the IDF has claimed that “anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target,” thereby opening up nearly everyone and everything for Israeli attacks. This new doctrine flatly contradicts international law which states that:
“All parties engaged in combat must distinguish between civilian objects and military targets, and are forbidden to intentionally attack civilians and civilian objects.” [7]
To further comprehend Israel’s definitions of “legitimate targets,” it is instructive to apply the same standards to Hamas, which would then give Hamas a green light to bomb public Israeli synagogues, Jewish elementary schools, the Knesset, hospitals, homes, and so forth.
Furthermore, while it is certain that the IDF “targets civilians,” it is of no legal value for Israel to claim that, in the midst of attacking a military target, innocent civilians were not intended to be killed. According to the ruling of The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia:
“Attacks which strike civilians or civilian objects and military objectives without distinction, may qualify as direct attacks against civilians…This prohibition reflects a well-established rule of customary law applicable in all armed conflicts.” [8]
Whether Israel is specifically targeting innocent civilians or not, if its attacks result in “indiscriminate” killing of civilians, then Israel’s attacks qualify as “direct attacks against civilians,” if we accept the ruling of the highest criminal court in the world.
“[Israel's] air strikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.” — UN Human Rights Representative, Professor Richard Falk, December 27, 2008 [9]
“Since the beginning of the military operation in the Gaza Strip, on 27 December 2008, the army has bombed dozens of houses, public buildings, and other structures throughout the Gaza Strip…[An] example [of IDF civilian targeting] is yesterday’s bombing of the government offices. These offices included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing.” — B’tselem, December 31, 2009 [10]
“Investigations conducted by the [Palestinian Centre for Human Rights] indicate that [the IDF] have continued to bombard Palestinian houses and civilian facilities persistently day and night, while the Palestinian civilian population suffer a humanitarian crisis as they lack electricity, water and food supplies….The high number of civilian victims and the extensive destruction to public and private property are clear evidence that [the IDF], instructed by the Israeli political and military establishments, intend to cause maximum deaths and casualties among Palestinian civilians and maximum destruction to their property.” — The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, January 10, 2009 [11]
“After 12 days of “combat,” the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed…Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations…” — Jimmy Carter, January 8, 2009 [12]
“There has been extensive destruction and many deaths reported in the Zeitun neighbourhood, south of Gaza city by IDF attacks…In one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations…on 4 January Israeli foot-soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians into a single-residence house in Zeitun (half of whom were children), warning them to stay indoors. Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately thirty. Those who survived and were able, walked two kilometres to Salah Ed Din road before being transported to the hospital in civilian vehicles. Three children, the youngest of whom was five months old, died upon arrival at the hospital.” — UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, January 8, 2009 [13]
“Israel has directly targeted and completely or partially destroyed 13 mosques, two schools, one university, numerous government buildings, including different ministries and 40 civil police compounds, a medical storage centre, three money exchange facilities and three chicken farms, all of which Israel alleges were used by Hamas for military purposes. Israel’s air strikes and ground incursions have to date resulted in the total destruction of at least 300 houses and damage to 3,800 more.” — Al Haq, January 7, 2009 [14]
“A characteristic example of an attack on a civilian object is the 6 January 2009 aerial bombardment on the Asma’ Bint Baker school, a facility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Four days prior to the attack, UNRWA officials provided GPS coordinates to Israeli authorities of 23 UNRWA installations that were to be used as shelters for fleeing civilians. The location of the Asma’ Bint Baker School was one of the 23 coordinates provided. Three civilians were killed in the attack on the school.” — Al Haq, January 7, 2009 [15]
“In the deadliest single attack on Gaza civilians since the war began, Israel fired three mortar shells at the United Nations’ al-Fahoura school in the Jabalya refugee camp. The school was filled with civilians who had been forced from their homes by the Israeli invasion, and the attack killed at least 46. The United Nations reports that at least 55 other civilians were wounded in the attack.
“The United Nations says the building was clearly marked with UN flags and that they were in contact with the Israeli military when the war began to inform them of the location of the school precisely to prevent it being targeted.
“Indeed, the Israeli military does not seem to deny that they deliberately targeted a building they knew to be filled with hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians. Instead they claim that Hamas militants were using the school as a base of operations.” –Antiwar.com, January 6, 2009 [16]
“Just a little bit more than an hour ago, the Israelis bombed the central food market in Gaza City and we had a mass influx of about 50 injured and between 10 and 15 killed…At the same time they bombed an apartment house with children playing on the roof and we had a lot of children also.”
“It’s like hell here now and it’s been bombing all night…there are injuries that you just don’t want to see in this world…the only crime they have done is been civilians — Palestinians living in Gaza. The relief now is not more doctors and more drugs; the relief now is to stop the bombing immediately…I’ve seen one military person among…the hundreds we have seen and treated…This is an all out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza and we can prove that with the numbers.” — Mads Gilbert, January 5, 2009 [17]
“Police stations located in densely populated neighborhoods were attacked, destroying them and causing severe damage to tens of schools and homes and killing dozens of civilians, including children and old people.
“Air strikes have continued through the night, targeting houses and other civilian premises, including water-wells, workshops, mosques and communications facilities. A guard of a water well and three employees of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company were killed in North Gaza. Another two men were killed in a strike that targeted the al-Borno Mosque near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The hospital was damaged in the same strike. Moreover, IOF targeted prisons, including Gaza’s main prison facility of al-Saraya at noon today. Initial reports indicate that many policemen and prisoners were killed and injured in this attack.
“Additionally, dozens of homes were destroyed, along with tens of UNRWA and government schools and clinics. Local government offices and private vehicles were also destroyed. Al Mezan’s initial monitoring indicates that…of those [people that have been killed by Israel's strikes] the vast majority are non-combatants and civilians; including 20 children, nine women and 60 civilians. The majority of the rest of the casualties are members of the civilian police who were inside their stations or undertaking training.” –Al Mezan Center for Human Rights Press Release, December 28, 2008 [18]
Dead and Injured Civilians: Numbers and Percentages
Within the first four days of the Israeli onslaught the UN placed the Palestinian civilian casualty rate at 25% while noting that “the number may well be far higher.” [19] This number cannot be taken very seriously because it admittedly did not include adult male civilian casualties. Now three weeks into the massacre, the UN has reported that at least 33% of Gaza’s dead and wounded are children alone, hence drastically abandoning its earlier estimates.
As noted below, UN officials have recently noted that at least half of those killed by the IDF in Gaza are civilians, although it appears that this estimate still does not include 165 civilian police officers, which would’ve, as of January 9, placed the civilian casualty rate at about 72%.
Furthermore, countless testimonies, medical reports, and human rights documentary reports coming out of Gaza continue to show that the large majority of the dead and wounded have been Palestinian civilians. The documentary sources that show civilian casualty rates hovering around 70-80% differ from those claiming around 50% largely because of the failure to classify civil police officers as civilians in the latter sources. Additional disparities may also potentially be explained by less precise documenting of adult male civilian causalities.
“Gaza medical officials say at least 870 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict that began Dec. 27 with Israeli airstrikes…Palestinian medical officials reported about 60 deaths on Sunday [January 11], including 17 who had died of wounds suffered on previous days. Most of those killed Sunday were noncombatants, medical officials said, including four members of one family killed when a tank shell hit their home near Gaza City, and a 10-year-old girl killed in a similar attack.” — MSNBC, January 11, 2009 [20]
“As night fell on Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli Army continued its illegal offensive for the fifteenth day, killing 854 Palestinians, including 230 children, 93 women, 92 elderly, 14 medics and three journalists. At least 3,681 Palestinians, 50% of them children and women, have been wounded, 500 seriously, Dr. Moawiya Hassanen of the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported.” — International Middle East Media Center, January 10, 2009. (Note that the “50%” number does not include adult male civilians) [21]
“As of Thursday, 257 children were among the approximately 760 reported dead in Gaza. There were another 1,080 children among the 3,100 injured in the conflict, according to statistics from Gaza’s health ministry. The U.N.’s top humanitarian official, John Holmes, described the numbers as “credible” and deeply disturbing. U.N officials say about half of the casualties were civilians.” — San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 2009 [22]
“Israel['s] “Operation Cast Lead,” a large-scale aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip [has] been followed by Israeli ground troops, which invaded the Gaza Strip on the night of 3 January 2009. To date, these attacks have resulted in the death of at least 729 Palestinians, 603 of whom were civilians, including 173 children, and the further wounding of over 3,200 more.”
–Joint Open Letter to the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, signed by 19 “local, regional and international human rights organizations concerned with respect for international humanitarian law.” According to the casualty numbers provided in the letter, which was endorsed and accepted by all 19 human rights organizations, the percentage of those in Gaza who were killed by Israel that were civilians is 83% as of January 9, 2009. [23]
“Since the Israeli military operation “Cast lead” began on 27 December until 8 January (4:00PM), 758 Palestinians have been killed—approximately 42% of whom were women (60) and children (257) according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The number of children fatalities has increased by 250% since the beginning of ground operation on 3 January.” — UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, January 8, 2009 [24]
“Within eleven days, Israeli occupying forces have killed at least 671 Palestinians, 547 of whom were civilians, including 155 children, and injured at least 3,000.” — Al Haq, Human Rights Organization, January 7, 2009. Note that according to these calculations, civilians make up nearly 82% of Palestinians killed by Israel, as of January 7th. [24]
“Palestinian health ministry officials say 595 people have been killed since the attacks began, 195 of them children.” (over 33%) — BBC, January 6, 2009. [26]
“In one of its bloodiest military operations, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) initiated a wide-scale air strike operation against the Gaza Strip. More than 900 people have been killed and injured, most of whom are non-combatants. The number of casualties…because of the timing of the strike [coincides] with the change in school shifts when tens of thousands of schoolchildren were on their way to or from school.” –Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Press Release, December 28, 2008. [27]
- Max Kantar is a freelance writer. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: maxkantar@gmail.com
Notes:
[1] “B’Tselem to Attorney General Mazuz: Concern over Israel targeting civilian objects in the Gaza Strip,” December 31, 2008.
[2] Deen, Thalif, “Aid groups dispute Israeli claims in Gaza attacks,” The Electronic Intifada, January 10, 2009.
[3] Al Mezan, Press Release December 28, 2008.
[4] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Press Release, December 27, 2008.
[5] See note 1
[6] Palestine Centre for Human Rights, Press Release, December 31, 2008.
[7] See note 1.
[8] El-’Ajou, Fatmeh, “Re: The Killing of Civilians in the Gaza Strip,” Adalah, January 4, 2009.
[9] Falk, Richard “Statement by professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories,” UN High Commissioner For Human Rights, December 27, 2008.
[10] See note 1
[11] Palestine Centre for Human Rights, Press Release, January 10, 2009.
[12] Carter, Jimmy, “An Unnecessary War,” The Washington Post, January 8, 2009.
[13] UNOCHA, “Protection of Civilians Weekly Report,” January 8, 2009.
[14] Al-Haq, “Legal Aspects of Israel’s Attacks on the Gaza Strip in ‘Operation Cast Lead,’” January 7, 2009.
[15] See note 14
[16] Ditz, Jason, “At least 46 killed as Israel attacks Gaza school,” Antiwar.com, January 6, 2009. Note: media links are provided within the text of this article for verification.
[17] Edwards, David & Webster, Stephen, “Norwegian Doctor: Israel Intentionally Targeting Civilians,” The Raw Story, January 5, 2009.
[18] Al Mezan Press Release: “Most Gaza Casualties were non-combatants, civilians,” December 28, 2008, (electronicintifada.net)
[19] “UN: 25% of those killed in Gaza civilians,” Ynet, December 31, 2008, ynetnews.com
[20] “(AP) Israel advances deep into Gaza urban areas” MSNBC, January 11, 2009.
[21] Bannoura, Saed, “As night falls on the 15th day of Israeli offensive…” International Middle East Media Center, January 10, 2009.
[22] Heilprin, John, “UN: one third of Gaza dead, injured children,” San Fransico Chronicle, January 9, 2009.
[23] “Joint Open Letter to the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Al-Haq, January 9, 2009.
[24] See note 13
[25] See note 14
[26] BBC, “Strike at Gaza school kills ‘40′” January 7, 2009.
[27] See note 18
01.14.09
We believe in resistance, not revenge
What Hamas has to say
Basim Naim | The Guardian
Sixteen days into its attack, Israel continues to bombard all areas in the Gaza Strip from F-16s, Apache helicopters, ships and tanks. Weapons used against our people include white phosphorus rockets, made in America, which burn the skin black and destroy human soft tissue completely. Now we can hear shooting around the outskirts of Gaza City.
Ninety percent of the targets attacked are civilian. Of nearly 900 confirmed dead, 32 percent are children. More than 40 percent of the 4,000 wounded are children, while medical centers and 13 ambulances have been destroyed.
Hamas is not the only group fighting against this aggression: Its fighters are joined by members of Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah. But the popularity of Hamas has increased during the invasion. Every occupied people has the right to resist if negotiation fails. People know very well that those who took the other path — of negotiation without resistance — got nothing from it: Only more settlements, checkpoints, killings, prisoners and occupation without end.
We have made clear our conditions for a cease-fire: A halt to the aggression, full withdrawal and the lifting of the siege. We have rejected any international force inside the Gaza Strip, but international monitoring at the crossings can be discussed. However, last week’s UN Security Council resolution has given a green light for the Israelis to continue their killing under an international umbrella.
Now that their massacres of women and children and their destruction of schools and mosques have been exposed before the world, the Zionists’ propaganda machine is trying to discredit our liberation struggle more desperately than ever. Through flagrant misquotation and mistranslation, they have falsely claimed that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar has called for the killing of Jewish children around the world and attacks on synagogues.
He did no such thing — nor would any Hamas spokesman. Such a call would be against Islam and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who prohibited the killing of children and attacks on places of worship. And from the beginning of our struggle, Hamas has always insisted that its operations are restricted to the field of battle, Palestine itself.
What Dr. Zahar did do is warn that by carrying out these barbaric massacres of children and women, and by destroying our mosques, the Zionists are creating the conditions for people to believe it is justified or legitimate to take revenge. That is not the call of Hamas. Dr. Zahar did not even mention “Jews” in his comments. And throughout this latest offensive, hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed, while not a single Israeli child has died.
Our struggle is not against the Jewish people, but against oppression and occupation. This is not a religious war. We have no quarrel with the Jewish people. We welcome and appreciate the stand taken by leading Jewish figures in Britain and around the world against Israel’s aggression against Gaza and for the rights of our people. It is also not the case, as has been claimed, that Hamas is seeking to enforce Shariah law in Gaza: We respect the democratic process and individual rights.
The continuing attempt to discredit and demonize Hamas by Israel, and its US backer, cannot hide the real atrocities and massacres they are now inflicting on our people. Hamas and its administration in Gaza remains intact, despite the devastation. This aggression will not succeed.
— Basim Naim is the minister of health in the Hamas government in Gaza.
01.13.09
Gaza diary: Are we not human? -By Mohammed Ali in Gaza City
Two Gazans listen to the news on a radio during a temporary halt in Israeli fire [GALLO/GETTY]
As the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza continues to climb, Mohammed Ali, an advocacy and media researcher for Oxfam who lives in Gaza City, will be keeping a diary of his feelings and experiences.
‘Goodnight my love, see you in heaven’
Today, I met with people outside the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. I could not believe the stories I was hearing.
An old man told me he was going blind. His diabetic condition was deteriorating and he needed to be treated quickly so as not to lose his sight. He was turned away; he was not in a severe enough state compared to the people filling the hospital corridors and there were not enough doctors to see to him.
Medical teams cannot cope; doctors are working 24 hour shifts, there are not enough beds, equipment or medicine to deal with this humanitarian crisis.
I am hearing more and more stories of people trapped under rubble – ambulance teams unable to reach them, so they wait to die.
While I was out, one man approached me and asked if I would help him to clear up dead bodies.
Another asked if I worked for a humanitarian organisation but before I could answer he looked up at the sky and shouted: “Where is humanity?”
The situation has now reached such a critical point that doctors frequently confront dilemmas such as whether to treat the child who is bleeding to death or the baby who has severe head injuries.
While doctors ask themselves these tough questions, some politicians continue to debate whether or not we are facing a humanitarian crisis.
Since the Israeli military attacks started on Gaza, no salaries have been received and hardly any one has been able to work. Many people here depend on agricultural farming to make a living, and the Gazan population relies on these farmers to be able to eat vegetables; the blockade is allowing hardly anything in.
No farmer will go to their farmland these days. Like all of us, they fear being killed if they move out of their homes or even if they stay put.
Prices of goods are increasing by the day as they become more and more scarce.
Candles are no longer available; a much-needed item these days given the prolonged power cuts we have to endure. We started to use our torches but the batteries soon ran out and there are no batteries to be found here any more.
Many Gazans feel hopeless in the face of the Israeli bombardment [GALLO/GETTY]
Same planet, different worlds
Every hour, fleeting images from around the world are brought to our TV screens. When I have electricity, I watch these scenes of people enjoying themselves and ask myself, what is the difference between them and me? Why are our lives worlds apart in spite of living on the same planet?
I wonder, are these people asking themselves the same question when they watch the horror unfold in Gaza?
The occupation has put Gaza on a drip feed; we have had just enough to keep us alive but not enough to make us feel as though we are really living – and now this.
If I make it to the end of this conflict, I want to leave the minute I am able to. I do not want my children to grow up in this environment, strangled by the occupation, familiar with the sounds of F-16 fighter jets, unable to leave the country if they need life-saving treatment.
This is not a natural disaster like the Tsunami; this is a man-made disaster that deepens while the world watches.
As the death toll continues to rise, my wife and I spend our waking hours waiting for our turn to come.
Now, at night before trying to sleep I say to her: “Goodnight my love, see you in heaven.”
Click here to read the last installment of Mohammed’s diary: Are we not human?
01.11.09
It is an eye for an eyelash in Gaza
Sniped
50 bodies were recovered during a three-hour ‘lull’, raising the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza to at least 763[Now more than 850], including more than 200 children, since air raids first began on December 27. More than 3,121 people have also been wounded. Eight Israeli soldiers and three civilians have died in the same period. A temporary halt in the nearly two-week Israeli offensive to allow humanitarian aid into the strip lasted from 1pm to 4pm. Explosions were heard in northern Gaza shortly after the period elapsed. Israeli bulldozers crossed into Gaza during the lull and destroyed a number of houses. Thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in the southern Gaza Strip as Israeli forces bombarded Rafah earlier on Thursday. Homes, a mosque and tunnels were hit in the area along the Egyptian border, witnesses said. The Israeli military had dropped leaflets beforehand warning it would “bomb the area due to its use by terrorists to [dig] tunnels and to stock up [on weapons]“. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday accused the Israeli military of not helping wounded Palestinians in an incident in Gaza City that it described as “shocking”. ICRC and Palestinian Red Crescent workers said in a statement that several wounded Palestinians and four weakened children were found alongside 12 dead bodies in houses hit by shelling in Zaytun, less than 100 metres from Israeli positions. (Sources: Aljazeera.net English and Agencies. Photo: via Aljazeera.net)
Avi Shlaim | The Guardian
The only way to make sense of Israel’s senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context. Establishing the State of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians. British officials bitterly resented American partisanship on behalf of the infant state. On June 2, 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel’s vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration’s complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.
I write as someone who served loyally in the Israeli Army in the mid-1960s and who has never questioned the legitimacy of the State of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I utterly reject is the Zionist colonial project beyond the Green Line. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the June 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism. Four decades of Israeli control did incalculable damage to the economy of the Gaza Strip. Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic underdevelopment but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labor and a captive market for Israeli goods.
Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation.
In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But the real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the State of Israel. Withdrawal from Gaza was thus not a prelude to a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority but a prelude to further Zionist expansion on the West Bank. Israel’s settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison.
Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognize the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organization.
America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracizing and demonizing the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed. As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel’s propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than anti-Semitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.
Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political program following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move toward pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term cease-fire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.
It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.
The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on Dec. 27 was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new cease-fire on Israel’s terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.
The timing of the war was determined by political expediency. A general election is scheduled for Feb. 10 and, in the lead-up to the election, all the main contenders are looking for an opportunity to prove their toughness. The army top brass had been champing at the bit to deliver a crushing blow to Hamas in order to remove the stain left on their reputation by the failure of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July 2006. Israel’s cynical leaders could also count on apathy and impotence of the pro-Western Arab regimes and on blind support from President George W. Bush in the twilight of his term in the White House. Bush readily obliged by putting all the blame for the crisis on Hamas, vetoing proposals at the UN Security Council for an immediate cease-fire and issuing Israel with a free pass to mount a ground invasion of Gaza.
As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim.
To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party in this conflict. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory and confronted with an unscrupulous adversary, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak — terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month cease-fire last June. The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government. Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defense but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate. The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.
Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This rule applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but Israel’s entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality toward the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the cease-fire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the cease-fire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the Strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.
Nightfall
Israel carried out a series of air strikes throughout the Gaza Strip after nightfall. An Israeli air strike in the city of Gaza damaged a building that housed production and transmission facilities for a number of television stations. An Israeli military spokesperson said the building had not been targeted, though it may have sustained “collateral damage”. Israeli tanks opened fire in several locations in the Gaza Strip despite an announced three-hour “humanitarian” lull. Tanks shelled targets in Jabaliya and Beit Lahiya in the north and in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. In Jabaliya, a gas station caught fire after a tank shell hit a lumber yard next door, sparking a fire that spewed thick columns of black smoke into the sky. Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert earlier said that Israel will keep up its assault in the Gaza Strip despite a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire. Hamas rejected the decree, saying it is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people. As Israel’s military carried out dozens of deadly air raids on the Gaza Strip the death toll from ‘Operation Cast Lead’ passed the 800 mark while the 15-member Security Council gave its near unanimous approval to a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable” ceasefire leading to the “full withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza. (Reference for text: Agencies. Photo: AFP)
The brutality of Israel’s soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the cease-fire agreements; that Israel’s objective is the defense of its population; and that Israel’s forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel’s spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.
A wide gap separates the reality of Israel’s actions from the rhetoric of its spokesmen. It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the cease-fire. And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year-old blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza, now 1.5 million, to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel’s insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash. After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho Cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza the consequences of which are incalculable.
No amount of military escalation can buy Israel immunity from rocket attacks from the military wing of Hamas. Despite all the death and destruction that Israel has inflicted on them, they kept up their resistance and they kept firing their rockets. The problem with Israel’s concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community. This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practices terrorism — the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfills all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbors but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.
— Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and the author of “The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World and of Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace”.
UN probes raid on sheltering Gazans
The Red Cross has criticised Israel for allegedly preventing access to the wounded [AFP]
The United Nations says it has received reports that the Israeli military shelled a house it had moved Palestinians into, killing about 30 people.
The incident allegedly took place on Monday in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City, a UN report said on Friday.
About 110 civilians had allegedly been moved into the home by Israeli foot soldiers on January 4, and told to stay indoors, only for the building to be repeatedly shelled 24 hours later, the report said.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called it “one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations” by Israeli forces in Gaza on December 27.
“Those who survived and were able walked two kilometres to Salah Ed Din road before being transported to hospital in civilian vehicles,” OCHA said.
“Three children, the youngest of whom was five months’ old, died upon arrival at the hospital.”
The Israeli military said on Friday that it had no knowledge of the incident.
Wounded wait
Wael Samouni, a civilian who said four of his immediate family members died in the attack, told Al Jazeera at the time: “[The Israeli soldiers] gathered all of us … in my house. We were 120 people in the house.
“They then fired many shells and missiles directly at our home.
“No one can now directly reach the house. Even the Red Cross.”
The Israeli B’Tselem human rights group quoted Meysa Fawzi al Samouni, a 19-year-old resident, as saying that soldiers forced her and dozens of others to move into the warehouse-like home of another resident before the attack.
“As far as I know, the dead and wounded who were under the ruins are still there,” B’Tselem quoted her as saying.
Ibrahim Samouni, a 13-year-old boy who was wounded in the leg and chest, told the Reuters news agency that he kept his three younger brothers alive and tried to help the injured adults lying among the dead after his mother was killed in the incident.
“There was no water, no bread, nothing to eat,” he said.
“Abu Salah died, his wife died. Abu Tawfiq died, his son died, his wife also died. Mohammed Ibrahim died, and his mother died. Ishaq died and Nasar died. The wife of Nael Samouni died. Many people died.”
Emergency workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Palestinian Red Crescent said they were not able to reach the wounded for four days because Israel would not allow them safe passage.
They said the children were starving when rescuers finally reached them after the “unacceptable” delay.
“They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses,” the ICRC said.
Civilian casualties
Pierre Wettach, the ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said: “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded.
“Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded.”
Israel has repeatedly insisted it has tried to avert civilian casualties during its two-week aerial and ground assault on the territory.
“From initial checking, we don’t have knowledge of this incident. We started an inquiry but we still don’t know about it,” Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said about the reported shelling incident.
More than 800 people, including at least 257 children and 56 women, have been killed during Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground offensive, the UN has said.
Thirteen Israelis have been killed during the same period, three by continued Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.
Israel ‘using white phosphorus’
White phophorus, fired in a shell, can be used to hide troop movements or illuminate targets [AFP]
Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to stop using white phosphorus which it says has been used in military operations in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
The US-based group said that its researchers observed the use of the chemical, which can burn away human flesh to the bone, over Gaza City and Jabalya on Friday and Saturday.
“We went by Israeli artillery units that had white phosphorus rounds with the fuses in them,” Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera.
“Clearly it is [white phosphorus], we can tell by the explosions and the tendrils that go down [and] the fires that were burning,” he said.
“Today there were massive attacks in Jabalya when we were there. We saw that there were numerous fires once the white phosphorus had gone in.”
‘Obscurant’
International law permits the use of white phopshorus as an “obscurant” to cover troop movements and prevent enemies from using certain guided weapons, but its use is controversial as it can injure people through painful chemical burns.
“Even if they are using it as an obscurant, they are using it in a very densely populated area,” Garlasco said.
“The problem is it covers such a wide area that when the white phosphorus wafers come down, over 100 in each artillery shell, they burn everything they touch and they don’t stop burning until they are done.
“You are talking about skin damage, potentially homes going on fire, damage to infrastructure.”
Human Rights Watch said that it believed the use of the chemical in Gaza violated the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.
The Israeli military has previously denied using white phosphorus during the 15-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, but has said that any munitions that it does use comply with international law.
Israel used white phophorus during its 34-day war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement in 2006, while the United States used it during the controversial siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004.
01.06.09
No such thing as United Nations
Linda Heard I sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk
I NEVER imagined I would one day agree with that bizarre neoconservative warmonger John Bolton, who was briefly the US ambassador to the United Nations. In 1994, Bolton was quoted as saying “There’s no such thing as the United Nations. If the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”. I differ from Bolton only on one point. The entire expensive and useless organization founded in 1945 to prevent wars and pursue human rights should be demolished because it has failed to live up to its charter over and over again.
On Saturday night, the UN Security Council met in a closed-door emergency session so as to agree a resolution on Gaza, where more than 520 Palestinians have been murdered and over 3,000 wounded. But due to American pro-Israel bias, hypocrisy and double standards its members couldn’t even come up with a joint statement calling for an immediate cease-fire.
For once, Britain broke with its joined-at-the-hip US ally and demanded an end to the aggression whereas only last week it, too, had blocked UN calls for a cease-fire. It seems that Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has decided he is no longer willing to provide Washington with moral cover but unfortunately this is too little, too late.
Saturday’s stalemate is a repeat of attempts in the summer of 2006 to end Israel’s war on Gaza that robbed the lives of 1,200 civilians. Then, the US and Britain, both veto-holders, stood together against the rest of the world and allowed the carnage to go on until it looked like Israel was receiving an unexpected bloody nose.
The council’s current inaction was too much for the president of the UN General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, who termed it “a monstrosity”. “Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunction of the Security Council,” he said, while blaming certain countries for playing politics.
Article 1 of the UN Charter headed “Purposes of the United Nations” calls for the body “to maintain international peace and security, and to that end: To take collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace; and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes…”
Article 73 states members of the UN which have responsibilities for the administration of territories whose people have not attained a full measure of self-government must recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount and must ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social and educational advancement, their just treatment and their protection against abuses”.
The UN has failed on all the above points and more. It does not maintain international peace and security. It does not suppress acts of aggression or settle international disputes and it does not censure Israel’s willful failure to hold the interests of the occupied Palestinians paramount and protect them against abuses.
The charter is further based on the sovereign equality of all its members. This fine sentiment has turned out to be a huge joke. There is no equality amongst members and there cannot be as long as the five permanent members of the Security Council have veto power – a power, by the way that cannot be withdrawn unless the five veto-holders agree.
In reality, the 192 member states are under the boot of the five veto-holders. This situation makes a mockery of the term United Nations. There are the five bosses and then there are the others.
To be precise, there are six bosses, one unofficial. Israel and the US are practically one when it comes to foreign policy and, thus, Israel receives carte blanche to produce undeclared nuclear weapons, carry out a policy of extrajudicial assassinations as well as bomb and invade neighboring countries at will. The US vetoes most resolutions critical of Israel and blocks all resolutions binding under Chapter 7.
No wonder Israel feels free to publicly confront the veracity of UN representatives who say there is a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza and expel those it doesn’t like such as UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk, who says he was treated like some sort of security threat locked in “a tiny room that smelled of urine and filth”. Falk received such appealing treatment all because he had spoken out against Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law.
A fair and just world formed by the true will of all the international community requires a nonelitist body where all nations are empowered with a vote that counts. Moreover, such an organization should not be headquartered in the US where delegates are vulnerable to being browbeaten, threatened, bribed and monitored as occurred in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Instead, a neutral home such as Switzerland or even Dubai should be considered.
In the meantime, Israel continues its bloodletting in Gaza unimpeded while the United Nations will continue to be nothing more than an empty debating society, to borrow an expression from George W. Bush. It needs either a shake-up or a demolition squad. As it stands it shames us all.
In the US, Gaza is a different war
The mainstream US media has been careful to balance images of Gazan suffering with those of Israelis, leading to accusations it is not reflecting the unequal death toll [EPA]
Image Gallery : Israel’s Gaza Ground Assault
By Habib Battah
The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has been reporting Israel’s war on Gaza.
On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.
As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried beside her.
The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also wept.
Arab frustration
To understand the frustration often felt in the Arab world over US media coverage, one only needs to imagine the same front page had the situation been reversed.
If an Israeli woman had lost five daughters in a Palestinian attack, would The Washington Post run an equally sized photograph of a relatively unharmed Palestinian woman, who was merely distraught over Israeli missile fire?
When the front page photographs of the two women were published on December 30, over 350 Palestinians had reportedly been killed compared to just four Israelis.
What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians – would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in news value?
Like many major news organisations in the US, The Washington Post has chosen to cover the conflict from a perspective that reflects the US government’s relationship with Israel. This means prioritising Israel’s version of events while underplaying the views of Palestinian groups.
For example, the newspaper’s lead article on Tuesday, which was published above the mothers’ photographs, quotes Israeli military and civilian sources nine times before quoting a single Palestinian. The first seven paragraphs explain Israel’s military strategy. The ninth paragraph describes the anxiety among Israelis, spending evenings in bomb shelters. Ordinary Palestinians, who generally have no access to bomb shelters, do not make an appearance until the 23rd paragraph.
To balance this top story, The Washington Post published another article on the bottom half of the front page about the Palestinian mother and her children. But would the paper have ever considered balancing a story about a massive attack on Israelis with an in-depth lead piece on the strategy of Palestinian militants?
Context stripped
Major US television channels also adopted the equal time approach, despite the reality that Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones by a hundred fold. However, such comparisons were rare because the scripts read by American correspondents often excluded the overall Palestinian death count.
By stripping the context, American viewers may have easily assumed a level playing field, rather than a case of disproportionate force.
Take the opening lines of a report filed by NBC’s Martin Fletcher on December 30: “In Gaza two little girls were taking out the rubbish and killed by an Israeli rocket – while in Israel, a woman had been driving home and was killed by a Hamas rocket. No let up today on either side on the fourth day of this battle.”
Omitted from the report was the overall Palestinian death toll, dropped continuously in subsequent reports filed by NBC correspondents over the next several days.
When number of deaths did appear – sometimes as a graphic at the bottom of the screen – it was identified as the number of “people killed” rather than being attributed specifically to Palestinians.
No wonder the overwhelmingly asymmetrical bombardment of Gaza has been framed vaguely as “rising tensions in the Middle East” by news anchors.
With the lack of context, the power dynamic on the ground becomes unclear.
ABC news, for example, regularly introduced events in Gaza as “Mideast Violence”. And Like NBC, reporters excluded the Palestinian death toll.
On December 31, when Palestinian deaths stood at almost 400, ABC correspondent Simon McGergor-Wood began a video package by describing damage to an Israeli school by Hamas rockets.
The reporter’s script can be paraphrased as follows: Israel wanted a sustainable ceasefire; Israel needed to prevent Hamas from rearming; Hamas targets were hit; Israel was sending in aid and letting the injured out; Israel was doing “everything they can to alleviate the humanitarian crisis”. And with that McGregor-Wood signed off.
Palestinian perspective missing
There was no parallel telling of the Palestinian perspective, and no mention of any damages to Palestinian lives, although news agencies that day had reported five Palestinians dead.
For the ABC correspondent, it seemed the Palestinian deaths contained less news value than damage to Israeli buildings. His narration of events, meanwhile, amounted to no less than a parroting of the official Israeli line.
In fact, the Israeli government view typically went unchallenged on major US networks.
The US media has been accused of prioritising Israel’s version of events [EPA]
Interviews with Israeli spokesmen and ambassadors were not juxtaposed with the voices of Palestinian leaders. Prominent American news anchors frequently adopted the Israeli viewpoint. In talk show discussions, instead of debating events on the ground, the pundits often reinforced each other’s views.
Such an episode occurred on a December 30 broadcast of the MSNBC show, Morning Joe, during which host Joe Scarborough repeatedly insisted that Israel should not be judged.
Israel was defending itself just as the US had done throughout history. “How many people did we kill in Germany?” Scarborough posed.
The blame rested on the Palestinians, he concluded, connecting the Gaza attacks to the Camp David negotiations of 2000. “They gave the Palestinians everything they could ask for, and they walked away from the table,” he said repeatedly.
Although this view was challenged once by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US official, who appeared briefly on the show, subsequent guests agreed incessantly with Scarborough’s characterisation of the Palestinians as negligent, if not criminal in nature.
According to guest Dan Bartlett, a former White House counsel, the Palestinian leadership had made it “very clear” that they were uninterested in peace talks.
Another guest, NBC anchor David Gregory, began by noting that Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian president, “could not be trusted”, according to Bill Clinton, the former US president.
Gregory then added that Hamas had “undercut the peace process” and actually welcomed the attacks.
“The reality is that Hamas wanted this, they didn’t want the ceasefire,” he said.
Columnist Margaret Carlson also joined the show, agreeing in principal that Hamas should be “crushed” but voicing concern over the cost of such action.
Thus the debate was not whether Israel was justified, but rather what Israel should do next. The Palestinian human tragedy received little to no attention.
Victim’s perspective
Arab audiences saw a different picture altogether. Rather than mulling Israel’s dilemma, the Arab news networks captured the air assault in chilling detail from the perspective of its victims. The divide in coverage was staggering.
For US networks, the bombing of Gaza has largely been limited to two-minute video packages or five minute talk show segments. This has usually meant a few snippets of jumbled video: explosions from a distance and a momentary glance at victims; barely enough time to remember a face, let alone a personality. Victims were rarely interviewed.
The availability of time and space, American broadcast executives might argue, were mitigating factors.
On MSNBC for example, Gaza competed for air time last week with stories about the economy, such as a hike in liquor sales, or celebrity news, such as speculation over the publishing of photographs of Sarah Palin’s new grandchild.
Most US networks have reported exclusively from Israel [GALLO/GETTY]
On Arab TV, however, Gaza has been the only story.
For hours on end, live images from the streets of Gaza are beamed into Arab households.
Unlike the correspondents from ABC and NBC, who have filed their reports exclusively from Israeli cities, Arab crews are inside Gaza, with many correspondents native Gazans themselves.
The images they capture are often broadcast unedited, and over the last week, a grizzly news gathering routine has been established.
The cycle begins with rooftop-mounted cameras, capturing the air raids live. After moments of quiet, thunderous bombing commences and plumes of smoke rise over the skyline. Then, anguish on the streets. Panicked civilians run for cover as ambulances careen through narrow alleys. Rescue workers hurriedly pick through the rubble, often pulling out mangled bodies. Fathers with tears of rage hold dead children up to the cameras, vowing revenge. The wounded are carried out in stretchers, gushing with blood.
Later, local journalists visit the hospitals and more gruesome images, more dead children are broadcast. Doctors wrap up the tiny bodies and carry them into overflowing morgues. The survivors speak to reporters. Their distraught voices are heard around the region; the outflow of misery and destruction is constant.
Palestinian voices
The coverage extends beyond Gaza. Unlike the US networks, which are often limited to one or two correspondents in Israel, major Arab television channels maintain correspondents and bureaus throughout the region. As angry protests take place on a near daily basis, the crews are there to capture the action live.
Even in Israel, Arab reporters are employed, and Israeli politicians are regularly interviewed. But so are members of Hamas and the other Palestinian factions.
The inclusion of Palestinian voices is not unique to Arab media. On a number of international broadcasters, including BBC World and CNN International, Palestinian leaders and Gazans in particular are regularly heard. And the Palestinian death toll has been provided every day, in most broadcasts and by most correspondents on the ground. Reports are also filed from Arab capitals.
On some level, the relatively small American broadcasting output can be attributed to a general trend in downsizing foreign reporting. But had a bloodbath on this scale happened in Israel, would the networks not have sent in reinforcements?
For now, the Israeli viewpoint seems slated to continue to dominate Gaza coverage. The latest narrative comes from the White House, which has called for a “durable” ceasefire, preventing Hamas terrorists from launching more rockets.
Naturally the soundbites are parroted by US broadcasters throughout the day and then reinforced by pundits, fearing the dangerous Hamas.
Arab channels, however, see a different outcome. Many have begun referring to Hamas, once controversial, as simply “the Palestinian resistance”.
While American analysts map out Israel’s strategy, Arab broadcasters are drawing their own maps, plotting the expanding range of Hamas rockets, and predicting a strengthened hand for opposition to Israel, rather than a weakened one.
Habib Battah is a freelance journalist and media analyst based in Beirut and New York.
