THE ISRAEL - PALESTINE CONFLICT 2002
"No one refused an order to take down a house. When they told me to destroy a house I exploited that in order to destroy a few more homes. On the loudspeaker [the Palestinian residents] were warned to get out before I came in. But I didn't give a chance to anyone. I didn't wait. I'm sure that people died inside of those houses. From my perspective we left them a football field, they should play there. The 100x100 [meter cleared area] was was our present to the camp. Jenin will not return to be what it was."
- Moshe Nissim, winner of a Israeli Medal of Honour, who operated a bulldozer for 75 straight hours in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp, as quoted in Yedioth Ahronot, 31st May 2002
"We have only to go to Lebanon,
to Syria, to Jordan, to witness firsthand the intense hatred among many people for the
United States, because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent
villagers, women and children and farmers and housewives, in those villages around
Beirut...as a result, we have become a kind of Satan in the minds of those who are deeply
resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of hostages and that is what has
precipitated some terrorist attacks."
- Jimmy Carter, former US President, New York Times, 26th March 1989
''Many of them [Israelis] don't know what's going on, or don't want to know, [but] if you put a cat in a corner and attack it, you should know how it will respond.''
- Neta Golan, Israeli peace activist who voluntarily spent a month with Yasser Arafat during the seige of his compound, Associated Press, 2nd May 2002. Golan lost a pregnant, recently-wed cousin in a Palestinian suicide bombing in the late 1990s.
"No matter how many tanks go through how many villages, at the end of this process you will still have suicide bombers. Ultimately, the Israeli Defense Forces will [....] have to leave the occupied territories [....] and we'll be right back to the need for a political process."
- Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, Washington Post, 2nd April 2002, in a rare moment of sanity.
INTRODUCTION
No one in their right mind condones, encourages or supports terrorism, and rightly so. And there is no difference in value of the lives of inncoent Israelis killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, than there is in the value of an innocent Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers......and settlers. And therein lies the clue.
Palestine is an occupied territory. Not even rabidly pro-Israeli media disputes the simple fact that Palestine was invaded and occupied by Israel. Yet the simple leap of wearing the shoes of a ordinary Palestinian person was, until recently, so rarely made.
Imagine that Germany had won World War 2. Having occupied Britain (and the US), they set about stealing the best land, controlling the water sources, forcibly evicting and demolishing people's homes, subjugating the entire population to near slave labour and wide spread poverty, imposing a system of identity cards and travel passes, and creating a para-military police enforcement system that utlised torture, was barely accountable to any form of decency and international law, and which incarcerated without trial tens of thousands of people. And for the next 35 years that is how the people of Britain and America would have to live.
Would those British and American people who took up arms and fought against such a system be termed 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters'? And who would make that judgement?
During the 1980's the US engaged in a covert war against Nicaragua. It would not be true to say that their war was against the Sandanista government of that country. Why then the specific support to the Contras to attack health clinics, schools and farms? This is no idle statement. This evidence was presented by the Sandinista government to the World Court in 1986, who ruled in their favour and ordered the US to cease all and any activity in support of the Contras, declaring their war completely illegal and ordering the US to pay huge reparations. The US blatantly ignored this ruling, refused to pay compensation, stated that it would no longer recognise the legitimacy of the World Court on this or any future rulings, and actually increased its' support for the Contras.
In the terminology of the US State Department the Contras were 'freedom fighters,' and the US support for their activity was termed 'low intensity conflict.'
This wasn't 'terrorism' - killing unarmed women and children in schools and health clinics, but 'low intensity conflict.'
Thus Israel, under the cover of the US bombing of Afghanistan, prompted obviously by the rise of Palestinian suicide bombers, mounted its' largest military campaign against Palestine since the 1967 war. This is 'low intensity conflict' in all its' horrendous reality. A fight between 'civilised' Israelis, and 'beasts walking on two legs' as former Prime Minster Menahim Begin described them.
There was no 'terrorism' when the Israeli Defence
Forces bulldozed people to death in their own homes. No 'terrorism' when they shot
children in the streets because they threw stones. No 'terrorism' when they killed Red
Cross and Red Crescent medical workers and ambulance drivers attempting to help the
wounded. No 'terrorism' when IDF checkpoints refused entry to dying people and pregnant
mothers trying to reach hospitals. No 'terrorism' when they systematically destroyed
Palestinian authority buildings, wrecking their government infrastructure, even defecating
into their photocopying machines. No 'terrorism' as they toured the streets in armoured
vehicles, shooting indiscriminately, with loudpseakers proclaiming "We are
stronger than you. You are weak. You are all alone. No one will come and help you."
Indeed, the instigator of all this 'non-terrorism', Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
was described as "...a man of peace..." by US 'President' George W.
Bush, at the height of the destruction of Palestinian Jenin refugee camp. This same man
was found guilty BY AN ISRAELI ENQUIRY of complicty in the massacres at the Sabra
and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982 whilst he was 'Defence
Minister'. Estimates of the death toll there vary from 1000 to 2000 people. Recent
evidence points to an additional 1000 people who were arrested and subsequently murdered
by Israeli forces in the two weeks following. Add these to the combined death toll of
Israel's 1982 attack on Lebanon which claimed the lives of between 15,000 and 20,000
people.
This is the 'man of peace'. This man claims that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is not trustworthy or of sufficient moral character to negotiate with. To highlight this stunning lack of committment to peace, the Israeli forces murdered Palestinian police and security personnel, lay siege to Arafat for a whole month, cutting off all communications with the outside world, and loudly bemoaned that Arafat was not doing enough to control the suicide bombers of the 'Intifada'. Arafat couldn't even make a phone call. And if he could, who would he call? The police and security personnel who may have been able to do something about suicide bombers had been killed already. The logic doesn't even enter into the rational world.
Why such brazen support for such people? Why does the US provide such astonishing amounts of financial and military aid to Israel, indeed the highest foreign aid per person of any country in the world? Perhaps this is why:
"In its coverage of the AIPAC convention, CSPAN
reported that the pro-Israel lobby gave Congressmen and women $6.5 million in the last
election cycle which is a half million more than Enron gave in 10 years."
- Jeff Blankfort, quoting a report by C-SPAN on an
American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting, 4th February 2002
Are the sweeteners provided to power hungry politicians so sweet that they are willing not only to turn a a blind eye to appalling violence, but even act as outright propagandists? It seems the answer is yes. Extreme religious ideology and huge financial power are a potent combination. The following links to articles reveal the human tragedy that this has led to.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JENIN REFUGEE CAMP
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PALESTINIAN INFRASTRUCTURE
OBSTRUCTING HUMANITARIAN AID, JUSTICE AND EDUCATION
WHAT CHANCE PALESTINIAN SELF DETERMINATION?