- Professor Jeremy Salt teaches political science at Ankara,
Turkey's Bilkent University. He's also the author of "The Unmaking
of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands."
On January 9, 2009, during Israel's war on Gaza, he wrote "A Message
to the brave Israeli Airmen," asking:
-
- -- "What's it like, firing missiles at people you
can't see?
-
- -- Does that help, that you cannot see who you are killing?
-
- -- does it ease your conscience that you are not deliberately
targeting civilians," when, in fact, you are under Israel's Dahiya
Doctrine to use enough "disproportionate force (to inflict) damage
and met(e) out punishment" against civilian infrastructure, "economic
interests and the centers of civilian power," willfully slaughtering
noncombatant men, women and children;
-
- -- "How does this sit on your conscience?
-
- -- Do you sleep well at night or do you have nightmares
of the women and children you killed in their homes, in their beds, in
their kitchens and living rooms, in their schools and mosques?"
-
- Do you really believe they threaten your security - farmers
in their fields, mothers with their children, teachers in classrooms, imams
in mosques, children at play, the elderly, frail or disabled?
-
- Do you ever question what you've done and why? Have you
no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right
and wrong? Will you follow orders blindly and do it again and again, mindless
about crimes of war and against humanity you, your superiors, and government
officials are accountable for under fundamental international law?
-
- "Brave" Israeli airmen, soldiers, sailors,
and other security force personnel have acted lawlessly for decades, including
committing appalling human rights crimes - a snapshot of some victims follows.
-
- Persecuting Mazin Qumsiyeh
-
- Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit
Universities in the West Bank. Earlier he taught at Yale, Duke, and the
University of Tennessee. Interested mainly in media activism and public
education, he's been a board, steering, and executive committee member
of numerous activist organizations, and is President of the Palestinian
Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular
Committee against the Apartheid Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. His
most recent book is titled, "Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History
of Hope and Empowerment."
-
- On the morning of May 6, Qumsiyeh and three others were
arrested, handcuffed, and taken to an unknown destination. He explained
what happened.
-
- In Al-Wallaja, his "ten hour ordeal" began
at 8:30AM. The village is near the Green line. Israel's Separation Wall
route will encircle it. It's already lost much of its land. Residents fear
losing the rest, so to prevent it they resist.
-
- Israeli bulldozers have demolished numerous homes. Heroic
villagers inspired others, "including Internationals and Israelis
to join them in their popular resistance....Today's started as we came
through the woods and sat in front of the bulldozer."
-
- "As the soldiers gathered their forces around us,
you could feel (them) preparing themselves for attack. We remained calm
and peaceful. They dragged us one by one forcefully from the bulldozed
lands. They picked the four of us for arrest for no obvious reason"
- Qumsiyeh, two Palestinian brothers, and a Canadian activist.
-
- They beat, clubbed, rifle-butted, and pepper-sprayed
the two brothers. All four were then taken to a military checkpoint, told
to sit and wait, then ordered "to sign a paper claiming....we were
not beaten or mistreated."
-
- They refused, then taken to "the investigation offices
near Qubbit Raheel (Rachel's tomb), (and) locked up in a metal container."
Hours later, they were interrogated individually, asked, but refused, to
sign other papers. Painfully handcuffed, they were returned to the container.
-
- Next on to Talpiot police station to be fingerprinted
and photographed. "It was now nearly 5:30 and we were starving....Finally
they br(ought) us some bread, each a slice of cheese and a small packet
of jam." Together they were "dragged in front of a new investigator
who asked us to sign a release form that says we are told to stay away
from the wall....for 15 days and if we don't we will (each) have to pay"
about $1,200. They signed, were released, but not given their ID cards.
Later they got them. "Life goes on in the land of Apartheid. Stay
tuned."
-
- As coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Apartheid
Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour, Qumsiyeh leads Palestinian grassroots
resistance against "Israeli occupation and colonization" as well
as "stopping and dismantling" what the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) called illegal, ordering the Wall's demolition and for Israel
"to make reparation for all damage caused by the construction....including
in and around East Jerusalem."
-
- As the "main national grassroots body mobilizing
and organizing resistance against" the Wall, the Campaign "coordinates
the work of 54 popular committees in communities" targeted for (or
now being) destroyed by its construction.
-
- Strategies against it include raising awareness internationally;
national and community resistance; mobilizing solidarity among affected
communities, the Arab world, civil society, and unions; calling for global
boycott, divestment and sanctions; and enlisting international popular
support for justice.
-
- Attacking Disabled Palestinians in Gaza
-
- Besides the occupation, siege, regular incursions, and
overall reign of terror against 1.5 million people, Israel targets the
disabled, explained by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in
a December 2009 report titled, "Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Disabled
Persons in the Gaza Strip," from September 1, 2003 - November 30 2009.
-
- It covers willful assaults against disabled civilians,
and others incapacitated by attacks. Of most concern was Operation Cast
Lead's 23-day assault from December 27, 2008 - January 18, 2009, inflicting
massive numbers of deaths and injuries, as well as widespread destruction,
mostly against civilians, their homes, mosques, businesses, factories,
farms, schools, and hospitals - clear non-military targets. The siege's
effect on health, education, and other vital services was also addressed.
-
- During the reporting period, 31 disabled Palestinians
were killed, including four women, and six children. Another 600 sustained
permanent disabilities, mostly physical. In addition, because of inadequate
or unavailable food, medicines, medical equipment, fuel, clean water, sanitation,
and the ability to leave or enter freely, the negative impact has been
enormous.
-
- "At the same time, foreign medical and technical
personnel have not been able to enter (Gaza) to help the disabled and provide
them with necessary medical and rehabilitation services." As for the
overall effect of the siege, the longer it continues the more harm it inflicts
on those least able to cope. Precisely Israel's strategic aim - to strangle
and smother all Gazans, the elderly, infirm and disabled the most vulnerable.
-
- Amnesty International (AI) on Israeli War Crimes
-
- In its 2010 annual report, AI accused Western nations
of shielding Israel from accountability during the Gaza war and for nearly
three years of siege, depriving the population of vital essentials to survive
and endure. At the same time, it praised the Goldstone Commission for heroically
telling the truth.
-
- In documenting Israeli crimes of war and against humanity,
AI said:
-
- "Among other things, (Israel) carried out indiscriminate
and disproportionate attacks against civilians, targeted and killed medical
staff, used Palestinian civilians as 'human shields,' and indiscriminately
(used) white phosphorous (and other illegal weapons) over densely populated
residential areas." As a result, the toll was devastating.
-
- In response, the US State Department downplayed the accusations,
saying it "supports the need for accountability for any violations
that may have occurred in relation to the Gaza conflict by any party,"
ignoring Israel's premeditated aggression, willfully attacking civilians
and committing horrendous war crimes.
-
- AI also condemned America's human rights abuses, saying:
-
- "In the counter-terrorism context, accountability
for past human rights violations by the USA remains largely absent, particularly
in relation to the CIA programme (sic) of secret detention. In litigation,
the US administration continues to block remedy for victims of such human
rights violations. 181 detainees remain in Guantanamo despite President
Obama's commitment to close the detention facility by January 2010. A new
Manual for Military Commissions released by the Pentagon in April confirmed
that even if a detainee is (uncharged or) acquitted by a military commission,
the US administration reserves the right to continue to hold them in indefinite
detention."
-
- Obama Administration's Brazen Lawlessness
-
- The latest example comes from a just revealed September
2009 secret directive about expanded covert military activity in the Middle
East, Central Asia, the Horn of Africa or anywhere in the world to counter
alleged threats. In other words, the Obama administration reserves the
right to send US forces anywhere clandestinely, with or without host nation
approval, to "penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy" designated
targets by state terrorism, war, or any other means on the pretext of defending
national security - a justification only scoundrels would invoke.
-
- Italian New Weapons Research Committee (NWRC) Accuses
Israel of Contaminating Gaza Soil
-
- In its May 11 press release, NWRC (a group of independent
scientists and doctors) said Israel's 2006 and 2009 bombings left a high
concentration of toxic/carcinogenic metals residue in soil and human tissue,
likely to cause tumors, fertility problems, and serious harm to newborns,
including deformities and genetic mutations.
-
- Of particular concern were "wounds provoked by weapons
that did not leave fragments in the bodies of the victims, a peculiarity
that was pointed out repeatedly by doctors in Gaza. This shows that experimental
weapons, whose effects are still to be assessed, were used."
-
- Some elements found are carcinogenic, including mercury,
arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel and uranium (from weapons with depleted
uranium). Others are potentially carcinogenic, including cobalt and vanadium,
and still more are fetotoxic (harmful to fetuses), including aluminum,
copper, barium, lead, and manganese. All of them in high enough amounts
produce genetic mutations as well as pathogenic effects on human respiratory
organs, kidneys, skin, neurological development, and other bodily functions.
-
- The combination of environmental contamination, direct
wounds or inhilations, aggravated by dire living conditions, presents a
serious risk to large numbers of people, worsened by repeated armed incursions.
According to Paola Manduca, NWRC's spokesperson:
-
- "Our study indicates an anomalous presence of toxic
elements in the soil (and human tissue). It is essential to intervene at
once to limit the effects of the contamination on people, animals and cultivations."
-
- Thus far, Israeli-Western collaborators still prevent
1.5 million Gazans from getting the critical help they need, while Moshe
Kantor, president the European Jewish Congress, equated NWRC's research
to "ancient blood libels against the Jewish people, when rumors were
spread about Jews poisoning wells. Today we are seeing a recurrence of
all the worst excesses of anti-Semitism and diatribes that we perhaps naively
thought had remained in the Dark Ages."
-
- The pro-Israeli NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg called
the accusations "designed to stigmatize Israel and erase the context
of mass terror, (similar to other) false or unverifiable claims."
These are typical responses from rogues and their defenders caught red-handed.
-
- But clear evidence they deny can't be hidden. Nor can
the growing disenchantment of young American Jews, a phenomenon Steven
Rosenthal discussed in his 2001 book "Irreconcilable Differences:
The Waning of the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel," citing
policies that transformed the relationship from uncritical "Israelotry"
to disapproval and distress. The 1982 Lebanon invasion, repressive occupation,
Intifada, regular incursions, and greater concern about home-grown issues
shattered American Jewish unanimity, diluting Israel's next generation
support.
-
- On May 10, 2009, The Forward and Brandeis University
Professor Jonathan D. Sarna asked why, noting "a critical difference
between support for Israel in the past and today. For much of the 20th
century, the Israel of American Jews - the Zion that they imagined in their
minds, wrote about and worked to realize - was a mythical Zion, a utopian
extension of the American dream."
-
- They imagined a "social commonwealth," an "outpost
of democracy, spreading America's ideals eastward in a Jewish refuge where
freedom, liberty and social justice would someday reign supreme."
Utopias, of course, are illusions, now dispelled to reveal "unlovliest
warts." Today, bloom is off the rose, unsurprising given convincing
reasons to remove it.
-
- A Final Comment
-
- On May 26, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire paid
"Tribute to the People of Gaza," saying:
-
- "I never cease to be amazed at the power of the
human spirit to survive....In a triumph of hope over adversity and tremendous
suffering, love still abides....Gaza's people have suffered an Israeli
occupation for over 40 years," enduring wars and current medieval-type
siege.
-
- Lives have been shattered, crops destroyed, soil poisoned,
and sustainability comprised, so "Where is the hope? Where is the
love in the midst of such suffering and injustice?" In the will to
survive; in growing worldwide solidarity; in the "Freedom Flotilla"
defying the blockade to deliver aid, Maguire on it, "inspired by the
people of Gaza whose courage, love and joy in welcoming us, even in the
midst of such suffering gives us all hope. They represent the best of humanity,"
no amount of Israeli repression can extinguish, nor their redoubtable "nonviolent
struggle for human dignity, and freedom."
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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