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Article Archives (07-13-2006)
Genocide Equals Self-Defense?
Hezbollah militia in Southern Lebanon captured two Israeli soldiers recently. The response from Israel: military bombardment of large sections of the country resulting in 27 civilian deaths in Lebanon. Link. Hezbollah has offered to give back the captured soldiers in a prisoner exchange but the Israelis refuse. This violence grows out of the latest crisis in Gaza. In June, the Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier in Gaza to which the Israelis responded with operation "Summer Rain" during which 50 to 70 Palestinians have been killed to date. Link.
Israel’s Operation Summer Rains has redefined the term collective punishment. After three armed Palestinian groups killed two Israeli soldiers and took Shalit prisoner, Israeli warplanes bombed the power plant, which serves most of Gaza’s 1.4 million people, sealed tight the only commercial crossing into the coastal strip and, until July 1, shut off the fuel pipeline as well. What remains of the Gazan electric company struggles to channel six hours of power to Palestinian homes per day. Hospitals are running neonatal incubators and other equipment on their own generators, which guzzle the scarce fuel. Meanwhile, the Israeli air force regularly breaks the sound barrier above Gaza, usually in the wee hours of the morning, jangling Palestinians’ nerves and terrifying children. Shrugs Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: “Nobody dies from being uncomfortable.” Link.
More from the UN Emergency Coordinator:
UN Emergency Coordinator Jan Egeland highlighted the United Nations ongoing struggle to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza, where had left 1.4 million Palestinians on the brink of humanitarian disaster. * * * He said that Israel's "excessive use of force" has disproportionately hurt the civilian population. Israel's "surgical" bombing of Gaza's only power plant had been a disastrous act. "With the electricity now gone, we have the downwards spiral that we predicted", he said, adding that, although Israel had allowed some fuel to go through - - enough to power backup generators for a few hours at a time and to avoid the total breakdown of clean water and sewage systems - - it was not enough to power hospitals and sanitation infrastructure permanently. Link.
Stepping back to look at the larger picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one sees the Palestinians herded into a patchwork of ghettos. Here is a link to an article from Nathan Newman who equates the Palestinian ghetto system to that engineered by the Nazis against the Jews in Warsaw, Poland during WWII. Nathan speaks the truth, we salute him.
How does Israel sell this extermination campaign to its own people? Simple, they provoke violence on the part of the Palestinians, call it "terrorism" (when another view could be military operations as part of a war) and then say all acts of terror must be met with terror. Essentially, the Israeli government has designated the Palestinians as subhuman by blanketly labeling them as "terrorists". Therefore, all acts of cruelty against these subhumas amount to no crime.
And what is the American response? President Bush has merely said, "Israel has a right to defend itself." This means Bush will not only turn a blind eye to the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Israelis but, also, shield the Israelis from UN condemnation and sanctions. And this man calls himself a Christian: "Blessed are the gentle for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." Matt. 5:5,9. America has surely lost its way in sponsoring Israeli terror against the Palestinians.
JJR
7-13-2006
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Update: It didn't take long for my prediction that the US would protect Israel from UN condemnation over its latest violence against the Palestinians to come to fruition. See Link.
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