If this provocative statement of Dante were to be taken seriously, the cowardly international community represented by the United Nations would certainly come within its ambit given its incomprehensible failure to stop the Israeli state terrorism in Gaza.
It was simply shocking to see the world do almost nothing about the cold-blooded massacre of Palestinian men women and children which turned the world’s largest open-air prison into the biggest testing ground for Americo-Israeli weapons of mass destruction. The Zionist state has now declared an unilateral ceasefire to its unilateral acts of terrorism but not before killing more than 1200 people most of whom were civilians including 300 plus innocent children. David Blair, diplomatic editor of Telegraph wrote recently that since its withdrawal from Gaza in Sep 2005 Israel has killed about 150 Palestinians for every dead Jewish civilian. The intention of the neo-Nazi Israeli administration is obvious- to wipe out the Palestinians through starvation and bombs. And this is the country which India is proud to have ties with, particularly in the defense sector!
The Israeli regime says that the military action (read genocide) was intended to halt rocket fire from Gaza into Israel’s southern cities. Is this the truth? Let us analyse. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, the Israel Defense Forces’ professional body responsible for media and public relations in Israel and around the world says on its website (http://idfspokesperson .com/2009/01/03/rocket-statistics-3-jan-2009/) that about 7200 rockets have been fired against Israel since 2005 at an average of 15 rockets per month before the election of Hamas which rose to 102 rockets per month after Hamas took control of Gaza, a jump of 650%. And between June 14, 2007 and June 16, 2008 the attacks went up to 361 rockets per month, a further increase of 350%. The glaring omission in this IDF propaganda is that it does not talk about the Israeli casualties resulting from the rocket attacks. Obviously 7200 rockets at such a high frequency should have caused death on a massive scale. Why then are the Israelis silent about it?
The answer could be extracted from a couple of interesting sources, the Intelligence and Terrorism Center, Israel(quoted on http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7p51o/israeli_spokesman_merk_ regev_admits_no_hamas/) and, The Israel Project-TIP (http://www.theisraelproject.org), an international non-profit organisation which provides information about the Middle East. According to TIP, from Nov.24, 2001 to Dec.28, 2008 Hamas mortar attacks killed just 25 people within Israel which included foreign workers. The website also mentions the names of these victims. Although the targeting of civilians by Hamas cannot be justified under any circumstances, it pales into insignificance when compared to the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinians in the last few days to say nothing of those who were killed in retaliatory Israeli attacks during the 7 year period mentioned above and ever since the Jewish state came into existence in 1948.
Coming to the immediate “provocation”, the truth is that it was Israel which broke the truce by killing 6 Hamas men on Nov.4, 2008 in Gaza on the basis of an unproven allegation that they were making a tunnel to kidnap Israeli soldiers. It may be recalled that the six-month truce took effect from Jun 19, 2008 and the Nov 4 killings fell well within that period. That Hamas did not fire any rocket during the ceasefire has been admitted in a recent interview by the Israeli spokesman Mark Regev. This is also supported by the information available with the Intelligence and Terrorism Center referred above according to which Hamas fired 149 rockets in May 2008, 84 up to June 18 the same year but only 3 beyond June 18. And between July and Nov 4, 2008 15 rockets were fired but by the Islamic Jihad and not Hamas, a fact admitted by the Israelis. It was only after the Nov 4 killing that Hamas launched rocket attacks again. Therefore, the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza is unprovoked and a clear violation of international law.
But the most startling revelation came when the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, quoting “sources in the defense establishment,” that Defense Minister Ehud Barak had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html). The report also quoted Barak as saying that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare as well. Pure Machiavellianism!
In this context, the encouraging role played by Washington is deplorable. Instead of making Israel see reason, the US continues to offer billions of dollars in military and economic aid to that country to suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians. The best way to stop this is to counter the disinformation campaign of the Zionists and neutralize their lobby by alerting the people of America about the dangers of the present policy of their Government towards the Jewish state. This is exactly what Paul Findley, former Republican Congressman, meant when he warned, more than two decades ago, about the risks of supporting Israel. In an interview to the Journal of Palestine studies in 1985, he says, “If we continue our present course, allowing a small state in the region to control public discourse in this country, in effect decide what the U.S. policy will be, we’re putting ourselves in the hands of foreigners who could easily lead us into a terrible war.”
Today we see the Findley prophesy being fulfilled in Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing about the neo-con plot to attack Syria and Iran. It is time the international community realized that Israel’s expansionist ideology, overtly supported by U.S. imperialism, is the root cause of the Middle East crisis, and the only solution is the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from all occupied territories, and the establishment of an independent, sovereign and a viable Palestinian state.
(This article was published in The New Indian Express on Jan.22, 2008)
(The author is a peace activist and executive committee member, Harmony India, – a Chennai based organization devoted to communal amity and secularism. He may be reached at faizz@rocketmail.com).
