May 16, 2006

"Iman was not the only one. Mohammed Aaraj was eating a sandwich in front of his house, the last house before the cemetery of the Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, when a soldier shot him to death at fairly close range. He was six at the time of his death. Kristen Saada was in her parents’ car, on the way home from a family visit, when soldiers sprayed the car with bullets. She was 12 at the time of her death. The brothers Jamil and Ahmed Abu Aziz were riding their bicycles in full daylight, on their way to buy sweets, when they sustained a direct hit from a shell fired by an Israeli tank crew. Jamil was 13, Ahmed six, at the time of their deaths". ^[1]

Israel’s-state violence has the advantage to be condone by Western (US and EU) governments and ignored or distorted by all mainstream media. Yet, Palestinian self-defence and miniscule retaliations, including resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation is magnified and condemned as "terrorism".

To show who has the uncontested monopoly on violence, a comparison of the situation on the ground is necessary. According to the International Middle East Media Centre (IMEMC), the month of April has been the bloodiest month since August 2005. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) murdered 36 Palestinian civilians, including three children in the West Bank and Gaza; more than 300 Palestinian civilians were arrested. Since last January, the IOF killed more than 50 Palestinians, including several children in cold blood and wounded many. Indeed, "over 22 times more Palestinian children were killed [by Israelis soldiers] than Israeli children [killed by Palestinians]" ^[2]. According to Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem, since autumn 2000, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians has totalled 998 and the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis has totalled 3,466.

In addition, Palestinians are portrayed as cold-blooded suicide bombers by the Western media around the world in order to distort the facts and depict Palestinian self-defence as "terrorism", while avoid associating Israel’s greater crimes against the Palestinian civilians with terrorism. This distortion of facts has concealed and covered Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people and Israel’s serious threat to peace in the region.

In the West, the US in particular, Israel is portrayed as the victim of terrorism not the perpetuator of terrorism. Many of the Palestinian attacks were Resistance operations against Israeli soldiers and involved no suicides at all. Suicide bombing is used as a form of desperate retaliation. Other attacks were with harmless home-made rockets (the Qassam Rockets). Israeli strikes were with U.S.-made F16 and thousands of bombs dropped on towns and villages indiscriminately killing innocent Palestinian civilians. Everyday, Israeli Occupation forces kill Palestinians, demolished their houses steal their land and increase the size of the "Jewish-only state" with tacit support of Western governments. Israel is not fighting terrorism; Israel is the mother of all acts of terrorism.

Resistance by 'all means available’ is legitimate right of self-defence enshrined in the right of people aspiring for liberation and national independence. In other words, the Palestinian resistance against Israel’s daily terror is legitimate resistance. The Israeli are the aggressors and the occupiers, and they have no right to terrorise the defenceless Palestinian population. For nearly forty years, Palestinians have been living under Israel’s brutal occupation. It is the longest and most brutal military occupation in history. Israel can end the violence by simply ending the occupation and removing the illegal colonies (settlements) from Palestinian land.

In addition to Israel’s daily terror against the Palestinians, Israel forces continue to annex more Palestinian land and water resources. The Jordan Valley (30% of the West Bank), the most fertile land in the West Bank with massive underground water reserves is now almost entirely annexed by Israel. Unfortunately, Western governments remain mute while the new Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has openly declared that he wants to annex the Jordan Valley and make it part of Israel. The Palestinians are resisting the violent occupation and the theft of their land. The Arab rulers should be shamed for their passivity to Zionism expansion and crimes against the Palestinian people.

In a recent visit to the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Chris Davies, a North West representative who is leader of the British Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament, said that he had been shocked by what he had seen in Palestine. He told the Oldham Evening Chronicle (18 April 2006) that the; "Hopes of creating a viable, independent Palestinian state are being destroyed on the ground by Israeli bulldozers, barbed wire and concrete walls". He continues; "Palestinian land is being carved up and communities isolated. The people compare themselves to hamsters kept in cages connected by tubes that are opened and shut at the whim of their Israeli masters. Economic progress is impossible. Towns are being physically divided and people denied the right to travel between them. Israel continues to steal land to expand illegal settlements served by roads that Palestinians are forbidden to use". Davies added; "We should be honest. These are the racist policies of apartheid yet Israel continues to pose as a victim …. I visited Auschwitz last year, and it is very difficult to understand why those whose history is one of such terrible oppression appear not to care that they have themselves become oppressors" by pursuing an analogous holocaust, the Palestinian Holocaust. It is nearly forty years of illegal occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian people. The entire Palestinian population are imprisoned and at mercy of Israel’s daily terror.

Although many people are happy to equate Israel with Judaism, it is now widely acknowledged that Israel is committing gross crimes against the Palestinians and Jews around the world are unhappy to associate Judaism with Israel’s crimes. They feel associating Judaism or Jews with the crimes of Israel is bad for Jews. However, one has to ask who are the Israelis? Aren’t Israelis Jews? Isn’t Israel strife to be a "Jewish-only state"? All Israeli leaders have publicly stated that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, is doing it for all Jews.

The propaganda is design to obfuscate and blame the crimes on some phantom. Israel is considered by most Jews as the new "home" for Jews. The majority of Israeli Jews and Jews around the world are in favour of the expulsion (ethnic cleansing) of all Palestinians from their homeland. It is true that there are few progressive Jews who support the Palestinians, but those are marginalised and depicted as "self-hating Jews". Criticising Israel’s brutal policies in Palestine and its crimes against the Palestinian people can lead to serious consequences. Journalists, academics and 'liberal’ politicians are afraid and do all possible to avoid showing sympathy toward the Palestinian people. Defending Palestinian rights is like criticising Israel. Anyone who dares defending Palestinian rights is accused of "anti-Semitism". It is a political suicide.

The recent elections in Palestine are an opportunity for peace and recognition. Instead, Western governments not only condemn and reject the democratically elected Hamas Government they have also imposed inhumane and deadly "collective punishments" on the entire Palestinian civilian population. In addition to the Israeli blockades, Western governments have cut aid to the Palestinians. The Dutch foreign minister Ben Bot cowardly announced that: "The Palestinian people have opted for this government, so they will have to bear the consequences". The EU demands that the Palestinian victims bear responsibility for the crimes committed against them by the Israeli forces. The democracy that the West continues to use as political tool turned out to be the precursor for mass starvation.

It should be noted that the same Western governments have ignored the inclusion of the Shas Party in the newly formed Israeli Government. The Shas Party ideology is built on Fascism ideology. It openly advocates extreme violence against the Palestinians, and its main "policy" is the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from their land. It is clear that, the aim of the US and the EU is to encourage more violence and more misery.

According to Sara Roy, a scholar on Middle East at Harvard University, the restrictions imposed on the population of Gaza by Israeli forces "resulted in unprecedented levels of unemployment of 35 to 40 per cent. Some 65 to 75 per cent of Gazans are impoverished (compared to 30 per cent in 2000); many are hungry". This was before Western governments imposed their deadly "collective punishment" on the Palestinian people as a result of exercising their democratic right. The World Bank said that the humanitarian crisis among Palestinians is worsening. The Bank gave a conservative estimate in March that poverty and unemployment levels among the Palestinian population would rise to 67 percent and 40 per cent respectively.  Palestinian personal incomes would drop by 30 per cent, according to the Bank.

The consequence of putting pressure on Hamas and denying the Palestinian people their democratic right is predictable. In 1992 the Algerian military cancelled the democratic elections that the Front Islamique de Salut (FIS) seemed likely to win.  As a result, Algeria’s society was torn apart by a violent war in which 200,000 people died, and more than 8,000 disappeared. ^[3] Western governments were happy to call the decade-long violence "civil war", and wash their hands from the crimes they encouraged in order to kill democracy. Although Algeria was not occupied by a foreign army, the current situation in Palestine has many similarities with the situation in Algeria in the cancellation of democratic elections. It is clear that Western governments have very little concern for human rights and democracy.

In a recent interview, Palestinian leader Khalid Mashal clarifies Hamas demands for peace with Israel and pledged that Hams will recognise Israel if Israel withdraw its forces from the Occupied Territories, release all (about 10,000) Palestinian prisoners, and recognise the rights of all Palestinians to return to their land.  Earlier, the newly elected Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniya, said: "If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, then we will establish a peace in stages. We will establish a situation of stability and calm, which will bring safety for our people. We do not have any feelings of animosity towards Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody". The Palestinian made the offer to recognise Israel, despite that Israel’s borders are not set – Israel is a newly created expansionist state – and Israel continues the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

As usual, Israel has dismissed Hamas offer as a non-starter because Israel is not interested in peace and security, but in violence, conquest of Palestinian land and Zionist expansion. Israel has a history of rejecting of all peaceful solutions proposed by the Arabs and the Palestinians. In contrast, Israel offered no peace. The so-called "Camp David generous offer" was a fraud and designed to distort reality and discredit the Palestinians. It was an orchestrated propaganda campaign by Israel and supported by Israel Zionist backers. It is not surprising that Barak's foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was a key participant at Camp David, later admitted: "If I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David as well". Camp David was a trap for the late Yasser Arafat to surrender Palestinian rights.

Finally, many years ago, the Jewish sociologist and historian, Maxime Rodinson wrote: "It is 1967. Israel should start looking for an agreement with the Arabs from whom they took their land. Not with some fantasy Arab people made just the way it would like them: miraculously converted to Israeli ideas by the world’s pro-Zionist lobbying, or by moral lecturing or readings in the Old Testament and the classics of Marxism and Leninism, but with Arabs as they are: unwilling to accept the uncompensated seizure of their lands. We may denounce the Arab attitude, but that is just a waste of time".

In 1992 the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) recognised the State of Israel at the time of the signing of the so-called "Oslo Peace Accord". By contrast, the Israelis only recognised a Palestinian people to be represented by the PLO, which was not the same as recognising Palestinian statehood. Recognising Israel as an ethnic entity illegally occupying Palestinian land is a Palestinian national suicide.

Hamas should follow the principle of mutual recognition. Hamas should not recognise Israel unless Israel recognises the rights of Palestinian national independence, including the 'Rights of Return’. Hamas must insist on the end to Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian land and Israeli violence against the Palestinian people.

If Israelis and Jews (collectively) want to live in peace and safety, they have to choose between two options: either continue the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, injustice and violence against the Palestinian people, or renounce violence and pursue the path to peaceful coexistence.

Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.

Endnotes:

[1] Gideon Levy, "Killing Children is no longer a big deal", Ha’aretz, 17 October 2004.

[2] Alison Weir, Deadly Distortion, 31 December 2004

[3] Wendy Kristianasen, "Algeria: the women speak", Le Monde Diplomatique, April 2006.

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