Israeli Victory over Asthmatics, Newborns in Gaza
The humanitarian impact of Israel's electricity blockade of the Gaza Strip. Raw sewage in the streets, which will soon seep into houses; asthmatics choking; hospitals on the verge of switching off life support.
Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group is eloquent in the Boston Globe/ IHT on why this Israeli tactic is self-defeating.
But more important than whether it is practical or not, it is a war crime.
"Gaza Strip: Crisis worsens despite Israel's new fuel pledge". AKI reports:
' Amid predictions that more than a million people would soon be without safe drinking water, there were reports of raw sewage spilling into the streets because there was no electricity to fuel the local pump station.
The Gaza power plant shut down its two working turbines on Sunday, leaving much of Gaza in darkness, after Israel closed border crossings on Friday.
Hospitals dependent on vital diesel supplies were also predicting that they would run out of fuel within hours and then be forced to make crucial life or death decisions for their patients.
John Ging, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza said the civilian population was living in "abject misery" and had been stripped of their human dignity.
"People here in Gaza have been living in abject misery and hardship now for a long time," Ging told the Arab TV network, Al-Jazeera. "On top of that they are living in darkness.
"You have to see how miserable the situation is. The civilian population is under occupation. It is collective punishment - they are victims."
"What we need is action and it starts with civilians." '
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/22/2008 12:19:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Since the reason Israel gives for cutting the power is the continued launching of rockets from Gaza into Israel, and since this latest and more severe power cut happened in response to a week in which more than 200 rockets were fired into Israel, the question must be asked - Why continue to fire these crude rockets which are aimed at anything and everything, civilian and military.
Even as the power is being cut, sewage is seeping into the streets, and people are starving - somehow there is still money and energy going to make hundreds of rockets and continuously launching them into random targets inside Israel.
Is this not self-destructive nihhilism at its worst?
What is it called when a population is denied by another people the ability to have an economy and now even to have electricity? Some(?) Israelis are making it impossible for the Palestinians to live. I say again, this is genocide!
Anonymous misses the point that the Qassams were "retaliation" for the 18 recent deaths, caused by rocket attacks against Gaza...
Why does anonymous conveniently forget that the rocketing of Gaza by the israelis is on-going and deadly?
There is no equivalence, here.
We are witnessing the purposeful destruction of a people and a culture, and we are quiet and complacent, rationalizing it as "perhaps appropriate".
It is not the nihilism of the Palestinians, it is the racism of the Israelis we are witnessing, supporting, and advocating through our policies.
If you financially support Hamas, you will be tried for support of terrorism. You may even be disappeared. If you financially support the Israelis, you will get a tax break. Both Hamas and the israeli government are racist, but the Israeli government more decidedly and effectively so, and both were democratically elected.
' If you financially support Hamas, you will be tried for support of terrorism. You may even be disappeared. If you financially support the Israelis, you will get a tax break. '
Isn't that at the heart of the disgrace and corruption of our country?
Without the US as enabler there would have been a real settlement between Israel and Palestine decades ago instead of the illegal, immoral "settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza.
All the murderous expropriation of the past forty years, all the suffering of the Palestinian people must be laid at the feet of the AIPAC and of corrupt politicians like Obama, Clinton, and Edwards who all, even now in the face of bald genocide, will jump when their strings are pulled.
And at our own feet eventually. For we all know exactly what is going on and lift not a finger in support of an alternative.
Gravel, Kucinich, Paul, Center, Left, or Right. There is an alternative. We've no excuse but our callous sloth and cowardice.
Everything is in retaliation for everything else. It doesn't matter. The Qassams are war crimes. If you don't recognize that, then you don't believe in human rights. Deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime when the Israelis do it and it is a war crime when the Palestinians do it.
Proportionality doesn't matter either. Just because the Palestinians are too incompetent to actually kill many people with these rockets doesn't not make them war crimes.
And there is no genocide going on here by either side here. That's why both populations continue to go quite quickly.
Castellio mentioned that the rocket attacks were "retaliation" for Israeli killings. Is this not clear nihilism on Hamas' part as well? Responding to a 1st rate military attack by launching crude homemade rockets at anything and everything, civilian and military, with no clear target?
In any case, the Israeli military operation's goal was to push rocket firing militants further from the Israeli border since, well, you know, these crude rockets have been fired randomly at Israel on a daily basis since the Israeli withdrawal of their settlers and military.
The troops were fired upon and the ensuing battles left 19 dead, all but three of them armed fighters and militants, according to hospital officials.
Anyone who seriously had Palestinian well being in mind would agree with their President, Mahmoud Abbas and many of the Palestinian people that this self-destructive and nihilistic rocket fire has got to stop.
As to claims of a genocide and the erasing of a people, the Gaza strip has one of the highest growth rates in the world, double that of Israel and triple that of the United States. Its population grew by over 1 million people since 1967 when Israel started its occupation.
If Israel is trying to commit a genocide they sure are doing a pretty lousy job of it.
To Anonymous: I didn't use the term genocide, I said: "We are witnessing the purposeful destruction of a people and a culture, and we are quiet and complacent, rationalizing it as "perhaps appropriate".
You want to make the case that collective punishment and the on-going bombing of Gaza is entirely appropriate. I understand that.
I disagree.
John Francis Lee hits it on the head when he writes: "Without the US as enabler there would have been a real settlement between Israel and Palestine decades ago instead of the illegal, immoral "settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza."
Saddat and Rabin offered a real "road" forward. Saddat was murdered, but was replaced with Mubarek who maintained the Egyptian peace with Israel. Rabin was murdered, but his successors were opposed to the land for peace deal, and managed to get US endorsemen.
Since then, it had been a process of revising the "facts on the ground", hence supporting an oppressive occupation to "shape" those facts.
Let us be clear:
In the Israeli case, the terrorism of political assassination from the right worked, and won the support of the Americans.
In the case of the Egyptians, the terrorism of political assassination from the left was not effective.
I think the chance of war with Iran still high, for the simple reason that Israel truly wants it, believing it will free their hand to continue "shaping the facts" in Palestine ad Southern Lebanon, against the indigenous resistances that have formed.
Hooray, they hate me
' Like Mottel the son of Peysi the cantor, who evades his responsibilities with the declaration, "Hooray, I am an orphan," Israelis sometimes tell themselves, "Hooray, I am hated," thus rationalizing their refusal to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. '
Israelis must give up their too-often cherished view of themselves as constant and perpetual victims if they are to come to terms with their own brutality and war crimes.
This is not the task of the Israelis alone. We Americans have much the same sort of mythology built-up to shield ourselves from self-criticism. We are the exceptional people, like god's chosen people, whose mission it is to spread democracy throughout the world.
Our version of democracy is a crude burlesque, just as Israel's occupation and expropriation of Palestine are a crude burlesque of the ideals each nation claims to hold.
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