Israeli Massacre in Gaza:

Hypocrisy's Global Face Is Also Regional

By Ahmad Mustafa

Gulf News, January 2, 2009

The stunning indifference of the world to the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip is inexplicable. Hundreds are being torn into pieces by the shells of American-made Israeli fighters with the world watching in cold blood - not unlike watching beasts being hunted down by cowboys in the Wild West.

If Australian sheep being transported to the Gulf suffer in their journey, the hypocritical world would react angrily with international organisations condemning the cruelty of Arab consumers. If a crime suspect killed turns out to be an American or French agent, the UN Security Council would issue an authorisation for war under Chapter VII in hours.

This is not begging for world sympathy, but just an attempt to expose the illusionary and insincere way the world is run. World opinion is manipulated by media barons and politicians who are prejudiced and sometimes even racist. And what is true about the world applies to the region, as manifest in its indifference to the massacre.

More than 1.5 million Palestinians have been subjected to aggression for more than 18 months now through a strangulating siege and embargo. What is happening is not a punishment of the Hamas movement, but of the Palestinian people who resist occupation and seek a just solution to their predicament. The aggression is reminiscent of attacks on Iraq during the siege years on the claim of punishing Saddam Hussain while in fact killing millions of innocent Iraqis through hunger and disease and frequent US bombardment. Likewise, the occupation army of Israel never stopped killing Palestinians in Gaza.

Prior to every Israeli election, leaders of the Jewish state express their hardline positions to electorates by killing more Palestinians. It has been going on for decades. Now an election in February makes the three contestants - Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud party, Tzipi Livni of Kadima party and Ehud Barak of Labour - compete in spilling more Palestinian blood.

But the scale of the latest massacres is a manifestation of what an Israeli official earlier said about a "Gaza Holocaust". The remark was ignored by the world, which cannot stand to hear the word Holocaust without persecuting those who would not blindly succumb to Israeli interpretation of the Nazi crimes.

Would the world dare to call things the way they are when it comes to the Jewish state? We see the answer is no. Everybody is following the wording of the White House statement, blaming the victim and commending the aggressor - even the Arabs.

Embarrassment

The Arab League failed to convene the next day and postponed a meeting, hoping that by that time Israel would have finished their "Final Solution" of the Gaza problem sparing them the embarrassment for their incapacity to act.

What if it was something on Iraq or Lebanon that Washington wanted the Arabs to spell out their stand? They would have met in hours and issued an Arabic translation of a statement written in the State Department.

Those Arab countries, especially the so-called "moderates", who are working on their peace initiative to suit the American/Israeli taste, have no choice but to succumb to their enemies. It is beyond reason to argue with those who equate the victim with the aggressor or blame the victim.

Anyway, the Palestinian people are not Australian sheep and the world's indifference towards their plight will not weaken their resolve to seek their rights with all means possible. They have known this for decades and have never given up.

Call them terrorists, call them anti-peace but this will not change the fact that they are the people of Palestine driven out of their country by West-backed mercenaries.

Though Hamas is not all the Palestinian people, the majority of the people in Palestine and the exiles are resisting the occupation and not accepting the Anglo-Saxon approach.

If the Israelis and their backers think that killing hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza would put fear in the minds of the rest of the Palestinians and force them to accept an unjust and humiliating settlement, they are in delusion. Uprooting Hamas would not sort out the problems of occupation, as the resistance is not only from Hamas.

The world's hypocrisy towards the Gaza genocide and its US backing will fuel further resistance to occupation and aggression including in Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere.

Dr Ahmad Mustafa is a London-based Arab writer.