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Israeli Criminal War on Gaza
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, November 19, 2012
Is history repeating itself? The Israeli attack on Gaza this week
is happening between the US Presidential elections and the Israeli (early)
elections. The attack on Gaza four years ago also happened after the
US elections and before Israeli elections. Some Israeli citizens thus put an
advertisement in an Israeli paper titled "No to the election war!"
Netanyahu and company today are trying to repeat what Olmert and company
tried to do four years ago: pound Gaza into submission while gaining
right-wing votes. This attack could also be a test of preparedness for a
coming war on Iran (Gaza is weaker than Lebanon or Iran). Early
results show that the Israeli hasbara spin machine failed to make the attack
on Gaza appear as "self-defense" and will fail at all its other goals just
like happened in 2006 and 2008. During the last attack on Gaza four
years ago Israeli forces murdered 1400 Palestinians including nearly 400
Children in a period of just three weeks. It was and remains a difficult
propaganda task to hide the scale of atrocities against natives especially
when all human rights groups and the UN describe such actions as war crimes
and crimes against humanity. If there is anything different this time
it is the suprisingly developed capability of the resistance that lobbed
locally maderockets as far as 100 km reaching Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (even
for the first time the Gush Etzion settlement block). Israeli fighter
planes and warships have also been targeted. Resistance forces say
that as long as Gaza cannot have normal life, Israel can't either.
In Gaza just in the last 48 hours, the martyred Palestinians included two
babies 10 and 11 months old. Netanyahu hopes the Zionist media network
and his bombing campaigns succeed in 2012 at what they failed to achieve in
2008. Israel as an occupier/colonizer hopes to get away with murder
while labeling any resistance from the occupied people as "terrorism." In
the age of instant communication it is difficult. After repeated aggressive
wars (e.g. in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1982, 2000, 2006, 2008, and now 2012), the
world is finally waking up. People of the Arab world who engaged in real
democratic revolutions now demand real change. It is symbolically
significant that high level officials from Egypt and Tunisia traveled to
Gaza during the current attacks.
People know that Israeli lobbies
like AIPAC (whose website was hacked by Anonymous this week) keep pushing
for wars including an illegal war on Iran in the same way as they pushed for
the illegal war on Lebanon and Iraq before. The latter war was foisted on
the Western public using lies (connections of Iraq to terror actions of 11
September 2001 and weapons of mass destruction). The war cost
thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and $3
trillion in direct cost to US taxpayers. People know that Gaza is
still under occupation per international law as the UN itself reported.
Even Israeli spokespersons and an Israeli document released by court order
showed Israel is engaged in collective punishment of Gaza population, a
crime against humanity per international law. The UN warned of a
humanitarian catastrophe if the Israeli siege of Gaza continues. Israel
also continues to target any and all humanitarian ships trying to break the
siege.
Israeli politicians find it convenient every few years to
launch a massive war to keep the "home-front" scared and united and hope to
bolster their political careers. "Rooting out terrorism" and keeping
"Israeli citizens safe" are now seen even by Israelis as simply propaganda.
Israeli intelligence reports submitted to the Israeli government showed that
Hezbollah became even stronger after the Israeli attacks of 2006 and that
Hamas came out stronger after the Israeli attack in 2008. Impoverished Gaza
is teaching all lessons. Olmert and Livni discovered that war crimes do not
necessarily translate into votes. A more important lesson that may take
longer to sink in is that safety does not come from oppression and ethnic
cleansing, the two pillars of Zionism. Safety comes from justice. Israel is
a racist apartheid and militarized state that caused the largest remaining
refugee population on earth (7 million of the 12 million Palestinians are
refugees or displaced). Peace can come by acknowledging wrongs and engaging
in restorative justice. After the return of the Palestinian refugees
(including the one million in Gaza) to their homes and lands occupied in
1948, we can all live here regardless of religious or other backgrounds in
one secular democratic state. I suspect the Israeli immoral and cruel
attacks on Gaza will hasten this inevitable outcome.
*Anonymous
pulled AIPAC website down (this is the website of the third column that is
destroying the American economy for the sake of Zionism) http://www.aipac.org/
Gaza Redux: An analysis
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Professor, Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities, Occupied Palestine
***
Israel forces have been attacking Gaza, destroying power grids, destroying infrastructure and killing civilians. They intensified the brutal attack after two home made rockets landed in Tel Aviv. Hospitals in Gaza are at the breaking point trying to deal with casualties while under siege for years. But resistance forces in Gaza also reported downing an Israeli jet.
Israeli authorities are caught lying to their own people about the extent of damage coming from the resistance (e.g. saying the rockets were intercepted and did not fall while Israeli citizens see them fall, fires breaking and ambulances rushing in). I myself heard the sirens blaring in the settlements of Gush Etzion and heard the thud of one large rocket (presumably of the long range Fajr type). But now for an analytical comment.
Is history repeating itself? The Israeli attack on Gaza this week is happening between the US Presidential elections and the Israeli (early) elections. The attack on Gaza four years ago also happened after the US elections and before Israeli elections. Some Israeli citizens thus put an advertisement in an Israeli paper titled "No to the election war!"
Netanyahu and company today are trying to repeat what Olmert and company tried to do four years ago: pound Gaza into submission while gaining right-wing votes….. [To read more of the analysis, go to http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/11/gaza-redux.html ]
For Gaza friends and others: How to stay connected if the internet is shut down http://www.movements.org/how-to/entry/how-to-prepare-for-an-internet-connection-cut-off/
have a rooted android phone? You can install this app to make mesh network calls when the cell towers go down.
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/communication/the-serval-mesh_bgstt.html
Actions: Emergency global actions for Gaza
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