Israel: perpetual criminal, perpetual liar

by Khalid Amayreh - November 9, 2007

Just as the Nazis sought to concoct "reasons" to justify their criminality, the Zionist state of Israel and its fanatical supporters are doing the same thing to justify the slow-motion genocide the Jewish state is carrying out against the Gaza Strip’s 1.4 million inhabitants.

Israeli spokespersons and apologists, especially in North America, where Zionist Jews control the bulk of the mass media, routinely claim that Israel has no moral or legal obligation to feed and cater for the blockaded Gazans.

This is, of course, a blatantly misleading argument, because Israel is still "the occupying power" in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army is still in tight control of Gaza’s skies, territorial waters and all border crossings.

Israel also controls the movement of individuals and the flow of goods and services to and from Gaza. Hence, Israel can’t maintain a tight control of Gaza and at the same time disavows responsibility for the human catastrophe and economic meltdown unfolding in that small territory.

There are those sick minds that would claim that since Israel is a sovereign state, it has the right to do what it sees fit to defend and preserve her interests.

Well, contemporary Nazis or neo-Nazis could make a similar argument about the Third Reich, namely that Germany under Hitler was a sovereign state and that it had every right to do what it deemed fit to defend and preserve Germany’s interests.

But if sovereign states have the right to behave as they see fit to defend their interests, then Jews should stop babbling about the holocaust, since, according to this preposterous logic, Germany had every right to do what it did in the course of the Second World War.

Sovereignty is not absolute, and no nation-state has the right to commit crimes against humanity or violate the human rights and liberties of its citizens and subjects under the pretext of sovereignty. Needless to say, the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israel’s subjects and prisoners. Forget about the Palestinian judenrate called the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli spokespersons continue to shamelessly repeat is that Israel had ended its military occupation of Gaza, and is no longer responsible for the welfare of the territory’s 1.4 million human beings.

In truth, far from ending its occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel has effectively reduced the small coastal enclave of about 300 square kilometers to a detention camp that is shockingly similar to the Ghetto Warsaw under the Nazis.

True, Israel did evacuate some 2000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, mainly to avoid the demographic consequences of annexing a large non-Jewish population into Israel.

But the Jewish state retained its control of Gaza’s lifeline by way of controlling food, power, and water supplies to the crowded enclave where nearly 70% of the population rely on monthly food aid from UNRWA and other aid organizations.

Last year, following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian guerillas, the Israeli army launched a widespread incursion in Gaza, killing hundreds of people, mostly innocent civilians.

Moreover, the Israeli army bombed and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including the only power station, roads, schools and public buildings.

The classical Israeli justification for the ongoing criminal blockade is that Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens against the Qassam projectiles fired by Palestinian resistance fighters on nearby Jewish settlements.

This is, of course, a misleading argument. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have repeatedly proposed a full ceasefire, and Israel always refused.

So, what does Israel really want? Kill Gazans slowly and as quietly as possible? Israel can’t starve and blockade Gaza and cut off fuel and electricity supplies and other vital commodities to its already tormented inhabitants and at the same time complain about the firing of a few and nearly innocuous projectiles that hardly cause any damage.

Indeed, in more than three years, and the firing of thousands of Qassam projectiles, no more than 10 Israelis were killed. Compare this to the numerous hundreds of Palestinian women, men and children mercilessly killed by Israel’s machine of death since the capture of the Israeli soldier last year. This is not retaliation. This is a protracted massacre.

It is really shame that lethal weapons of death, which are designed to be used against regular and powerful armies, are being used to inflict death and terror on helpless and utterly unprotected civilians. Yes, an army that uses F-16s and Apache helicopters and Merkava battle tanks against impoverished refugees is not an army of soldiers, but an army of thugs and common criminals.

Unfortunately, criminals, including criminal states, don’t understand the meaning of shame. It doesn’t exist in their dictionary.

To make a long story short, Israel is not sincere about this issue of the so-called Qassam "rockets." Israel routinely provokes the firing of these projectiles by killing Palestinians, starving them, barring them from fishing in their own waters, and preventing them from leaving Gaza for work, education, medical care and even pilgrimage to Islam’s holy places in Makka. Does the world know, or care to know, how many Gazans are awaiting death because a nation which calls itself a light unto the nations refuses to allow them to travel to Egypt or the West Bank to seek medical care? Shame on this hypocritical world! Shame!

Today, Gaza looks very much like a concentration camp, a place from which the smell of poverty, pain and despair is wafting all over the area, while morally bankrupt politicians keep babbling about Israel’s right to defend itself while utterly ignoring the Palestinians’ right to survival, security, food and dignity.

I know it is futile to appeal to most governments of the world which have come to be governed by the satanic doctrine of political correctness.

But conscientious men and women around the world can make a difference if they speak up and take to the streets to demand an abrupt end to the unfolding man-made tragedy in Gaza .

But in order to effect a change and save hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children from a slow and agonizing death, people of conscience and morality must speak up, hold demonstrations, take to the streets, and leave no stone unturned until this obscenity ends.

This is also an opportunity for Jews of conscience to demonstrate to the world that Jews are not like Germans who kept silent and remained indifferent while the Third Reich was doing what it was doing.

I’m saying that because if Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak and other war criminals are doing what they are doing in your collective name, then do something real, and prove to the world that you are worthy of the sublime ideals you claim to adhere to.

History will not be kind to you if you don’t.