"Since the start of the Intifada in September 2002, the Israeli army has
murdered more than 800 Palestinian children, according to the Red Crescent.
None of these cases have been investigated..."
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"Days of Penitence" or Days of Genocide?
Posted October 25, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Ghali Hassan
On 28 September, 2004, hundreds of Israeli tanks, armed bulldozers, Apache
helicopters and other Israeli armor, accompanied by thousands of armed
soldiers invaded Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza in the occupied
Palestine. More than 130 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including 35
school children have been murdered in the invasion. Over 500 civilians,
including many children, have been injured by Israeli artillery shells and
rockets fired by Israeli warplanes directly on crowded street and homes.
More than 200 family houses have been demolished, together with schools,
kindergartens, shops and olive groves. Electricity and drinking water have
been cut off. A total war exerted on the Palestinian people. The silence in
Western capitals raises many moral questions.
One of the many children murdered by the Israeli army is a 13-year-old
schoolgirl, Iman Alhams from Rafah in southern Gaza. She was shot twice in
the head at close range. After she died, the Israeli soldier sprayed the
girl's body with bullets. The doctors extracted 20 bullets from her body.
One of the soldiers who witnessed the crime told the Israeli Ha'aretz
newspaper: "We saw her from a distance of 70 metres. She was fired at...
from the outpost. She fled and was wounded. I understood that she was dead.
The Platoon commander walked towards her, he shot two bullets at her before
returning to the outpost. Then he returned back to her, put the weapon on
the automatic mode, and emptied his entire clip". The witness continued:
"Our hearts ached for her. Just a 13-year-old girl. How do you spray a girl
from close range... the commander was hot for a long time to take out Arabs
and shot the girl to relieve pressure". Several claims by the Israeli army
on why the schoolgirl was murdered proved to be utter lies. She was murdered
carrying her books on her way to school.
What will happen if the Jewish soldier was an Arab and the murdered
schoolgirl was French, or American or English? Her murder would trigger a
total war against Arabs and Muslims in most major capitals of the "civilized" West, where Israeli soldiers portrayed as heroes and allowed to
recuperate on Working-Holiday Visas after their service in the army.
Killing Palestinian children is becoming a competitive sport for the Israeli
soldiers. "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", recounted Gideon Levy of Ha'aretz
newspaper.
Since the start of the Intifada in September 2002, the Israeli army has
murdered more than 800 Palestinian children, according to the Red Crescent.
None of these cases have been investigated, despite prima fascia evidence
that the children were targeted and murdered at close ranges. Israel's
policy of deliberately killing Palestinians because they are Palestinian is
a policy consistent with the definition of genocide. With horrific
statistics like this, the question of who is a terrorist should have long
since become very clear for every civilized human being.
Adolf Hitler's plan of genocide was to deliberately exterminate the Jews,
not because the Jews had taken arms or joined the resistance movement, but
just because they were Jews. The silence of world leaders, particularly
those in the West who claimed high "morality", and the deliberate emission
by Western media provide full endorsement for Sharon crimes against the
Palestinian people.
Hitler's pogrom of minorities, including Jews, was opposed by the majority
of nations, and Hitler's allies were only very few. Today, Israel's pogrom
of the Palestinian people is supported by the world superpower and its
allies, including the UN of Kofi Annan. The Palestinian people are virtually
alone at the mercy of Israeli criminals. The American-controlled mass media,
led by Rupert Murdoch, has successfully dehumanized the Palestinian people
through deliberate racist and distorted propaganda. The number of
Palestinian children murdered by the Israeli army is rising every day
because of Western leaders unconditional support to Israel's policy of
genocide. This policy is deliberate and has nothing to do with the old
mantra of "criticizing Israel is anti-Semitism". It is not. Both Jews and
Arabs belong to the ancient Semitic tribes of the Middle East either
genealogically or metaphorically.
These crimes of genocide "is perpetrated under our eyes every day, making
accomplices out of those who do not denounce it", wrote the French
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. And to paraphrase Bertrand Russell, may the
voice of the people prevent the crime of silence.
Since the seizure of Palestine by brute force, and the creation of Israel,
the Western world remained silent to Israeli attempts to exterminate the
native Palestinian inhabitants. From the massacre of Palestinians of Deir
Yasin in 1948, to Qibya in 1953 to Sabre and Shatila in 1982 to Jenin in
2002 and to in Gaza in 2004, Israel had embarked on deliberately
exterminating the Palestinian people. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were
destroyed and hundreds of thousands Palestinians were murdered or deported
from their lands. The Israeli army of terror moves with impunity from one
refugee camp to the next, unleashing havoc on the Palestinian population.
Israel has rejected all UN resolutions to withdraw from Palestinian lands
occupied after its 1967 war. Today, Israel continues to confiscate
Palestinian lands and water sources in the West Bank and Gaza by violent
inhumane methods reminiscent to the Nazis' methods. All this was in complete
violations of international law, and with the blessing of billions of
dollars in US aid, provided by generous American taxpayers. How about
spending the money on few schools for American children, Mr. President?
The attacks on Gaza were premeditated acts of terror supported and financed
by the US. The objectives were to prevent any peaceful solution to Israel
genocidal and illegal Occupation of Palestine. Israel wants Gaza to be the
biggest prison in the world, totally at the mercy of Israeli guns and bombs
from all directions, without a single window to the free world.
On 08 October 2004, Dov Weinglass, Ariel Sharon's bureau chief, personal
lawyer and confidante told the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper: "The
disengagement plan [for Gaza] is the preservative of the sequence principle.
It is the bottle of formaldehyde within which you place the president's
[Bush's] formula so that it will be preserved for a very lengthy period. The
disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of
formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process
with the Palestinians". In other words, no peaceful negotiations are needed
with the Palestinians, and that a separate independent Palestine is out of
the question. Peace is Israel's propaganda for public consumption.
It is time for the people of the civilized world to recognize that Israel's
terror against the Palestinian people is in direct conflict with their moral
principles and interests. There will be no peace in the Middle East without
the end to Israel Occupation of Palestine and US Occupation of Iraq.
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© Copyright 10/25/04 by Ghali Hassan.
Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this
credit is attached and the title remains unchanged. Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be reached at e-mail:
G.Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au
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