[CitizensTruth] Backed by US: Israeli Massacre in Gaza

[Jay Becker]

>From revcom.us:




Backed by the U.S.:

	  
	  
 ISRAEL UNLEASHES A MASSACRE IN GAZA

	  
	

	  
	  
By Larry Everest (with research and assistance from other Revolution correspondents)


        
		      
December 28, 2008







              
Beginning
mid-day on Saturday, December 27, waves of U.S.-supplied Israeli
warplanes suddenly appeared over the skies of the Palestinian territory
of Gaza in broad daylight and unleashed a deadly barrage of bomb and
missile attacks that continue as we go to press. This could not be
taking place without the approval of the U.S., for whom Israel serves
as an enforcer in the Middle East. The U.S.-supplied Israeli F-16
warplanes and Apache helicopters attacked all of Gaza’s main towns,
including Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, striking more than 210
targets in the first 24 hours of what Israel threatens will be “war to
the bitter end.” Police stations—located in the middle of civilian
areas—government offices, the Islamic University, and many other sites
were hit. By Sunday, over 300 had been killed—including many civilians
and an estimated 700 wounded. It was the most Palestinians killed in a
single day in decades.




              
Eyewitnesses described
scenes of terror from the skies, and the horror of seeing loved ones
massacred. According to the Associated Press, Palestinian human rights
groups said that 20 of the dead were children under 16 and 9 women:
“The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said it was difficult to keep
an exact count because of chaos at the hospitals, and difficulty in
identifying dismembered bodies.” The UN reported that seven teenage
students at a UN vocational college for Palestinian refugees were
killed waiting for a bus to take them home. 






              
One
Palestinian described the scene near the main security headquarters in
Gaza when the air strikes began: "People were walking through the
streets just like a normal day, children coming home from school.
Suddenly, without any warning, the bombing started. We didn't even see
the jets in the sky. That's why so many people were killed.... Suddenly
people started to run, you saw people running to the ambulances, and
the police running everywhere. People were crying. I saw some just sat
on the ground against the wall." 






              
Even the imperialist, pro-Israel New York Times
was forced to note the “shocking quality to Saturday’s attacks, which
began in broad daylight as police cadets were graduating, women were
shopping at the outdoor market, and children were emerging from school.”




              
“The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror,” the New York Times reported,
“with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens
of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of
Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. The dead
included civilians, including several construction workers and at least
two children in school uniforms. By afternoon, shops were shuttered,
funerals began and mourning tents were visible on nearly every major
street of this densely populated city.”




              
Al
Jazeera (12/28) reported, “There are two strands of suffering—ordinary
Palestinians who are not targeted in these attacks, and those that are.
It is a very grim picture for ordinary civilians. They are suffering
from fuel outages and a shortage of supplies. About 750,000 people who
depend on food distribution by aid agencies have not been able to
receive supplies because the agencies cannot operate due to the siege.
For those immediately affected by the more than 24-hour bombardment,
the picture is even more grim. They need special medical attention and
supplies that the hospitals, doctors and medical officials say they
simply don't have.”




              
There are reports that
Egyptian troops have fired upon Palestinians trying to escape the
Israeli bombardment by crossing the southern border of Gaza into Egypt.
The U.S.-dependent regime of Hosni Mubarak has been colluding with
Israel to keep a tight lid on Palestinians in Gaza.




              
And
there are indications that this horrific situation may get even worse.
Israel is reportedly considering a ground invasion of Gaza and
authorized calling up as many as 6,500 reserves. There are also reports
of Israeli drones and aircraft penetrating Lebanese airspace, perhaps
in preparation for an attack. All this could even set off a larger war
in the region, with even much greater suffering for the people in the
region.

              
U.S. and Israel Blame the Victims to Justify Crimes Against Humanity 

              
Israeli
and U.S. government officials, as well as the U.S. media, claim that
Israel’s attack was provoked by rocket attacks by the Palestinian
Islamist group Hamas (that controls Gaza) into Israel. The Bush regime
called Hamas “thugs,” blaming Hamas for provoking Israel and demanding
it end its rocket attacks—while pointedly refusing to call on Israel to
stop its assault. 






              
During the campaign, Barack
Obama said (of the small-scale Hamas attacks on Israel), “If somebody
was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at
night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that.” He made
clear throughout the campaign, including in what can only be called a
bloodthirsty speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), that he supported these same policies. It could well be the
case that Israel timed this attack in such a way (before Obama was
inaugurated) as to allow Obama to maintain the appearance of being
“above the fray” while in fact being fully on board and supportive of
this attack. His silence in face of this massacre speaks loudly indeed.




              
Blaming
the Palestinians for the massacre in Gaza turns reality completely
upside down. It is a pretext, and justification for mass murder.




              
Israel’s
latest attack is the continuation of over 60 years of violent efforts
to crush the Palestinian people and break any resistance to Israeli
designs—going back to Israel’s founding in 1948 as a settler colonial
state and an arm of Western imperialism in the Middle East. 






              
This
step-by-step campaign of ethnic cleansing began with violently driving
some 750,000 Palestinians from their lands during the 1947-48
Arab-Israeli war; the destruction of hundreds of conquered Palestinian
villages; the military conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967
war; the illegal colonialization of these “occupied territories"
afterward, coupled with a steady assault on Palestinian economy and
society. Israel claimed each assault was simply a response to
Palestinian “terror,” or refusal to make peace; while each Israeli
assault furthered its strategic objectives of destroying Palestine. 






              
Most
of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians were forced from their homes in
other parts of Palestine during the establishment of Israel. From 1967
until 2005, Israel militarily occupied Gaza. After ending the
occupation, Israel kept complete control of this desert strip’s land,
sea and air borders. Israel sent armored bulldozers to destroy Gaza’s
fruit orchards, blockaded the fishing port, cut off supplies to
factories and other businesses, and forbid most Gaza residents the
right to work elsewhere or even leave. Gaza today is a humanitarian
crisis, its population living in prison-like conditions. 






              
Hamas—which
governs Gaza—is not about liberating Palestine as a secular state free
of imperialist domination; it represents forces that would restructure
the oppressive relations that enslave the people of Palestine within an
Islamic theocratic framework. 

              
Hamas has
repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to
negotiate a permanent truce in order to lift the siege of Gaza. A truce
was finally agreed upon in June 2008, under which Hamas agreed to stop
missile attacks, and Israel was supposed to end its blockade of Gaza.
According to the pro-Israel New York Times, Hamas was
"largely successful" in stopping the launches of the Qassam missiles,
some of which are carried out by groups other than Hamas. But Israel
refused to ease its blockade. Then, on November 4, Israel launched an
attack that killed six Palestinians. The next day, it sealed all Gaza’s
borders, intensifying what had already been a horrific situation for
the people. 






              
Israel’s siege has turned Gaza into
the world’s largest open-air concentration camp—its impoverished
inhabitants are being starved and subject to indescribable suffering.
80% live below the poverty line. About 97% of factories and workshops
cannot operate. Gaza’s industrial zone is completely closed.
Unemployment is about 50%. In 2006 Israel bombed Gaza's only power
plant, making Gaza dependent on power supplies from Israel and Egypt.
Fresh drinking water is often not available for days at a time.
Irregular power means that sewage treatment plants cannot function and
that raw sewage gets dumped into the Mediterranean. Medicines are in
short supply, and Israeli bans on travel mean that Palestinians seeking
advanced medical care that is not available in Gaza are left to die.
(For more on the state of Gaza under siege, see the article from A
World to Win News Service, "Gaza: Tottering on the Brink," in Revolution #150, available online at revcom.us)




              
In
light of all this, the claims by Israel and the U.S. that the current
bloody invasion is a “response” to small-scale and largely ineffective
rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza are obscene. They are like the
method the U.S. used to justify the genocide of Native Americans by
settlers and the military: according to the official narrative, that
story “began” with claims of the first Native American scalping of some
settler family or soldier—and then anything goes to “respond” to what
is declared an atrocity. What came before—what provoked the scalping,
the genocidal lies and brutality visited upon the indigenous peoples,
and America’s actual agenda of forcible conquest and
colonialization—all this is ignored and covered up.




              
Even
by its own terms, Israel’s longstanding policies of near-starvation,
and the current massive reign of death from the air are violations of
international law—serving as “collective punishment” against the entire
population of Gaza. This collective punishment of all Gaza residents is
contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention and is illegal under
international law. Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, for
example, states that "to the fullest extent of the means available to
it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical
supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the
necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the
resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."

              
Mass Opposition Needed Here, and Now!

              
Israel
has served as U.S. imperialism’s unsinkable aircraft carrier and
regional enforcer in the Middle East for decades, and the U.S. has been
Israel’s staunchest backer, providing it with billions of dollars a
year in aid. And, with the “war on terror”—in reality a war for
empire—Israel’s strategic relationship with the U.S. has become even
more pivotal. 






              
According to the U.S. Campaign to
End the Israeli Occupation, in addition to supplying the F16 fighter
jets and the missiles used in Israel’s recent attack, the U.S.
transferred more than $200 million worth of spare parts for Israel’s
fleet of F16's between 2001-2006. “In July 2008, the United States gave
Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel. Last year, the
United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer
to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and ‘bunker buster’ missiles.”
And according to U.S. government officials, the U.S. was fully informed
ahead of time of Israeli plans and apparently gave them a green light. 






              
In
short, Israel’s massacre and its ongoing crimes against the people of
Gaza could not have happened without U.S. support—and people living in
the U.S. have the responsibility to oppose the crimes of “our”
government. Protests have erupted across the Middle East, and there
have also been protests (with more planned) in the U.S. and Europe. 






              
There
needs to be massive, visible political opposition to the U.S.-sponsored
assault on Gaza, here, and now. Silence and acquiescence to these
crimes in any form is complicity. The world needs to see that within
the U.S., there are people who are not going along with the crimes
being sponsored by their government.

      
      
Send us your comments.






      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/citizenstruth/attachments/20081229/17c05fab/attachment-0001.html>