A Million Palestinians Threatened with Starvation by Israel
The Israelis already have the Gaza Strip under military siege, carefully controlling what and who goes in and out of it. They have now cut off most fuel, and the United Nations has been forced to stop distributing food aid.
This Israeli government action is an unvarnished war crime. It is known as collective punishment. There was already hunger and malnutrition among Palestinian children, which will now be worsened.
Hamas told Jimmy Carter it was ready to negotiate.
The Olmert government is not interested in negotiating, apparently, even though nothing the Likud and the Kadima "Likud Light" has done since 2001 has diminished the salience of the Gaza Muslim fundamentalist party, including a concerted campaign of murder, kidnapping, assault and collective punishment. Despite the violent groups on its margins, Hamas itself has at various points indicated a willingness to play ordinary politics, but Olmert will be satisfied with nothing less than destroying it. So far it isn't going well for him.
Cutting off fuel to the Gazans and provoking a cut-off of UN food aid is not only criminal but also stupid. It is difficult to imagine such mean-spirited sanctions against civilians having any policy effect whatsoever, so they are just making Israel look bad.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman called Carter a bigot for his diplomacy.
Gillerman called Hizbullah, an Arab party, "animals" in summer of 2006. Would he like to expand the reference to include other races? How many of us exactly are Untermenschen in his view? For Likudniks to call Jimmy Carter a "bigot" is sort of like the Ku Klux Klan denouncing Nelson Mandela for racial insensitivity.
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PS A reader wrote in that if it is all right to criticize Zionists without being anti-Semitic it should be all right to criticize Hizbullah without being anti-Arab. But I'm not talking about criticizing Hizbullah, which I have done. I'm talking about dehumanizing them and calling them animals. I think that remark demonstrated a racist mindset on Gillerman's part, of which he should be ashamed. And I don't see why the US should let him into the country to smear our brave, humanitarian ex-presidents as "bigots." Jimmy Carter has built homes for the poor, helped nearly wipe out a deadly parasite in Africa, helped negotiate social peace around the world impartially. Not to mention all the good he did Israel in neutralizing Egypt, its most powerful military rival (and Gillerman and his like repaid him with adventurism in Lebanon and thumbing their nose at American entreaties to make peace with the Palestinians). What good has Gillerman ever done anyone? He isn't good enough to shine Jimmy Carter's shoes.
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/26/2008 12:54:00 PM
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12 Comments:
A million people are threatened with starvation by , not only and obviously Israel , but also from the american puppet egyptian government ,who could made food available for the Gaza strip and does not . And I am also sure that if for example the european community would send boats whith food to Gaza , the Israeli would not use force against them . It is all the prowestern puppets and western governments that have decided to punish this people whith starvation for voting Hamas. Not only Israel is to blame but also nearly everyone of us that does not fight this criminal governments .
Think the unthinkable. Cut off all aid to Israel including the threat of US intervention. Allow the nation the right to cease to exist, then observe how not having Israel actually benefits the US.
Israel Accused of Genocide
US lawyer seeks Iran's help to sue over Gaza siege
By Chris Gelken
25 April 2008
TEHRAN -- In a dramatic plea made during a live broadcast of regional affairs debate program Middle East Today on international broadcaster PressTV, an American lawyer called on Tehran to support his bid to sue Israel for genocide against the Palestinians.
"I would like to propose here today on this program that President Mahmood Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei give me the authority to sue Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for inflicting genocide against the Palestinian people," said panelist Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law.
Speaking Thursday evening on the phone from Champaign, Illinois, Boyle said, "I think that would be one way that the deadlock at the United Nations Security Council could be very easily broken and could shake up the American people and the European Union to the developing genocide being inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza today.
Boyle was referring to the repeated use of the US veto at the UNSC to block any resolutions critical of its key ally [guess who] in the Middle East.
Note the irony. Peres must have recognised it.
Peres marks Warsaw ghetto uprising
15 April 2008
The throngs of Jews and non-Jews from Poland, Israel and as far away as Australia who gathered in and around Poland's Warsaw Ghetto Square on Tuesday proved that time has not diminished respect for heroism and the refusal to bow to a bestial enemy.
President Shimon Peres, who was also present, read a May 1, 1943, extract from the diary of Zivia Lubetkin, one of the leaders of the uprising, that told of the fighters sitting in the dark and clutching their weapons as they were surrounded by thousands of fearful Jews waiting for some sign of hope.
The Germans defeated the ghetto fighters, Peres said, but they were not the victors in historic terms.
"What legacy did the brutal Nazis leave to their children and future generations? Only shame and disgrace, accursedness and ruin," he said. "But from an historical perspective there was never a victory of this kind - the triumph of Man over the human animal, a prime example of the conquest by the higher spirit over the darkness of the soul; the triumph of the few against the many. "The few had a conscience," said Peres. "The many were driven by Satan."
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Q: What's the difference between 1943 Warsaw and Palestine/Gaza in 2008?
A: Palestine has nicer weather. Not so much rain.
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Religious conservatives in the US, such as Pat Robertson's protege Jay Sekulow, last week campaigned on the AM radio to have Jimmy Carter's passport revoked for his crime of meeting with Hamas representatives.
Yeah, I think you would find Hizbullah, those "animals" in Gillerman's terms, would be Arabs.
I think we all know what would happen if a UN ambassador called members of the Israeli Kadima Party "animals."
Gillerman is guilty of exactly what he is charging others with and should be excluded from the United States for smearing a former US president as a "bigot."
To B.J.,
Hezbollah attaching cluster bombs to rockets? More like chutzpah for you to even suggest that. See this BBC report.
Prof. Cole,
I would think someone of your intelligence would be able to think a bit more logically.
You accuse Gillerman of RACISM against Arabs because he called Hizballah "Animals" and "Hizballah are Arabs." Yet - you go on and on about how when we criticize Israel or "Zionists" it is not "Anti-Semitic" and it is deplorable for someone to try to silence criticism of Israel by calling the critic "anti-semitic." Can you explain why criticizing Israel is not anti-semitic even though it "consists of Jews" but criticizing Hizballah is racist because they "consist of Arabs?"
Furthermore, if you knew anything about Israel you would know that Nazareth is an ARAB city in Israel. So to call Gillerman racist because he calls Hizballah "animals" for indiscrimanitly targeting an ARAB city is ridiculous. Please stick to the facts when you make your analysis.
Note that the Zionist commentators don't want to talk about the semi-starvation of Palestinian children in Gaza. They want to talk about whether it is all right to accuse Gillerman of racism. It is a typical rhetorical trick of the Right-- take offense at some minor part of a posting and represent yourself as an aggrieved party even though you are literally taking food out of hungry childrens' mouths. It is disgusting.
Gillerman's words and actions in the past are typical of the right wing mindset that has damaged both Israel and the United States.
Around the world we see this sort of authoritarianism, ignorance, and self-righteousness emerging in a people who, historically speaking, have been at the forefront of human rights struggles.
There are still plenty of Jews in the US and Israel who are still committed to being the 'light unto the nations', but sometimes I worry that our numbers are dwindling.
http://www.hebronorphans.blogspot.com
RAIDED - Hebron Girls Orphanage Sewing Workshop
HEBRON At 1:00 am this morning, April 30th, the Israeli Military raided the Hebron Girls' Orphanage near the intersection of Salaam and Al Adel (Peace and Justice) Streets. Acting on orders issued by Major General Shemni, soldiers looted the workshop of all its sewing and processing machines, office equipment, rolls of cloth, finished clothing and supplies. CPT members documented, with still photos and video, approximately 40 Israeli soldiers emptying the workshop contents into 2 - 40ft. trucks. The estimated value of the physical material taken is $45,000 US. The cost in terms of the fear and terror instilled in the hearts of the little girls living above the workshop is much higher.
Members of Christian Peacemaker Teams and other internationals from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Germany, Holland, Scotland and the US have been sleeping in the orphanage. Their concern is for the children who live in fear of the military forcing them out of the place they've come to call home. Their hope last night was that their presence would forestall the army's raid on the workshop. They hoped in vain. CPT's Art Arbour decried this latest effort by the Israeli military in its campaign to close the orphanages, "How can grown men do this to little children?" CPT members documented with still photos 40 Israeli soldiers clearing out the workshop
Statements of support for the orphans have come in from former President Jimmy Carter, from EU Vice President Luisa Morgentini and from representatives of many international organizations worried about the fate of the orphans in Hebron. Please join with them in supporting the orphans.
Phone 972-(0)2- 222-8485 or e-mail cptheb@palnet.com to learn more.
To Professor Cole:
With regard to Gaza: When the Israelis withdrew their last troop from the territory in 2005 and rockets continued to be fired from Gaza into Israel via Hamas, how do you expect any country, as a sovereign nation required to protect its own population, to respond to a threatening force after expelling its own people in order to promote the peace process? Should peaceful negotiation be the answer to terrorist attacks (especially after Israel withdrew? Would you hold other countries to this same standard? With all due respect and without any sarcasm- please inform me how Israel should have dealt with Gaza
With regard to the Hizbullah "animal" debate: Although I would not have used Gillerman's words as a politician, it is hard to respect a group whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was quoted saying "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli." (The Atlantic, May 2008)
Juan, your site is kind of indispensable because of the vast breadth of sources you bring together in one place. And of course your fluency in three of the languages involved (I’m assuming you don’t speak Hebrew, but if you do, then four.) However the bias and illogic you display when it comes to Israel really brings your opinions and I hate to say it, your translations into question.
Gillerman may be a racist. Who knows? I don’t know that much about the guy. You have provided no reason to assume or even suspect it. And your inability to answer people who question your statements about this is rather disheartening. You must know enough about logic to realize that to say Hizbollah is made up of Arabs, Gillerman called Hizbollah animals, Gillerman thinks Arabs are animals is simply illogical. Here’s an alternate description of what I think Gillerman was getting at, Hezbollah intentionally targets Israeli civilians and exposes Lebanese civilians to mortal danger as part of it’s political plan, therefore they are animals.
Would you think someone is a racist if they referred to the Irgun as animals? Is it anti-German to call the Getsapo animals?
You may not share Gillerman’s opinion of the Hizbollah as he may not share your opinion of the Irgun but he isn’t calling Arabs animals.
And then when someone calls your reasoning into question you call them rightist and unsympathetic to Palestinian suffering? Listen, I’m definitely no rightist and I think you should know that accepting your reasoning is no litmus test for having sympathy for the Palestinians.
And finally, “exclude Gillerman from the US”? Since when did you support the idea of excluding people from the US or the UN for expressing an opinion you don’t share or not being patriotic enough? Do you feel the first amendment doesn’t cover foreigners? Would the US be a stronger country once we start banning foreigners with offensive opinions? A strong argument could be made that his judgment makes him an inappropriate choice for Israel to have over here – but bar him? C’mon.
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