By Mazin Qumsiyeh *
Illustration by Bendib
On 16 October 1935, a barrel marked "cement" fell as it was being unloaded from ships at the port in Jaffa. The broken barrel contained guns, grenades, and ammunition and was one of many secret shipments to the underground Zionist terrorist militias in Palestine. That incident among others (including the British government collusion in marginalizing natives in Palestine while encouraging Zionist Jewish migration and takeover) led in the year after to the great Palestinian uprising of 1936.
Before the state of Israel was founded, these terrorist underground militias that were to become the Israel "Defense" Forces committed over 100 massacres of civilians. The atrocities intensified in the months leading up to the "declaration of indeperndence". In March and April 1948 alone over 25 massacres were committed including infamous ones such as Tantura and Deir Yassin. Israeli leaders themselves credited these actions as of great use in getting the Palestinians to evacuate Palestine so that a Jewish state could be established without a demographic "burden" of "non-Jews" (Christains and Muslims). The massacres continued after the war with government ordered slaughters at Kufr Kassem in 1956 (see http://www.taayush.org/new/kassem.html), and more until the latest slaughter of 1400 in three weeks in Gaza (most of them civilians). This showed that the state of Israel is still addicted to these policies of terror.
Israeli leaders as before try to intimidate the world into silence and some do comply (the US and some Western Countries also feed this addiction with money and weapons and use of veto power to protect Israel from Internatioanl law). However, ethnic cleansing via state terrorism has become more exposed over the decades and Israeli leaders have been frustrated. They started using other coercive tools to affect the Zionist goal of a Palestine free from Palestinians: economic strangulations, bureaucracy, unjust laws analogous to the Nutremberg laws etc. The major credit for the decreased effectiveness of slaughter as an instrument of policy is Palestinian resistance (most of it civil resistance). The second factor is that in the age of the internet, governments and wealthy racists have less control over information. The public even in the US, Holland, France, England etc is largely aware and disgusted by their governments' support of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. We need to now translate the public mood and sentiment into change in government policy. That takes determination, energy and opportunity. We have an opportunity NOW.
The UN Human Rights Council voted by 25 : 6 to accept the Goldstone report despite intensive lobbying by the Israeli government and by the (Zionist dominated) US government. 25 Countries voted for the resolution including China, Russia, Egypt, India, Brazil, Jordan, Pakistan, South Africa, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Djibouti, Liberia, Qatar, Senegal, Mauritius, Nicaragua, and Nigeria. Six countries voted against the report: US, Italy, Holland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Ukraine. 11 countries abstained: Bosnia, Burkina-Faso, Cameron, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Belgium, South Korea, Slovenia and Uruguay. Others did not show-up to vote. Citizens of all those countries should write to their representatives in government (Presidents, parliamentarians etc) and commend those who supported accountability for war criminals and shame those who voted against it or abstained (spineless) thus becoming complicity in such war crimes. We must also reject the attempts by some countries to save Israel by asking it to conduct an internal investigation; you cannot ask a criminal to investigate his crime and Israel never found its leaders culpable for even one of the hundreds of massacres they committed). (British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy wrote a joint letter to Netanyahu with diplomatic language that only means more green light to do state terror in the name of "security")
The importance of this is not to be underestimated (hopefully eventually shocking the Israeli public out of its denial). This worries the Israeli government. The vote and potential downstream events have dominated the interest and talk of Israeli media and politicians. According to Haaretz: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Friday that Israel must prepare for a protracted struggle against a damning United Nations report.." and daughter of Irgun terrorist and war criminal Tzipi Livni stated "Today's vote was political and cynical. Israel will continue to do the right thing and to protect its citizens, and will continue the international battle against the report to ensure the legal protection of IDF officers, wherever they may be." The apartheid government is quickly forming a high level task force to exonerate itself and all its criminals. The Turkish government also took principled positions adding to the apartheid system delusions of denial and desperation (far better than positions of Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt and Israel is also panicking on this; imagine if Arab countries cut their ties) I think all of us should create grassroot committees all around the world to ensure accountability and to redouble our efforts on boycotts, divestments, and sanctions per the Palestinian Civil Society call to Action (http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52 ).
EI exclusive video: Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago [Olmert is one of those war criminals who should be at the Hague for his crimes in Gaza and beyond]
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/10/17/protesters-shout-down-ehud-olmert-in-chicago/
Things are changing: American Jews rethink Israel
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/horowitz_weiss
Why Are Palestinians Losing Faith in Obama? Ask Rahm Emanuel
The Palestinians have the Cairo speech to hold on to, but I have bad news for them. Bibi is eating Obama's lunch. No one in that top 50, or the top 500 have any loyalty to the oppressed residents of the West Bank or Gaza. Official Washington has been drinking the AIPAC kool-aid for so long they don't know what all the fuss is about.
http://wallwritings.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/why-are-palestinians-losing-faith-in-obama-ask-rahm-emanuel/
Episcopal News Service: JERUSALEM: Evicted Palestinian family keeps watch near home taken by settlers By Rev. Pat McCaughan
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_115574_ENG_HTM.htm
* Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home. Author of Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle
http://qumsiyeh.org
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