Israel is lying to the world about Gaza

Palestinian child shot dead by IOF
troops during an incursion into
Deir al-Balah on 19 Feb. 2008

By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied E. Jerusalem

For the past few weeks, I made strenuous efforts to reach
a dignified ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in coordination with
some peace-minded Jews. Our goal was to save lives and prevent
further escalation, and give the starved and thoroughly-tormented
people of Gaza a respite from daily killings and bombings by the
Israeli occupation army.

Our efforts bore some fruit, and the Palestinian authorities in
Gaza assured us of their willingness to reciprocate any genuine
Israeli measure toward lifting the harsh blockade and putting
an end to daily Israeli atrocities which have killed and maimed
thousands of Palestinians, the vast bulk of whom are innocent civilians.

Even the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) regime in
Ramallah voiced a certain readiness to get involved and accept
a prospective balanced agreement that would restore a semblance
of calm and normality of life to the Gaza Strip.

Some PA officials expressed a few reservations about our
proposed truce in Gaza, which can and should be extended to the
West Bank. However, these reservations stemmed not from any
real objections to the draft ceasefire agreement itself but rather
from a certain feeling that the draft agreement didn’t accord the
Ramallah leadership a prominent role.

Well, I have no objection to according PA Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas a leading role in negotiating a balanced ceasefire that would save lives.

Non the less, what I have seen is that the ball is not in the
Palestinian court, but squarely in the Israeli court.

Again the Palestinian authorities, in both Gaza and Ramallah, are
willing and ready to stop, even immediately, all attacks on Israel
provided Israeli reciprocity.

Last week, I personally challenged the Israeli government to
prove to Israeli public and to the world at large that the problem
lied in the firing of the Qassam projectiles, not in the criminal
blockade and daily hideous crimes perpetrated by a nuclear power
against a tormented and helpless people who can hardly find the
means to feed their starving children.

I still challenge the Israeli government to accept a
truce in Gaza. The ball is in your court.

Yes, I understand that Israel is worried that a ceasefire with
Hamas would imply a certain recognition of the Islamic movement.
Well, Hamas is not really begging for an Israeli recognition. It is
Israel that needs Muslims’ recognition, and as long as it behaves in
manifestly criminal manner, it won’t get it.

Israel is a huge military power and what the Israeli army has been
doing is similar to what the Gestapo was doing in Europe during WWII.
I am saying this because when the Israeli army kills a hundred or two
hundred Palestinians for each and every Israeli killed by Palestinians,
one can’t really speak of clashes and war. In plain English,
this is a massacre.

In light, Israel could easily stop the killings and relax the
harsh siege for one or two weeks in order to test
Palestinian compliance.

Today, Israeli leaders are running out of pretexts and
excuses and lies and red herring.

On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claimed during a
joint press conference with her visiting Romanian counterpart,
Adrian Cioroianu., that Israeli atrocities and sanctions were a
reaction to the firing of the Qassam projectiles by
Palestinians onto Israel.

Last week, Livni organized a PR tour for dozens of foreign
diplomats to the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, ostensibly in
preparation of another Nazi-like blitz into Gaza that could leave
hundreds or thousands of mostly innocent
Palestinians dead and maimed.

There, Livni asked the diplomats in typical Israeli prevarication :
“would you tolerate a situation where your population centers are
bombarded with rockets on a daily basis.”

Of course, Livni wouldn’t tell the diplomats why the Palestinians
were firing these mostly innocuous projectiles onto Israel.

She wouldn’t tell them that Israel was carrying out a virtual
genocide against these helpless Gazans, forcing some desperate
Palestinians to resort to some desperate measures aimed at
deterring Israel from exceeding the monthly quota of deaths the
only “democracy in the Middle East” is inflicting on
these helpless Palestinians.

Finally, the EU and other countries, should watch Israeli behavior
very closely. The reason for that is that Israel is awaiting
impatiently the opportune time to gang up on Gaza and commit
crimes against humanity there.

Stopping the Qassams would be the declared pretext, but And
the real goal is to give the Israeli army and public a psychological
rehabilitation from the botched war with Hizbullah 20 months ago.
Well, can’t Israelis get rehabilitated without shedding Palestinian blood?

Another possible motive is to try to decapitate
Hamas in one full swoop in order to eliminate the last-remaining
credible opposition to the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.

In any case, this would be wishful thinking.
Assassinations, after all, have always failed to
coerce a people into submission.