zenekar
12-12-2008, 07:27 AM
Israel Must End the Gaza blockade!
The African World
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
December 11, 2008, BlackCommentator.com
https://www.blackcommentator.com/303/303_aw_israel_end_gaza_blockade.html
When it comes to Israel's blockade of Gaza, the silence is
deafening, at least outside of Palestine. One wonders how
many international conventions the Israelis need to break
before there is an actual global outcry and action against
their repeated human rights abuses against Palestine. The
blockade of Gaza is only the latest in a long list of such
abuses, but the scale of the abuse is beyond dramatic.
Israel justifies its blockade of Gaza, and their repeated
refusals to consistently allow in humanitarian aid, due to
rocket attacks against Israeli positions. Yet the reality of
the situation is a bit more complicated. From the moment that
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist party, won free elections in
2006, there was a concerted effort by Israel and the USA to
destabilize the situation and ultimately to destroy Hamas. In
point of fact, both the USA and Israel were more than content
to permit Palestinian elections as long as the candidates
that Israel and the USA favored, won. When this did not
happen, both countries went into action in order to destroy
the Palestinian government.
If one has any questions as to whether this suggestion is
paranoid, one need only read the April 2008 Vanity Fair
article 'The Gaza Bombshell' for a remarkable exposure of the
US-led plot to carry out a coup against the Hamas government.
Once Hamas got a hint of the plot, a semi-civil war unfolded
which resulted in Hamas military units taking over Gaza, and
the further splintering of Palestine.
Since the Palestinian semi-civil war, the Israelis have been
doing all that they can to further isolate and destroy Hamas
in particular and Gaza in general. Thus, their blockade of
Gaza is nothing short of 'collective punishment', a war crime
according to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In other words, the
civilian population of Gaza is being punished by the Israelis
as a means of forcing Hamas to submit. One can ask the
legitimate question, how is such a course of action different
from terrorism?
Although Israeli naval authorities permitted a symbolic
violation of the blockade by a small ship carrying relief
supplies, on December 1st the Israelis turned back a Libyan
ship bringing a more substantial amount of assistance. While
this drama has been unfolding, Gaza is running out of money,
fuel and food. Humanitarian organizations have been
repeatedly sounding the alarm, but this has been all but
ignored outside of the Arab World.
Human rights abuses inflicted against the Palestinians are
regularly excused away by mainstream opinion in the USA. The
excusing away is largely framed in terms of defending
Israel's right to exist, and permitting Israel to do what it
needs to do in order to survive. But this defense ignores the
daily horrors inflicted on the Palestinian people, Gaza being
only one, but the illegal so-called apartheid Wall built by
Israel in and around the Palestinian territories being
another notorious example. All of this is unfolding, of
course, in the context of a denial of the Palestinian
people's right to exist.
The attempt to block discussion of Palestine in the USA has
suffered some set backs. Former President Jimmy Carter's
best-selling book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid helped to
begin a reframing of the conflict. Nevertheless, Carter's
treatment at the 2008 Democratic National Convention (where
he was not permitted to speak) seems to indicate an on-going
fear that anyone who challenges the establishment 'wisdom'
when it comes to Palestine is a contagious pariah. In fact,
the attorney Alan Dershowitz has claimed that he was
personally responsible for undermining Carter's speaking at
the Democratic Convention because of Carter's views on
Palestine.
So, Gaza represents another test, less for the world and more
for the leaders and people of the USA. President-elect Obama
has been relatively silent on the question of Palestine, at
least as of recent, but his appointments do not make one
particularly optimistic that a different approach to the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict is in store. While one should
not jump to conclusions, it is worth suggesting that no
change in the US relationship to the conflict, and
particularly toward Palestinian national self-determination,
is in store until and unless a significant, organized, and
vocal constituency emerges in the USA, upholding of
Palestinian rights as well as fighting for a just peace. This
is what makes the work of groups such as the 'US Campaign to
End the Israeli Occupation' so critical. That said, the scale
of this work must be increased geometrically.
Silence is not an acceptable alternative, because continued
silence toward human rights abuses against the Palestinian
people means the removal or elimination of a people, a stated
objective, by the way, of a segment of the Israeli ruling
elite.
[BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is
a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the
immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author
of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a
New Path toward Social Justice (University of California
Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the
USA.]
_____________________________________________
The African World
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
December 11, 2008, BlackCommentator.com
https://www.blackcommentator.com/303/303_aw_israel_end_gaza_blockade.html
When it comes to Israel's blockade of Gaza, the silence is
deafening, at least outside of Palestine. One wonders how
many international conventions the Israelis need to break
before there is an actual global outcry and action against
their repeated human rights abuses against Palestine. The
blockade of Gaza is only the latest in a long list of such
abuses, but the scale of the abuse is beyond dramatic.
Israel justifies its blockade of Gaza, and their repeated
refusals to consistently allow in humanitarian aid, due to
rocket attacks against Israeli positions. Yet the reality of
the situation is a bit more complicated. From the moment that
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist party, won free elections in
2006, there was a concerted effort by Israel and the USA to
destabilize the situation and ultimately to destroy Hamas. In
point of fact, both the USA and Israel were more than content
to permit Palestinian elections as long as the candidates
that Israel and the USA favored, won. When this did not
happen, both countries went into action in order to destroy
the Palestinian government.
If one has any questions as to whether this suggestion is
paranoid, one need only read the April 2008 Vanity Fair
article 'The Gaza Bombshell' for a remarkable exposure of the
US-led plot to carry out a coup against the Hamas government.
Once Hamas got a hint of the plot, a semi-civil war unfolded
which resulted in Hamas military units taking over Gaza, and
the further splintering of Palestine.
Since the Palestinian semi-civil war, the Israelis have been
doing all that they can to further isolate and destroy Hamas
in particular and Gaza in general. Thus, their blockade of
Gaza is nothing short of 'collective punishment', a war crime
according to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In other words, the
civilian population of Gaza is being punished by the Israelis
as a means of forcing Hamas to submit. One can ask the
legitimate question, how is such a course of action different
from terrorism?
Although Israeli naval authorities permitted a symbolic
violation of the blockade by a small ship carrying relief
supplies, on December 1st the Israelis turned back a Libyan
ship bringing a more substantial amount of assistance. While
this drama has been unfolding, Gaza is running out of money,
fuel and food. Humanitarian organizations have been
repeatedly sounding the alarm, but this has been all but
ignored outside of the Arab World.
Human rights abuses inflicted against the Palestinians are
regularly excused away by mainstream opinion in the USA. The
excusing away is largely framed in terms of defending
Israel's right to exist, and permitting Israel to do what it
needs to do in order to survive. But this defense ignores the
daily horrors inflicted on the Palestinian people, Gaza being
only one, but the illegal so-called apartheid Wall built by
Israel in and around the Palestinian territories being
another notorious example. All of this is unfolding, of
course, in the context of a denial of the Palestinian
people's right to exist.
The attempt to block discussion of Palestine in the USA has
suffered some set backs. Former President Jimmy Carter's
best-selling book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid helped to
begin a reframing of the conflict. Nevertheless, Carter's
treatment at the 2008 Democratic National Convention (where
he was not permitted to speak) seems to indicate an on-going
fear that anyone who challenges the establishment 'wisdom'
when it comes to Palestine is a contagious pariah. In fact,
the attorney Alan Dershowitz has claimed that he was
personally responsible for undermining Carter's speaking at
the Democratic Convention because of Carter's views on
Palestine.
So, Gaza represents another test, less for the world and more
for the leaders and people of the USA. President-elect Obama
has been relatively silent on the question of Palestine, at
least as of recent, but his appointments do not make one
particularly optimistic that a different approach to the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict is in store. While one should
not jump to conclusions, it is worth suggesting that no
change in the US relationship to the conflict, and
particularly toward Palestinian national self-determination,
is in store until and unless a significant, organized, and
vocal constituency emerges in the USA, upholding of
Palestinian rights as well as fighting for a just peace. This
is what makes the work of groups such as the 'US Campaign to
End the Israeli Occupation' so critical. That said, the scale
of this work must be increased geometrically.
Silence is not an acceptable alternative, because continued
silence toward human rights abuses against the Palestinian
people means the removal or elimination of a people, a stated
objective, by the way, of a segment of the Israeli ruling
elite.
[BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is
a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the
immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author
of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a
New Path toward Social Justice (University of California
Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the
USA.]
_____________________________________________