1.4 million Palestinians facing genocide

[SuperMac]

A great report form John Pilger about the impending genocide facing the Palestinians in Gaza, while the world does nothing. Ofcourse their will be the apologists on for the zionists, but how anyone deny the parallels with the nazi's, well I don't know what to say -

A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. "Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide," wrote the senior UN relief official, Jan Egeland, and Jan Eliasson, then Swedish foreign minister, in Le Figaro. They described people "living in a cage", cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes.

Egeland and Eliasson wrote this four months ago as an attempt to break the silence  in Europe whose obedient alliance with the United States and Israel has sought to reverse the democratic result that brought Hamas to power in last year's Palestinian elections. The horror in Gaza has since been compounded; a family of 18 has died beneath a 500-pound American/Israeli bomb; unarmed women have been mown down at point-blank range. Dr David Halpin, one of the few Britons to break what he calls "this medieval siege", reported the killing of 57 children by artillery, rockets and small arms and was shown evidence that civilians are Israel's true targets, as in Lebanon last summer. A friendin Gaza, Dr Mona El-Farra, emailed: "I see the effects of the relentless sonic booms [a collective punishment by the Israeli air force] and artillery on my 13-year-old daughter. At night, she shivers with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. I try to make her feel safe, but when the bombs sound I flinch and scream..."

When I was last in Gaza, Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, showed me the results of a remarkable survey. "The statistic I personally find unbearable," he said, "is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma you see why: 99.2 per cent of their homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed." Dr Dahlan invited me to sit in on one of his clinics. There were 30 children, all of them traumatized. He gave each pencil and paper and asked them to draw. They drew pictures of grotesque acts of terror and of women streaming tears.

The excuse for the latest Israeli terror was the capture last June of an Israeli soldier, a member of an illegal occupation, by the Palestinian resistance. This was news. The kidnapping a few days earlier by Israel of two Palestinians – two of thousands taken over the years – was not news. An historian and two foreign journalists have reported the truth about Gaza. All three are Israelis. They are frequently called traitors. The historian Ilan Pappe has documented that "the genocidal policy [in Gaza] is not formulated in a vacuum" but part of Zionism's deliberate, historic ethnic cleansing. Gideon Levy and Amira Hass are reporters on the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. In November, Levy described how the people of Gaza were beginning to starve to death ... "there are thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment... the shadows of human beings roam the ruin... they only know the [Israeli army] will return and what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions."

Amira Hass, who has lived in Gaza, describes it as a prison that shames her people. She recalls how her mother, Hannah, was being marched from a cattle-train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen on a summer's day in 1944. "[She] saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking," she wrote. "This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking from the side'."

"Looking from the side" is what those of us do who are cowed into silence by the threat of being called anti-Semitic. Looking from the side is what too many western Jews do, while those Jews who honour the humane traditions of Judaism and say, "Not in our name!" are abused as "self-despising". Looking from the side is what almost the entire US Congress does, in thrall to or intimidated by a vicious Zionist "lobby". Looking from the side is what "even-handed" journalists do as they excuse the lawlessness that is the source of Israeli atrocities and supress the historic shifts in the Palestinian resistance, such as the implicit recognition of Israel by Hamas. The people of Gaza cry out for better.

John Pilger

[GweylTah]

Israel has a lot to answer for, but any chance of the wealthy Arab nations, none of them democracies of course, using even a miniiscule fraction of their wealth to help their brothers and sisters rather than allolwing them and this wound to fester?  It's not only Israel's problem or fault, as someone of Pilger's intelligence well knows. Pity he knows nothing about balance.

[armaghniac]

The Palestinians are pawns between the Arab and Muslim world generally and Israel. Places like Iran stir the pot about the "plight of the Palestinians" when they couldn't give a damn, while Isreal engages in blatent double-speak of the sort that Sinn Fein couldn't even aspire to.

[nifan]

Surely the likes of Jordan provides a lot of support for palestinian refugees

[SuperMac]

Israel has a lot to answer for, but any chance of the wealthy Arab nations, none of them democracies of course, using even a miniiscule fraction of their wealth to help their brothers and sisters rather than allolwing them and this wound to fester?  It's not only Israel's problem or fault, as someone of Pilger's intelligence well knows. Pity he knows nothing about balance.

" Israel has a lot to answer for "..." It's not only Israel's problem or fault, ". Ever occur to you, they wouldn't be facing genocide if the state of isreal didn't exist Einstein. Sure the other Arab states are guilty of standing idly by, but the 100% cause of the situation is the isreali state. It's like saying about the concentration camps in WW2 , " It's not only the Nazi's problem or fault "..... As for 'balance' and the isreali's excuse for bring about this terrible situation, well that one was always brought up to somehow excuse/justify brit attrocities in the six counties, though the Republicans were never allowed to provide 'balance' for their actions, broadcasting bands, media self cenorship etc Naturally been a unionist you'd have a special place in your heart for the poor isreali defence forces. Wouldn't you love if the UDR/RUC?brits etc could do the same to the Nationalists in the six counties.

[GweylTah]

Hilarous, but come back and debate properly when you're 12.

[stew]

Somebody needs to take care of the Palestinian people, the UN should do it as the arab nations dont have much interest in doing so but the israeli's/yanks wont let that happen.

Is it my imagination or did Israel exist before the late 1940's? 

The middle east is a cluster**** and has always been a breeding ground for hatred and divisiveness but something has got to give before a whole people are slaughtered.

[blast05]

but the 100% cause of the situation is the isreali state

Is this your serious 'informed' opinion on the matter 

[twotwocharlie]

armafgniac, why bring sinn fein into it.

[GweylTah]

armafgniac, why bring sinn fein into it.

Och you're awful preciious, love.

[scalder]

Gaza City = concentration camp – sounds very like what the British did to the Boers and the Nazis the Jews in the Ghettos.

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Is it my imagination or did Israel exist before the late 1940's? 


As far as I can remember, the state of Israel was formed in 1947.