The only way the world can work, as smaller nations and
groups gain power, is for all people in power to agree on some rules of
conduct. We live in a day when almost anyone; groups of minorities, NGOs,
unions, PACs or disgruntled dissentients can bring about disruption and pain to
anyone in power, including the US. Since
WW II, even superpowers with huge military forces have failed to provide safety
for their own population, much less for the world at large.
For this reason, world leaders came together and created
such joint organizations as the United Nations, International Criminal Court in
The Hague, and the Fourth Geneva Convention, all representing a set of rules by
which the world might live in a civilized manner..
That was then. Now, there is Israel which shows little regard
for International Law and yet insists on being blessed and excused by the
world.
Mr. Dore Gold has a very difficult job.[1] It
is to sanitize Israel ’s
campaign against the people of Gaza
in face of a United Nations Human Rights Council investigation. Gold’s defense
is, “You can’t go into any kind of legal proceedings when the judge and jury have
decided you are guilty before you have even walked into the courtroom.”[2] In
other words, kill someone in broad daylight before hundreds of witnesses and
you can claim that the jury is prejudiced.
The purpose of a
court hearing is to discern the truth of what happened and who is responsible. However, in the case of Israel ’s bombardment of Gaza , there is no question as to what
happened and who is responsible. Probably most of the world and anyone with access
to a newspaper or TV has seen Israel ’s
guilt and has reacted with condemnation. What other judgment could be made by
fair minded people when:
Again, F-16s, Apache helicopters
and warships bombard the densely crowded Gaza Strip day and night, blowing
apart apartment houses, offices and homes. Targets were chosen seemingly at
random, and aimed at punishing the whole population – half of whom are children.
During the first few days alone, fire from an offshore vessel killed four small
boys as they played soccer on the beach. An air strike on a center for the
disabled killed two patients and seriously injured four. A bomb destroyed a
seaside café, killing nine young men who were watching the World Cup. Another
missile slammed into a mosque during the even Ramadan prayers and killed 18
worshippers.
Gold is right, at least as far as I am concerned. I don’t need
a court to tell me this is wrong.
With no bomb shelters to protect
them, and surrounded by closed borders and unable to escape, more than 1,200
Palestinians were killed in the first 3
weeks, including at least 200 children. Six thousand Gazans were wounded. Meanwhile
Israel had cut off electricity supplies to Gaza and destroyed sewage pipes, so raw
sewage flowed in the streets. On July 20, one of the deadliest days, Israel tanks invaded the crowded Shejaiya
sections of Gaza City
As of this writing, more than 2,000 people have been killed,
twice as many children than combatants.
Again, Gold is right.
The massacre in Gaza
has not gone unnoticed. In fact, according to Desmond Tutu, writing in
Ha’aretz:
If you add together all the people
who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine
– in Cape Town , Washington ,
D.C., New York , New Delhi ,
London , Dublin
and Sydney , and
all other cities – this was arguably the largest active outcry by citizens
around a single cause ever in the history of the world.[4]
Hopefully the ICC and UN will condemn Israel for its war against an unarmed
civilization even though I doubt that Israel
will care as long as it is backed up by the United States . At least so far, neither has shown much
regard for International law which declares that Israel is legally responsible for
the welfare of the Palestinian population which it seems determined to reduce
to rubble.
Thomas
Are
August
19, 2014
.
[1] Dore Gold is an Israeli diplomat who has served in
various positions under several Israeli governments. He is the current
President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He was also an advisor to the former Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office.
[2] Dore
Gold, The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, August 16, 2014
[3] Rachelle Marshall , Israel Again Wreaks Vengeance on Gaza ,
The Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs, September, 2014, p.8.
[4] Desmond
Tutu, My Plea to the People of Israel : Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine
Maybe you should return the land your churches and homes are build on to the native people of north American and go back to Europe.
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