Post by Xanth on Jul 28, 2006 11:12:36 GMT -5
I feel that Israel should never give Gaza up. They won it in war, and it is a strategic position for them. I'm amazed at the rationilization of the other side, but it does give you some insight.
informationclearinghouse.info/article14204.htm
Accepting Israeli Distortions To Justify Aggression
By: Ahmed Motiar
07/26/07 "Information Clearing House" -- -- When will the Media stop being complicit in these crimes?
International law provides people under occupation both the moral and legal right to resist their occupiers. Hence, those resisting occupation can never be labeled as “terrorists”. It is therefore both immoral and unjust for George Bush, Tony Blair and anyone else to condemn the Palestinians for exercising their moral right to resist occupation. And let us not be fooled into believing that the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza ended the occupation.
All the “withdrawal” of Israeli settlers did was change the “composition” of the occupation from several mini prisons, like the Bantustans in apartheid South Africa, to one big, giant prison. This helped Israel create the impression that the occupation was over when the reality was it continued its occupation by controlling all entry points through land, air and sea. This made it easier for Israel to control the population through collective punishments as it did by imposing sanctions and starving the whole population for electing a government that did not meet with Israel’s approval. This Israeli strangle-hold over Gaza offers the best proof that the Israeli claim that its occupation had ended, is a big lie.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying power is responsible for the well-being of the population under its control. Instead, Israel has imposed sanctions starving the population, which is both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Sadly, some governments and mainstream media have seen fit to blame the “victims” of aggression for the present crisis instead of the aggressor: Israel. If we fail to speak out, if we remain silent, we all become complicit in the war crimes Israel is committing against the Palestinians. Martin Luther King expressed it best when he said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. A right delayed is a right denied. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
The present Israeli attacks against Palestinians in Lebanon and Gaza expose the moral bankruptcy of Israel’s position. Israeli attacks killing civilians in the occupied territories is described as “collateral damage”, while Palestinian resistance to occupation and brutality that leads to loss of civilian lives is labeled as “terrorism”. In the present crisis, both the Hamas and Hizbullah resistance groups have targeted soldiers, which are legitimate military targets, while the Israelis are clearly targeting civilians and civil infrastructures such as roads, bridges, electric power plants, gas stations, water facilities and mass killing directed against an innocent population. By Israel’s own definition, it stands condemned as a terrorist State.
The Israeli propaganda machine, recognizing their military actions are of a terrorist nature, are feverishly trying to camouflage their own terrorism by labeling the legitimate “capture” of their soldiers by the Palestinian resistance as “kidnapping”. Soldiers don’t get “kidnapped”; they are “captured” and become prisoners of war to be exchanged for one’s own prisoners in return.
The Israeli claim of a higher moral ground for going to war to retrieve its three captured soldiers is totally stripped away when Israel itself has “kidnapped” not hundreds but thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Is it not hypocritical that it is Israel that has kidnapped civilians, which is a terrorist action by any standard, but it is Hamas and Hizbullah who have captured soldiers that are labeled as terrorist? Also, interestingly, it is Hamas and Hizbullah that have sought prisoner exchanges to end the crisis, while it is Israel that has rejected prisoner exchange and opted instead for war targeting mostly civilians and collective punishment which is a crime against humanity.
It is essential that Israel’s excuse for going to war is demolished. Israel claims it seeks to live in “peace” but its security is threatened by a constant bombardment of Qassam rockets into Israel by Palestinians. The media repeats this without exposing that in the first three months of this year, Israel fired 781 artillery shells into Gaza according to a June 21 report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In response, the Palestinians replied with 417 Qassam rockets. The report further details that from April to June 20, Israel launched 7,599 artillery shells into densely populated Gaza causing both death and destruction. Palestinians responded with 479 home-made Qassam rockets causing no deaths at all.
From June 9 to June 20 – a span of 11 days – 31 Palestinians were killed, including 10 children, six of them 5 years old or younger. This includes 7 members of the Ghalia family.
To add insult to injury, Israel followed this up with the “kidnapping” inside Gaza in the middle of the night of two civilians, a doctor and his brother, on June 24.
Israel’s escalation of the conflict by kidnappings and killings caused so much outrage among the Palestinians that the armed wing of Hamas declared an end to the ceasefire it had observed since March 2005, resulting in the attack on Israeli soldiers and the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit as a prisoner.
While Israel is clearly the aggressor, it is portraying itself as the victim that has the right to defend itself. It is a shame that the media goes along with this sham and does not challenge this duplicity by the obvious fact that a “bully” aggressor can never be a “victim” and therefore its actions cannot be one of self-defense. Israel’s aggressive intent is clearly evident when it refused to exchange some of the thousands of “kidnapped” Palestinians in return for the “captured” Israeli soldiers. Instead, Israel opted for collective punishment and war, branding the “capture” of a soldier as a “kidnapping” to manufacture the excuse for war. According to Matthew Kalman, Israel’s plans to attack Lebanon had been in the works for over a year, (www.juancole.com). He states:
"More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving Power Point presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."
It seems Israel was merely waiting for the right excuse to implement its plans, even if it had to “manufacture” one, as it did by using the ruse that a “captured” soldier had been “kidnapped”. This being the case, one must honestly answer who is the terrorist here? Who is the villain? Who is the aggressor? Who is the bully?
Sadly, the media has given little or no coverage to Israel’s year-long plans to attack Lebanon, nor to Israeli kidnappings and aggression against the Palestinians. The media’s complicity is even seen in reporting Israeli lies that Hizbullah “kidnapped” two of its soldiers within Israel. No mention is made of the reports that Hizbullah's "capture" of Israeli soldiers took place in the Lebanese village of Aitaa al-Chaab when an Israeli tank made an incursion into Lebanon and was ambushed by Hizbullah forces resisting such incursions. Unfortunately, the media only echoes the Israeli position that tries to justify Israel's action as "retaliation" when in fact it is the aggressor, engaged in State terrorism. The media is also silent about the fact that parts of Lebanon, known as Shebaa Farms, are still under Israeli occupation.
So far, mainstream media has made little or no effort to provide balance by pointing out that Hamas and Hizbullah campaigns are legitimate resistance operations fighting a colonial army of occupation. Instead, by labeling their actions as “terrorism”, it effectively denies them the rights we all enjoy, namely, the right to be free, democratic and live in security without occupation. When the media fail to expose the truth and echoes the lies of the “bully” aggressor to justify its aggression, it becomes complicit in crimes against humanity.
Ahmed Motiar is author of “Defanging a Bully”. He can be reached at amotiar@rogers.com - ICH
informationclearinghouse.info/article14204.htm
Accepting Israeli Distortions To Justify Aggression
By: Ahmed Motiar
07/26/07 "Information Clearing House" -- -- When will the Media stop being complicit in these crimes?
International law provides people under occupation both the moral and legal right to resist their occupiers. Hence, those resisting occupation can never be labeled as “terrorists”. It is therefore both immoral and unjust for George Bush, Tony Blair and anyone else to condemn the Palestinians for exercising their moral right to resist occupation. And let us not be fooled into believing that the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza ended the occupation.
All the “withdrawal” of Israeli settlers did was change the “composition” of the occupation from several mini prisons, like the Bantustans in apartheid South Africa, to one big, giant prison. This helped Israel create the impression that the occupation was over when the reality was it continued its occupation by controlling all entry points through land, air and sea. This made it easier for Israel to control the population through collective punishments as it did by imposing sanctions and starving the whole population for electing a government that did not meet with Israel’s approval. This Israeli strangle-hold over Gaza offers the best proof that the Israeli claim that its occupation had ended, is a big lie.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying power is responsible for the well-being of the population under its control. Instead, Israel has imposed sanctions starving the population, which is both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Sadly, some governments and mainstream media have seen fit to blame the “victims” of aggression for the present crisis instead of the aggressor: Israel. If we fail to speak out, if we remain silent, we all become complicit in the war crimes Israel is committing against the Palestinians. Martin Luther King expressed it best when he said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. A right delayed is a right denied. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
The present Israeli attacks against Palestinians in Lebanon and Gaza expose the moral bankruptcy of Israel’s position. Israeli attacks killing civilians in the occupied territories is described as “collateral damage”, while Palestinian resistance to occupation and brutality that leads to loss of civilian lives is labeled as “terrorism”. In the present crisis, both the Hamas and Hizbullah resistance groups have targeted soldiers, which are legitimate military targets, while the Israelis are clearly targeting civilians and civil infrastructures such as roads, bridges, electric power plants, gas stations, water facilities and mass killing directed against an innocent population. By Israel’s own definition, it stands condemned as a terrorist State.
The Israeli propaganda machine, recognizing their military actions are of a terrorist nature, are feverishly trying to camouflage their own terrorism by labeling the legitimate “capture” of their soldiers by the Palestinian resistance as “kidnapping”. Soldiers don’t get “kidnapped”; they are “captured” and become prisoners of war to be exchanged for one’s own prisoners in return.
The Israeli claim of a higher moral ground for going to war to retrieve its three captured soldiers is totally stripped away when Israel itself has “kidnapped” not hundreds but thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Is it not hypocritical that it is Israel that has kidnapped civilians, which is a terrorist action by any standard, but it is Hamas and Hizbullah who have captured soldiers that are labeled as terrorist? Also, interestingly, it is Hamas and Hizbullah that have sought prisoner exchanges to end the crisis, while it is Israel that has rejected prisoner exchange and opted instead for war targeting mostly civilians and collective punishment which is a crime against humanity.
It is essential that Israel’s excuse for going to war is demolished. Israel claims it seeks to live in “peace” but its security is threatened by a constant bombardment of Qassam rockets into Israel by Palestinians. The media repeats this without exposing that in the first three months of this year, Israel fired 781 artillery shells into Gaza according to a June 21 report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In response, the Palestinians replied with 417 Qassam rockets. The report further details that from April to June 20, Israel launched 7,599 artillery shells into densely populated Gaza causing both death and destruction. Palestinians responded with 479 home-made Qassam rockets causing no deaths at all.
From June 9 to June 20 – a span of 11 days – 31 Palestinians were killed, including 10 children, six of them 5 years old or younger. This includes 7 members of the Ghalia family.
To add insult to injury, Israel followed this up with the “kidnapping” inside Gaza in the middle of the night of two civilians, a doctor and his brother, on June 24.
Israel’s escalation of the conflict by kidnappings and killings caused so much outrage among the Palestinians that the armed wing of Hamas declared an end to the ceasefire it had observed since March 2005, resulting in the attack on Israeli soldiers and the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit as a prisoner.
While Israel is clearly the aggressor, it is portraying itself as the victim that has the right to defend itself. It is a shame that the media goes along with this sham and does not challenge this duplicity by the obvious fact that a “bully” aggressor can never be a “victim” and therefore its actions cannot be one of self-defense. Israel’s aggressive intent is clearly evident when it refused to exchange some of the thousands of “kidnapped” Palestinians in return for the “captured” Israeli soldiers. Instead, Israel opted for collective punishment and war, branding the “capture” of a soldier as a “kidnapping” to manufacture the excuse for war. According to Matthew Kalman, Israel’s plans to attack Lebanon had been in the works for over a year, (www.juancole.com). He states:
"More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving Power Point presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."
It seems Israel was merely waiting for the right excuse to implement its plans, even if it had to “manufacture” one, as it did by using the ruse that a “captured” soldier had been “kidnapped”. This being the case, one must honestly answer who is the terrorist here? Who is the villain? Who is the aggressor? Who is the bully?
Sadly, the media has given little or no coverage to Israel’s year-long plans to attack Lebanon, nor to Israeli kidnappings and aggression against the Palestinians. The media’s complicity is even seen in reporting Israeli lies that Hizbullah “kidnapped” two of its soldiers within Israel. No mention is made of the reports that Hizbullah's "capture" of Israeli soldiers took place in the Lebanese village of Aitaa al-Chaab when an Israeli tank made an incursion into Lebanon and was ambushed by Hizbullah forces resisting such incursions. Unfortunately, the media only echoes the Israeli position that tries to justify Israel's action as "retaliation" when in fact it is the aggressor, engaged in State terrorism. The media is also silent about the fact that parts of Lebanon, known as Shebaa Farms, are still under Israeli occupation.
So far, mainstream media has made little or no effort to provide balance by pointing out that Hamas and Hizbullah campaigns are legitimate resistance operations fighting a colonial army of occupation. Instead, by labeling their actions as “terrorism”, it effectively denies them the rights we all enjoy, namely, the right to be free, democratic and live in security without occupation. When the media fail to expose the truth and echoes the lies of the “bully” aggressor to justify its aggression, it becomes complicit in crimes against humanity.
Ahmed Motiar is author of “Defanging a Bully”. He can be reached at amotiar@rogers.com - ICH
