Home > Linda S. Heard: Gaza cries for help but who’s listening?

Linda S. Heard: Gaza cries for help but who’s listening?

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 7 October 2004
6 comments

Israel calls its latest murder spree ‘Days of Penitence’. I often wonder who dreams up those supposedly inspirational titles designed to make uniformed killers feel better about their ruthless missions.

Just as the US military brought ‘Enduring Freedom’ to thousands of lifeless Iraqi women and children, Israel has forced over 60 Palestinian residents of Gaza to ‘atone’ with their lives for the firing of rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, resulting in the demise of two Israeli toddlers.

Since March this year, there have been more than 90 child victims of Israel’s ‘as many eyes as possible for an eye’ campaign; ten of those struck down during Operation Days of Penitence.

If anyone thinks that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is remorseful concerning the deaths of those innocents, they should think again.

On Sunday, he announced the indefinite expansion of the bloody post-September 29 offensive amid a backdrop of demolished Palestinian homes, razed orchards, damaged roads, contaminated wells, and the disruption of essential services.

Along with houses and factories, a kindergarten became a target at Tel Al-Zatar, near Jebaliya. Its bemused head teacher Jaber Abu Oukal asked: “Is this place an army base or military training camp to be targeted?”

As far as the IDF is concerned, anyone or anything is fair game, including a 10-year-old schoolgirl, recently shot at her desk, and a man with impaired hearing, targeted while minding his own business on the balcony of his home.

Eisa Dhaher, Deputy Mayor of Jabalya, told Aljazeera.net that the Israeli army is “knowingly and deliberately” targeting civilians, particularly children.

He explained: “an army that is equipped with state-of-the-art technology can easily distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Any army that can strike and assassinate a person driving in a small car through a crowded street can easily distinguish (between) children and women and resistance fighters”.

Israel turns a deaf ear to its Palestinian detractors but if anyone in the international arena similarly complains, Israel reiterates it is fighting terrorists in the same way its US ally is combating “terrorism” in Iraqi towns and cities.

Bush’s ‘war on terror’ has been a veritable godsend for Israel’s right-wing parties providing an ostensible pretext for state-sponsored atrocities.

Mostly civilians

As news comes in of hundreds of Iraqi casualties in Samarra, mostly civilian, paradoxically, the Bush administration has called on Israel to use “only proportional force” while affirming the right of its ideological twin to “defend itself”.

The rest of the world is outraged by Israel’s barbarity but impotent in the face of the superpower’s unceasing pro-Israel bias and its power of veto in the Security Council.

Silvan Shalom, Israel’s Foreign Minister, recently urged the UN Assembly to forget about perceived Israeli transgressions (40 ignored Security Council resolutions and hundreds of cast-aside General Assembly resolutions) and concentrate instead on Iran’s.

In response to various NGOs threatening to hold Israel to account, the US State Department said it intended to stem the number of resolutions detrimental to Israeli interests.

On Sunday, the Arab League met in Cairo and decided Arab representatives should “make an urgent appeal to the UN General Assembly and/or Security Council to halt Israel’s continued war of extermination against the Palestinian people”.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who recently came under fire at his Ramallah headquarters, has also called for third party intervention to stop the killing. As long as Israel labels the conflict as an internal matter it isn’t going to happen.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. France’s Foreign Minister has appealed to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for an end to the violence. Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Minister has called for restraint and Tunisia has expressed its concern and “profound indignation”.

Those statements all sound promising but the reality is that without U.S. backing they are little more than morale-boosting sound bites.

As things stand, the US is disengaged. George W. Bush may have been the first American President to verbally back the concept of a two-state solution with his ‘Roadmap’ but this was just a temporary sop to the British Prime Minister in return for the latter’s support in Iraq.

It’s worth noting that during the recent pre-election foreign policy debate, neither Bush nor Democratic White House contender John Kerry saw fit to mention the Israel-Palestine conflict, generally thought to be the Middle East’s core destabilising issue.

Last month, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported the Sharon government has no intention of following the Roadmap once Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza - scheduled for next year - is complete.

The paper quotes Sharon as saying that without a change in Palestinian leadership and policy Israel would “continue its war on terrorism, and will stay in the (West Bank) Territories that will remain after the implementation of disengagement”.

If militant Israeli colon-isers have their way, there will be no Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Many of their leaders look upon Ariel Sharon as a traitor. Moshe Yogev described Sharon as “weak”.

Inclined homeless

He said: “If Sharon can take a bulldozer and raze the study house set up by my parents in Atzmona, I am allowed to take a bulldozer and drive to Sycamore Ranch (Sharon’s farm)”. Yogev, obviously, doesn’t realise his philosophy gives moral carte blanche to similarly inclined homeless Palestinians.

Former member of the extremist Kach party Rabbi Yossi Dayan has gone one step further, saying openly that he would be prepared to put a curse on the Prime Minister during a ceremony called Pulsa Denura (Aramaic for ‘lashes of fire’).

Involving the lighting of candles in a cave, a similar ritual was performed prior to the assassination of Arafat’s peace partner Yitzhak Rabin.

Internationally, Ariel Sharon isn’t anybody’s flavour of the month, with the exception of the US Congress and the occupant of the Oval Office.

And as long as the UN, the EU, Russia and the Arab League spout punch-less platitudes and allow Israel and the US to remain a law unto themselves - to the shame of all of us - the cries, the blood and the tears of the people of Gaza will remain virtually ignored.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/Opinion2.asp?ArticleID=134594

Forum posts

  • Interesting commentary. Much vituperation and hand wringing over the death of innocent Palestinians (certainly laudable), but not a single remark about the murderous Palestinian terrorists who have summarily executed hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians, received tacit and direct support from "Chairman" Arafat. and who began this Intafada. Ironic surname, Ms. Heard, as evidently your have selective HEARING.

    The Palestinians, the Iranians, the Saudis and a host of other countries refuse even to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist, have provided financing and other forms of support for whole armies of terrorists, but your jaundiced world-view fails to acknowledge as much. Try travel into Saudi if your passport has an entry stamp from Israel. Ain’t gonna happen. The nexus between bin Laden and Iraq was a fraud. The nexus between the Saudis and 9/11 was a real and clear one, and the Saudi’s continue to support Palestinian extremism.

    Sounds to me, like so many, that your just another anti-Semite trying in vain to mainstream your views. I like that this page has a yellow border; a none too subtle reminder of what is clearly yellow journalism on your part. Have a nice life.

    • Re: Interesting commentary. Much vituperation and......... You know, the thing that I’ve always found the most peculiar, and maybe it’s being that I live so far away from the issue (Canada, where it’s kind of nice and safe...unless you’re one of our First Nation Indians) is that the Jews were shat on for so many thousands of years before once again having a place to call their own. You’d figure, of all the peoples of the world, who better to understnad the plight of the Palestinian people then us? If my statement makes you call me an anti semite, then I guess I’m a Jewish anti semite. If not going along with the inexcusible slaughter of an entire people means I’m an anti semite, then I can live with that stain as well. If having no remourse for an innocent child shot dead while she studies, schools being bulldozed, olive groves being ripped out of the ground are ok with you, then I hope you can sleep at night.

  • Linda, the previous writer calls you an anti-Semite. I prefer you are just stupid and the victim of the anti-Jewish propaganda that has been spewed by the Arabs for at least a century. Hey Linda, why are there "refugee camps" in Gaza and te West Bank a half cenury after the birth of Israel. All the Arab states, with their oil wealth, have seen fit to keep the poor, dumb Palastine arabs in a state of misery, so they can convince poor fools like you that the Jews are responsible for their (Arab)sins. Look what Israel has done by rescuing Jews from all over the Arab world and Europe and incorporating them into the life a a civilzed nation. Isreal has been under attack from day one. Lets face it Linda , if you can face a little reality. The Arabs could have had their own state almost any time in the past 50 years. They have rejected the offers from the U.S. and Israel with vicious terrorism. They could still have peace any day they take responsibility (like a civilized society) and stop the terror attascks against Israel. Since they won’t do it, Israel must be a policeman aznd bring the arab terrorists to Justice.Since you are so concerned about the welfare of Arabs why don’t you use your influence to knock some sense into their heads. Thanks

    • Hitler did a bad job in getting rid of the jews....now we are seeing that he was right, too bad he didn’t get them all, the world would be a peaceful paradise without them.....

    • The comments above do not resolve the issues nor make any attempt to accommodate the opposing view which results in extremism. Criticism does not amount to anti semite, nor was Hitler right. There is nothing right about killing any group. The real issue is how you pose the question. If you view the world in terms of the occupier, it is ok to do whatever is needed to continue the status quo. If however you view the world from being occupied, I guess the maxim holds " by whatever means is necessary". The real test is not being an occupier. There is no justification today nor will there be one tomorrow, unless the rules of engagement is mighty makes right. Turn the shoes around, I am sure you will be crying foul.

    • hitler was a sick man. to hear someone praise his policy shows we have learn nothing from history and would always be in danger of repeating it........ Abdul