Letters | Wednesday, 07 January 2009

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

After the Israeli army launched air raid after air raid, not differentiating between civilian or military targets, the Israeli ground troops entered Gaza. The official claim by the Israelis is that they were only targeting Hamas military positions.
The precision air attacks against Gaza came a week after a six-month ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas expired. During this six-month truce the Israelis prevented the population from receiving essential supplies of medicine, food, electricity and water, by stating that “we put them on a diet”.
Leaders from all over the world have condemned the aggression against innocent civilians, and the people of Gaza were left to fend for themselves and run for their lives. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children have been killed in cold blood, and thousands have been wounded.
For decades the Israelis have insisted that the entire world pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust and show respect to the fallen; however the actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinians are some of the most hideous crimes committed against humanity in modern times. The gap between the might of Israeli fighter jets equipped with modern military technology and the Palestinians’ home made rocket is so ridiculous that to try and portray the situation as between two equal sides requires a very fertile imagination.
It’s noteworthy that Israel’s closest ally, the US, is always preaching about freedom and democracy in the Middle East. President Bush was even recently quoted as saying that the Middle East is a freer region thanks to his Presidency. Notwithstanding the fact that Hamas was elected in a free and fair election, the ideals of democracy and freedom for the Palestinians are subjected to the needs and whims of Israel and the US. The democratic voice of the Palestinian people will continue to be ignored unless they dance to the tune that Israel and the US want to hear.
Now Hamas in undeniably being exterminated by the Israelis one by one and civilians that dare get in Israel’s way, only God can save! The Israelis stopped all media entry to the Gaza strip, in the modern world of mobile phones and internet the pictures and the tragic stories cannot be stilled. In the meantime Israel continues to paint itself as the passive underdog under threat and the Palestinians as violent terrorists. For the past 60 years the modern state of Israel has never been taken to task for ignoring international criticism and it has ignored with impunity, countless UN resolutions on the ending of its occupation of the West Bank, on the right of return of Palestinian refugees and on encouraging its civilians to settle in the Occupied Territories.
The international community every now and then slaps Israel’s wrists, but no one dares go too far, out of the fear of being accused of anti-Semitism. The tragedy is, though, that it is now another people, the Palestinians, who are paying a very high price because of the world’s hesitation to slap or offend Israel!
The existence of the Gaza strip is a permanent historical reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who 60 years ago lost their homes to Jewish settlers, who fled or were forcibly driven out through fear of Israeli ethnic cleansing. Back in the 1990s Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin stated that they wished Gaza would just go away and drop in the sea. As Israel continues to build and develop more Jewish settlements, the prospects of the Palestinians being offered a reasonable share of what was meant to be their homeland becomes more and more remote.
There is hope that the next American President Barack Obama will put pressure on Israel to change its policies, but that is not a strong hope. How many more times will the world rub its hands in despair and weakly “call on all parties to show restraint” as our television screens show civilians dying and hospitals unable to cope with the wounded? It is time for Israel to be taken to task and charged with recognising the will of the international community, and only then there will peace and stability in the Middle East.

Moustafa Megawer
Qawra

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.