We're All Gazans Now

We're All Gazans Now

by Stephen Lendman

The whole world's watching. Growing millions know. Israel’s a rogue terror state. It's amoral, brutish, and ruthless. Arabs are murdered for not being Jews. 

Gazans suffer most of all. Israel's been terror-bombing them daily. Civilians are maliciously targeted.

Growing numbers are killed. Official totals way understate the toll. Many others are injured. Children are traumatized. Parents are frantic. How much more of this can people take?

Gazans dig through rubble for survivors. Others bury their dead. Media scoundrels assault truth. They run cover for Israel's worst crimes. Imagine supporting mass murder. Doing so makes them complicit.

A scurrilous New York Times editorial headlined "Hamas's Illegitimacy," saying:

"Hamas, which took control of Gaza in 2007 and is backed by Iran, is so consumed with hatred for Israel that it has repeatedly resorted to violence, no matter the cost to its own people."

Fact check

Vicious lies like this demand condemnation. Setting the record straight is vital. Hamas is Palestine's legitimate government. 

In January 2006, Palestinians elected their officials overwhelmingly. Israel and Washington imposed a West Bank coup d'etat regime. It's illegitimate. It's also pro-Israeli.

Conflict followed. Hamas was wrongly blamed. Abbas serves illegitimately as president. Israel rigged his election. His term expired in January 2009. 

He won't step down or hold new elections. He's a longtime Israeli collaborator. He sold out at Oslo. He spurns his own people. He replicates Quisling harshness. He's an embarrassment to legitimate governance.

Hamas supports all Palestinians. It spurns violence. It responds defensively when attacked. It's their right and obligation under international law. All governments bear full responsibility to protect their people.

So-called Gaza "militants" are freedom fighters. They heroically resist Israeli terror. Their souls aren't for sale.

Times editors suppress truth and full disclosure. They support wealth, power and privilege. They defend wrong over right. They cheerlead imperial war. 

They shame themselves in the process. They also betray their readers. Other media scoundrels do the same thing.

Israeli crimes of war and against humanity are called self-defense.

Legitimate self-defense is called terrorism.

Israel planned Operation Pillar of Cloud months ago. All major military campaigns require detailed planning. Multiple provocations initiated conflict. 

Israel deplores peace and stability. It lives by the sword. It's a modern-day Sparta. It threatens the region and humanity. It's leaders are war criminals. 

They bear full responsibility for ongoing violence. All Gazans are victims. They're not terrorists. Don't expect Times editors to explain.

Zionist ideology is root cause for decades of conflict and violence. Palestine's Nakba never ended. State terror is official Israeli policy. 

Daily Palestinian life includes persecution, home demolitions, dispossessions, land theft, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarceration, torture, denial of virtually all rights, living in fear for what's next, and suffering more when Israel wages war.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the longest unresolved one of our time. Nothing approaches it. It festers because of US/EU complicity. Western nations support Israel's worst crimes. Palestinians struggle to survive against long odds. 

Zionist ideology bears full responsibility. It's corrosive, destructive, racist, extremist, undemocratic and hateful.

It claims Jewish supremacy, specialness and uniqueness as God's "chosen people."

It espouses violence. It deplores peaceful coexistence. It chooses confrontation over diplomacy. It believes in strength through militarism, intimidation, and naked aggression.

It's repugnant, indefensible, destructive and malignant. It harms Jews and non-Jews alike. It's the root cause of anti-Semitism. It's a monster. It's consuming its host and humanity.

Besieged Gazans are suffocated and murdered. Historian Ilan Pappe accused Israel of slow-motion genocide. So did Law Professor Francis Boyle, saying:

"What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the (1.7) million Palestinians who live in Gaza." 

"If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part." 

"And that's exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead." 

"And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention."

In 1923, revisionist Zionist leader Ze've Jabotinsky said Jews had no choice. Arabs must make way for them. Tolerating and/or partnering with them is out of the question.

Eretz Israel belongs solely to Jews. Dispossess and disperse Palestinians. Remove them entirely. Reinvent them as nomadic savages.

Erect "an iron wall of (superior) Jewish military force." Use it to dictate future events. Discourage Arab hope of prevailing.

Other likeminded Zionists advocated ethnic cleansing or extermination. Not one Arab village should remain. Remove their people by terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation,  dispossession, and mass murder.

Former IDF Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan (1978 - 1983) said:

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel."

"Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."

In 1937, future Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion said:

"We must expel the Arabs and take their place and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places - then we have force at our disposal."

Zionist founder Theodore Herzl said Palestine is "our unforgettable historic homeland." He called for establishing it by dispossessing indigenous Palestinians and replacing them with Jews.

In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel wrote:

Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militarized and aggressive state." 

"(It) cut Jews off from (their) history and led to a fateful identity of interests with antisemitism (becoming) the only thing that united them." 

"(It) fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy."

If you accept "the idea of a Jewish state," you mix its twin notions of "particularism (and) exceptionalism." 

They're "the actual bane of Judaism." They give "racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character." 

Zionism turned Israel "into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses."

Israel was born in blood. Mass extermination and ethnic cleansing established the Jewish state. At issue always was replacing Palestinians with Jews.

Hard-line militancy used violence to displace Arabs, gain power, keep it, and rule by strength, confrontation, intimidation, and violence.

Longstanding policies continue. State terror, naked aggression, and institutionalized violence are called self-defense. Civilians are legitimate targets. Freedom fighters are called terrorists. Rule of law principles don't apply. Democratic values are mocked.

Israel claims the right to reign terror with impunity. It gets away with murder because world leaders condone and support it. Weapons and other aid are provided. So is diplomatic cover.

Peace process hypocrisy was stillborn from inception. Judaization through land confiscation, displacement, and settlements reflect official policy. 

Arabs must be displaced and forcibly driven from all parts of Judea and Sumaria Israel wants. Jerusalem is claimed as Israel's exclusive capital.

Palestinians are seen as existential threats. Israeli Arabs are called fifth-column ones. Conflict is a way of life. Institutionalized violence, racism, and repression define official policies.

Final solution plans call for dispossession and slow-motion genocide. Judaization and de-Arabization are policies. Moshe Dayan once said treat them like "dogs" so they'll leave.

Ben-Gurion favored "terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation," and violence. Netanyahu prefers all that and more. A previous article called him more mad dog than leader. His contempt for non-Jews might make some despots blush.

He bears full responsibility for daily slaughter in Gaza. It shows no signs of ending. How much death and destruction does he crave before calling off his dogs?

How much Palestinian suffering is enough? How many dead children and infants will satisfy him? When will he say enough's enough?

When will world leaders have backbone enough to confront him? When will Palestinian rights be recognized? When will treating them like human beings become policy? Maybe next time. Not now. 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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