Media Release 15 January 2009: Defending the indefensible in Palestine by Firoz Osman as appeared in the Sowetan newspaper.
Defending the indefensible in Palestine
The responses in the media by pro-Israeli propagandist on the dastardly invasion of Gaza, is not surprising. However, to defend and justify the indefensible massacre of children and women by David Saks of SAJBOD, including Rabbi Warren Goldstein, must surely leave one aghast.
The conflict did not occur because of the Qassam rockets that have killed 14 people in seven years,( as opposed to several thousand Palestinian killed), but because of the decades of dispossession, expulsion, occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands.
Neither is this a conflict between Islam and Judaism, but one in which political Zionism, founded in 1897 and based on Settler colonialism, racism and expansionism, created the Israeli entity from the rib of terrorism.
European Rabbi's, and many Jews, oppose the aims of Zionism and creation of Israel because it violates the tenets of Judaism. Yet today, the Zionist lobby, unashamed of their incestuous relationship with Israel, justify Israel's violation of International Humanitarian Law, including the recent genocidal killings of civilians in Gaza.
UNRWA sokesman Christopher Gunness dismissed with comtempt Israeli claims that the bombed UN facilities harboured weapons. Blaming the victims has been an old Israeli ploy to cover their horrendous atrocities, as in Qana, Jenin, and South lebanon in 2006.
Brian Cloughley describes a Gaza resident's immense suffering: "I keep the children away from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?"
What boggles the mind is the Zionist Lobby's ability to preach peace and tolerance and harmony between Muslims and Jews, and at the same time justify these horrendous crimes against a defenceless people. Their powerful influence amongst the politicians and businessmen shield the Zionist regime, allowing Israel to commit war crimes with impunity, and immunity.
There is simply no moral equivalence between the protagonists. Under International Law, Palestinians under occupation have the right to resist. One is occupied, oppressed, invaded, terrorised and persecuted, facing ethnic cleansing and genocide; the other is the colonial, racist occupier, oppressor, invader, terroriser, persecutor and executer. The one possesses state–of-the–art weapons such as F-16 fighter jets, Merkava tanks, Apache helicopters, navy gunships and nuclear bombs; whilst the other has no aircraft, no navy, no tanks, no artillery-just smuggled guns and primitive rockets made of exhaust pipes in the backyard.
The injustice meted out to the Palestinians is monumental and tragic. Bishop Desmond Tutu noted: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality".
Complicit in Israel's war crimes is the corrupt and treacherous puppet Fatah leader Mahmud Abbas, as are the Arab regimes, Egypt in particular. International lawyer Franklin Lamb opined that "even a cursory examination of the events which began on December 27, 2008 require that Mohammad Hosni Mubarak be added as an accomplice to the pending International Criminal Court (ICC) case concerning international crimes being committed by Israel with American weapons."
The Council for the National Interest (CNI), based in Washington, points out that "Nearly fifty years ago, the South African regime attacked a crowd protesting the conditions in the Bantustan of Sharpeville and in a matter of minutes killed some 69 black South Africans. Eventually, after world reaction to this "incident", sanctions were imposed and they led to the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Using American weapons, Israel has just indiscriminately killed more than four times that number in Gaza. In 1960 there were 20 million black South Africans and today there are only one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza. So the first two days of the American-supported Israeli attempt to wipe out Hamas is sixty times as criminal as the Sharpeville massacre.
Hamas' real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor. Hamas remains steadfast in its fight for dignity, freedom and justice. Hamas has repeatedly proposed of a ten-year truce with one reasonable condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders.
The collective punishment, demolishing of homes, uprooting of olive plantations, suffocating siege, mass starvation, assassinations and atrocities must end-now. Until and unless the International community and governments, championed by South Africa, punish Israel by imposing sanctions, the anguished cries of the innocent and blood of the martyrs will be in vain.
Firoz Osman
MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK
Cell: 082 337 6976