Posted on 10/24/2001 1:47:40 PM PDT by CommiesOut
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Israeli state terror has killed more than 800 this yearDublin, Ireland, 21 October, 2001
Rihan Ward, a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the town of Jenin, became the latest victim of Israel's policy of state terrorism last Thursday. She was sitting in her classroom, listening to her teacher, Kamar Irshaid, when a tank shell fired by the Israeli army crashed through the window and ripped her chest apart. Her killer, from the Middle East's most sophisticated fighting force, may not feel a sense of shame. He may even have posed for pictures beside the shattered remains of the classroom, subsequently loading up his 'trophy images' on the websites that have recently been developed for such display by the more gung-ho sections of the Israeli military and far right. He will scarcely be disciplined: for the Israeli army is under the control of a commander called General Shaul Mofaz, who last week was forced to apologise to what he terms "the political echelon" for effectively exceeding his brief. That "political echelon" is controlled by Ariel Sharon, who has been the architect of state terror on and off over a period of 20 years but whose policies regarding the West Bank and Gaza do not appear to be tough enough for his military commander. Ward will become a footnote in Palestinian history. She joins 800 other Palestinian civilians who have perished in this last year of Intifada. Five more Palestinians perished with her on the same day. The leader of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat, was feted in London and Dublin last week, just days before the schoolgirl met her end. But the political goodwill being shown to Arafat's Palestinian Authority by the West, and the need to involve Islamic states in the war on Afhghanistan, offer no practical protection to Palestinian citizens like Rihan Ward whose lives may be ended at will by Sharon, a man who earned his spurs in the 1982 slaughter at the refugee camps in Lebanon. Sharon was not bothered about civilian casualties last week, following the assassination of former minister Rehavam Ze'evi by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He was more worried about keeping his coalition in one piece. Ze'evi was part of the National Unity party and had resigned from cabinet last Monday, in protest against the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Hebron. He was targeted by the PFLP which had lost one of its senior leaders, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August when, with customary delicacy, one of Sharon's helicopter gunships fired a missile through his office window, vaporising him as he sat working at his desk. Israeli government spokesmen crowed in the international media about "taking out" the PFLP chief, just as they have boasted of the other "targeted killings" sponsored by Sharon and his regime: this is a euphemism for a policy of state murder. But Israel is perhaps learning the hard way that you cannot crush an entire people by brute military force. It may also come to realise that the fact the Jewish people were treated in the most appalling way by Christians and Arabs in the past does not provide moral legitimacy to the anti-Palestinian slaughter that is daily promoted by Israel. But there is no short-term sign that Israel's political elite are commencing an examination of their collective conscience. Ze'evi's funeral was marked not just by calls for acts of revenge to be taken against his killers but by a series of bizarre suggestions that Yasser Arafat was directly responsible for his death. Arafat is at this stage no more than a Palestinian Uncle Tom, an old-fashioned Stalinist with an overblown international reputation. He may find it incomprehensible that his name was being linked to the death of Ze'evi at precisely the same time as his PA soldiers were rounding up the political leadership of the PFLP at Israel's behest. Or that the Knesset speaker Avraham Burg should tell Arafat that the blood of Ze'evi "fills your hands" at the same time as Arafat's PA was banning the PFLP from operating as a political force. The West may anticipate some breaking out of reason among the leaders of Israel's coalition government in the context of the current difficult international diplomatic climate. There has been impressive talk in Washington and London about the idea of a real Palestinian state, and there has even been some sham rhetorical jousting between Washington and the Sharon administration. But western leaders should not hold their breath. This is Israel, where commonsense and reason are as rare as hens' teeth. There is no effective political opposition to Sharon's policy of terror. Some of the violent rhetoric that marked Ze'evi's funeral emanated from men associated with Israel's Labour Party. History teaches us in any case that there is an unbroken ideological continuity linking Sharon to previous leaders, to Barak and Netanyahu and Shamir and Rabin and Begin. The debate within Israel has never been about the human rights of Palestinians. Rather it has been about the extent to which Palesinians should be permitted by Israel to farm land or to own assets. It has also been about the efficacy or otherwise of bulldzozing Palestinian houses and incinerating Palestinian trees. About the lust for land that has characterised all wars, including those wars in which Jewish people have endured the greatest suffering. The western media underwrites Israel's policy of terror every day. To be sure, it reports the atrocities perpetrated by Sharon's armies and supportive militias. But western media coverage of the conflict is based on the assumption that Israeli democracy is politically superior to any other form of democracy in the region, and on the assumption that there is a moral obligation to support Israel, regardless of the people it chooses for high office. Any attempt to criticise the state terrorism of Israel brings instant cries of "anti-Semitism". The reality is that Israel's mistreatment of Palestine and the Palestinians is itself anti-Semitic. Zionism has always regarded Palestinians as being of a lesser, inferior species. Until that attitude is altered, and altered fundamentally, there will be no political solution to Israel's woes. In the meantime, Ireland might consider using whatever influence it has at the UN and elsewhere to stop civilised western countries from providing money and technology to a government and army that are pursuing morally unacceptable policies based on theories of racial superiorty that should have perished with the defeat of fascism. |
It just is. You are too ignorant to waste my time explaining it, so just take my word for it, alrighty?
The U.S. has been telling them not to do what's right.
HOW many times do I have to 'splain this? Israel displaced "Palestinans" (actually, Jordanians and Syrians) AFTER they were PHYSICALLY ATTACKED by those countries. Under internationally accepted standards of war, if a nation is attacked, and they win the war, they get what they conquered. Go look it up if you don't believe me.
;) ttt
Unfortunately he is not alone in his ridiculous opinions on the arab - Israeli conflict. Some of the crap that has been written by uninformed yet opinionated journalists really makes me mad.
It is painfully obvious that many journalists don't even bother trying to report facts anymore, they just use their position as a pulpit to affect those readers who are gullible enough to believe that journalists are completely objective people with no aggendas to advance.
About 200.
Considering the small size of the population of Israel versus ours, it is like the U.S. losing 12,000 people to suicide bombings and shootings. I don't think we'd stand for it.
Arafat is at this stage no more than a Palestinian Uncle Tom, an old-fashioned Stalinist with an overblown international reputation.
Is this not a racist commment - yet they call Israel a racist state?
Any attempt to criticise the state terrorism of Israel brings instant cries of "anti-Semitism". The reality is that Israel's mistreatment of Palestine and the Palestinians is itself anti-Semitic.
Anti-Semitism is defined in the dictionary as Jew-hating. To call Israel's (so-called) mistreatment of Palestine and the Palestinians anti-Semitic is just so dumb. PS - How can you be anti-Semitic TO A PLACE? D'oh!
It's amazing to me that swill like this get published. It's no better than the goofy rants I read here by the nutballs.
That said, this article is a piece of propeganda. The intifada was started by the Palestinians, and after a lot of trial and effort to get them to stop, it looks like it will be up the Israelis to end it. It is very sad if innocent girls die, but this is a war, and in war there is a lot of chicanery. One side will take positions in schools and hospitals to draw fire in order to later claim that the other side attacks schools and hospitals.
This little girl's death is sad, but it is no more sad than the deaths of those in the disco and pizza parlour. In those cases, innocent people were deliberately targeted for death. I don't see that this little girl was the target for the attack, only a sad collateral death in the war. There is a huge difference that is apparantly lost on the Irish... who's 'freedom fighters' have been known to deliberately target innocent people themselves.
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