Friday, January 9, 2009

The Gaza Ghetto Uprising

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD- Bethlehem
Palestine Chronicle

"....The Gaza Ghetto uprising was so inconvenient to designs to dominate the Middle East, that it was met with uncommon brutality. This had to be coupled with massive and well-funded media campaigns abroad to hide the realities while preventing media access to Gaza. But independent coverage in Europe and elsewhere show that Israeli forces shelled two universities, three colleges, police stations, several residential neighborhoods, three UN schools, roads, bridges, and a children playground. 700 Palestinians were killed in two weeks and over 3000 injured. Half of the victims are women and children and half the men are noncombatants. Relative to US population, this would be like killing 132,000 US citizens in two weeks. The Red Cross and UN agencies report massive violations of Israeli obligations under International law in many cases amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ironically, in the past 60 years the US used its veto power twice as often to protect Israel from International law than to protect US interests.

The real reason for the onslaught on Gaza is also not about fundamentalist Islam. The US and Israel are happy to support those when they tow the party line (take Saudi Arabia for example). Like the attack on Lebanon in 2006 Gaza is pummeled to accept the colonization and power structures. In that context we can understand Israeli Deputy “Defense” minister Matai Vilnai who warned once that continuing resistance would bring upon Palestinians a “bigger holocaust”. Indeed resistance to colonization and occupation are natural and enshrined in International law and can only be obliterated by genocide....."

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