A Very Good Comment
By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2009
"Because it is generally accepted by the so-called "international community" that Hamas is a major threat to Israel, and therefore to world peace and security, France has dispatched a frigate to participate in a new blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Sunday Times reported that United States naval ships hunting pirates in the Gulf of Aden have been instructed to track down Iranian arms shipments (25 January). Many other European states offered their navies to assist. Indeed, United Nations Security Council resolution 1860 emphasized the need to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition.
Unfortunately not one European country offered to send its navy to render humanitarian assistance to the thousands of injured, hungry, cold and homeless people in Gaza as a result of Israel's attack. Perhaps helping children dying from white phosphorus burns, or just lack of clean water, would be seen as supporting "terrorism.".......
The gunboats that Europe is sending to police the inmates of the Gaza Ghetto are not manifestations of strength, neither are they -- or the recent shocking statements of European Union Humanitarian chief Louis Michel in Gaza blaming Hamas for Israel's crimes on 26 January -- acts of responsible diplomacy in pursuit of peace and stability; they are a new prescription, if not a clear endorsement, for further bloodshed and war crimes. They are signs of a moral weakness and corruption unparalleled since Europeans stood by silently at stations and watched as their compatriots were loaded onto Nazi trains. Who could have thought that in the 21st century such things would need to be said -- and to those we thought had overcome their terrible history? But silence is not, and should not be an option any more. For years we have been told we should learn from the darkest episode in Europe's history, but never make comparisons to it lest we diminish its enormity. But the horrifying atrocities in Gaza which an Israeli official proudly predicted last March would be a "bigger holocaust" compel us to cast our reservations aside.
There is a shortcut to calm, the elimination of violence and eventually peace. It is a lesson that should have been learned many years, and countless thousands of lives ago: justice."
By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2009
"Because it is generally accepted by the so-called "international community" that Hamas is a major threat to Israel, and therefore to world peace and security, France has dispatched a frigate to participate in a new blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Sunday Times reported that United States naval ships hunting pirates in the Gulf of Aden have been instructed to track down Iranian arms shipments (25 January). Many other European states offered their navies to assist. Indeed, United Nations Security Council resolution 1860 emphasized the need to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition.
Unfortunately not one European country offered to send its navy to render humanitarian assistance to the thousands of injured, hungry, cold and homeless people in Gaza as a result of Israel's attack. Perhaps helping children dying from white phosphorus burns, or just lack of clean water, would be seen as supporting "terrorism.".......
The gunboats that Europe is sending to police the inmates of the Gaza Ghetto are not manifestations of strength, neither are they -- or the recent shocking statements of European Union Humanitarian chief Louis Michel in Gaza blaming Hamas for Israel's crimes on 26 January -- acts of responsible diplomacy in pursuit of peace and stability; they are a new prescription, if not a clear endorsement, for further bloodshed and war crimes. They are signs of a moral weakness and corruption unparalleled since Europeans stood by silently at stations and watched as their compatriots were loaded onto Nazi trains. Who could have thought that in the 21st century such things would need to be said -- and to those we thought had overcome their terrible history? But silence is not, and should not be an option any more. For years we have been told we should learn from the darkest episode in Europe's history, but never make comparisons to it lest we diminish its enormity. But the horrifying atrocities in Gaza which an Israeli official proudly predicted last March would be a "bigger holocaust" compel us to cast our reservations aside.
There is a shortcut to calm, the elimination of violence and eventually peace. It is a lesson that should have been learned many years, and countless thousands of lives ago: justice."
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