A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. "Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide," wrote the former senior UN relief official Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson, then foreign minister of Sweden, in Le Figaro. They described a people "living in a cage", cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water, and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes. (...)
When I was last in Gaza, Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, showed me the results of a remarkable survey. "The statistic I personally find unbearable," he said, "is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma you see why: 99.2 per cent of their homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed." Dahlan invited me to sit in on one of his clinics. There were 30 children, all of them traumatised. He gave each a pencil and paper and asked them to draw. They drew pictures of grotesque acts of terror and of women streaming tears.
On this stage, not so long ago, I claimed that Israel is conducting genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. I hesitated a lot before using this very charged term and yet decided to adopt it. Indeed, the responses I received, including from some leading human rights activists, indicated a certain unease over the usage of such a term. I was inclined to rethink the term for a while, but came back to employing it today with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip.
Hat tip to the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign who are organising a series of Holocaust Memorial Day events.
Also, Jonathan Cook:
For tourists and pilgrims, getting in or out of Bethlehem has been made reasonably straightforward, presumably to conceal from international visitors the realities of Palestinian life. I was even offered a festive chocolate Santa Claus by the Israeli soldiers who control access to the city where Jesus was supposedly born. Foreign visitors can leave, while Bethlehem's Palestinians are now sealed into their ghetto. As long as these Palestinian cities are not turned into death camps, the West appears ready to turn a blind eye. Mere concentration camps, it seems, are acceptable. Today the only mild rebukes come from Christian leaders around Christmas time.
Here is my mate Umkahlil
http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2007/01/abir-amin-10-died-today_18.html>Abir Amin, 10, Died Today
18 Jan 2007
Now compare and contrast her article with the BBC's version of this same event
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6278929.stm>Palestinian girl dies of injuries
19 Jan 2007
Words fail me.
The BBC photo even shows some kind of barbed wired boundary, and not a school and schoolchildren where the 18 months of harrassment took place.
ps
nice one Osama,
about the SPSC Nazi Holocaust holding commemorative events!
Posted by: joe90 | 19 January 2007 at 07:42 PM
Since the Palestinian population isn't plummeting (as the Polish population did under the truly genocidal Nazi occupation), I think the use of the word "genocide" is unwarranted.
Posted by: George Carty | 20 January 2007 at 10:13 AM
Just a quick note,
but that is an excuse used by 'holocaust deniers' to say that, because so many defenceless and innocent Jewish folk survived the Nazi Holocaust then it wasn't genocide at all.
Same with current day Palestinian Genocide deniers,
because so many still survive up to now, as this particularly brutal racist military campaign is still on-going, then it can't be genocide.
Well, Palestinian People, their land, and their culture have been under attack for the past 100 years,
if this isn't slow-motion genocide, then I don't know what is.
As far as I am concerned, people can call what is going on green cheese, if it makes them happy.
Various words come to mind to describe the deliberate and sustained racist policies of the current racist Israeli regime. Among various epithets I have seen and use myself are ethnicide, slow-motion genocide, ethnic cleansing, nineteenth century victorian eugenics and neo-darwinism etc
The Palestinian victims themselves, use many of these labels to describe the chamber of horrors they suffer, for no other reason than the crime of being Palestinian.
ps
all the best George mate
Posted by: joe90 | 20 January 2007 at 05:52 PM
Just a quick note, but that is an excuse used by 'holocaust deniers' to say that, because so many defenceless and innocent Jewish folk survived the Nazi Holocaust then it wasn't genocide at all.
The Nazis fully intended to kill every Jew they could get their hands on. The only reason why any of Europe's Jews survived was because the Nazis were defeated by the Allies.
The Nazi Holocaust went on for just over 3 years (if we count from the Wannsee Conference to VE-Day). Israel has been occupying the West Bank and Gaza for 39 years and counting. If the Nazis had ruled Poland for that length of time, there'd be hardly any Gentile Poles left, never mind Jews!
Posted by: George Carty | 21 January 2007 at 01:02 PM
That might be the case George,
but it's still the case that holocaust deniers maintain that millions of potential victims survived under Nazi rule.
There were many people in the clutches of the Nazi whom they didn't destroy but who were supposed to have been murdered.
The Nazis dominated Poland from 1939-1944 and still many millions still survived.
The fact the Nazis didn't have a particular timescale may have something to do with it.
So given enough time, I suppose the Nazis might have got their way. Same with the current racist Israeli regime as well though. It's only a matter of time. Which is what I am saying.
After all, it took many years to wipe out the First Nation Americans, down to a pale shadow of their former selves and land - as well as the genocides in Central and South America of the Aztecs and Incas. Although the Spanish tended to want to convert rather than eradicate.
The same goes for native Asutralians, where it took many years to exterminate them down to a very small survivibg population, with the notable exception of Tasmania, where every single last Tasmanian Aborigine was hunted down and murdered.
Does this mean you support decades old policy of Israeli ethnic cleansing of occupied Palestine George?
You seem quite eager to whitewash this nasty brutal disgusting racist regime?
Posted by: joe90 | 21 January 2007 at 02:59 PM
Why are you two guys squabbling about Holocaust denial when this poor child has died? Get a grip.
Posted by: Veritas | 22 January 2007 at 12:37 AM
Sorry,
I've no idea what you are talking about.
One of the arguments nade against the historical existence of the Nazi Holocaust is that so many potential victims survived.
One of the arguments against the 100 year old campign, on-going and unfinished, against Palestinians is that so many are still alive.
That isn't a ' squabble' - that is perfectly reasonable contrast and comparison to make.
Rather than just characterise a perfectly valid exchange of views, you may have perhaps added something of value.
ps
here is my mate Umkahlil again, who is a Palestinian refugee, on the way this story was covered by various news organisations
http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2007/01/facilitating-genocidethe-reporting-of.html>Facilitating Genocide:The Reporting of Abir Aramin's Death
20 Jan 2007
Ten year old Anata resident Abir Aramin's death was reported much differently in most of the western press than it was in the Palestinian press which simply means that Israel's Defense Forces will continue to carry out the Jewish State's genocide of the Palestinian people, as yet an unfinished and ongoing project.
Posted by: joe90 | 22 January 2007 at 10:20 AM
George, how rigidly defined is the term "genocide"? As a political term, it must admit some debate or flexibility. As Ilan Pappe said above, he thought hard before considering its application to the Palestinians, precisely because it is a charged term. So, the population is not plummeting as some others plummeted. Can one genocide not differ from another? How should we describe the eradication of a people, even if not through the gas chambers?
Posted by: Sohaib | 22 January 2007 at 04:22 PM
So, the population is not plummeting as some others plummeted. Can one genocide not differ from another? How should we describe the eradication of a people, even if not through the gas chambers?
If the population of the targeted group is not plummeting, then the "genocide" can't be being carried out very effectively, can it?
I'm not saying that some ultra-Zionists wouldn't like to exterminate the Palestinians, but they know that this would be suicidal for Israel as even the American's wouldn't tolerate it.
Posted by: George Carty | 22 January 2007 at 05:21 PM
The US tolerated the the Indonesian genocide in East Timor for long enough,
so what is so special about the Israeli treatment and destruction of Palestine and Palestinians that the US should bother their heads about it, I've no idea.
Israel has just attacked the whole of Lebanon - that wasn't just suicidal, or was just barely tolerated, but was positively supported and encouraged by the US and the UK in particular.
As far as your argument goes George,
the same can be said for the Nazi Holocaust - at least two-thirds of their potential victims survived hence it was neither very effective or efficient either.
As I said,
you can call what is happening to the culture land and poeple of Palestine, anything that takes your fancy really - I am not too fussy myself what adjectives or nouns get used.
The fact is, that this is a huge racist Israeli social engineering project against the Palestinians - all of whom live inside some kind of Israeli constructed Warsaw Ghettos and all of whom are defenceless, just awaiting whatever the racist Israeli regime deems to be their fate. The racist Israeli regime is merely awaiting the appropriate opportunities to carry out their filthy policies of ethnic cleansing.
The largest refugee population in the world is Palestinian.
Most refugees get to return very quickly to the former homes - not so the Palestinians who have been illegally and ruthlessly excluded from their own land for over 50 years, by one of the ugliest regimes on the planet.
Posted by: joe90 | 22 January 2007 at 05:52 PM
The Palestinian population certainly plummeted in 1948, that is a certainty.
And some of those doing the 'plummeting' were former inmates of Nazi concenration camps and death camps!
The Palestinian population plummeted again in 1967, when Israel invaded and illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian refugee community was systematically attacked and destroyed in the illegal Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Posted by: joe90 | 22 January 2007 at 06:15 PM