Dear Editor,
Haiti, the Congo, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Indonesia − there are many countries and societies that suffer interminably and almost silently as the world powers press on expanding their military and economic might on a global scale. The deliberate bombing of women, children and men with powerful rockets and artillery fire is an atrocity and a war crime. The actions of the Israelis in Gaza have so outraged the world that even the normally tongue-tied Security Council of the United Nations has had to criticize Israel’s relentless assault and leading members of the Jewish community in London, usually passionate defenders of the state of Israel, have expressed their abhorrence at the wanton killings and atrocities of the invasion.
Israel is a state with influence, with powerful friends and with clout in the international community. The actions it complains of against a Palestinian faction, Hamas, cannot be condoned, but Israel’s response is disproportionate and barbaric, modelled on the most obnoxious examples of human cruelty, the genocide of native Americans, the Atlantic slave trade and the Nazi holocaust of the Second World War.
The heavy and merciless blowing up of children, women and men cries out for condemnation and world action to stop the unfolding slaughter. James Petras, American academic, wrote the following on the nightmare unfolding in Gaza:
“Moving directly from its totalitarian vision to its military blueprint to the savaging of Palestinian population centers, the Jewish state destroyed the principal university with over 18,000 students (mostly women), mosques, pharmacies, electrical and water lines, power stations, fishing villages, fishing boats and the little fishing port that provided a meager supply of fish for the starving population. They destroyed roads, transport facilities, food warehouses, science buildings, small factories, shops and apartments. They destroyed a women’s dormitory at the university. In the words of the Israel leader: ‘…because everything is connected to everything…’ it is necessary to destroy each and every facet of life, which allows humans to exist with some dignity and independence.”
Israel’s defenders are reduced to bringing up a quasi-religious argument that seeks to somehow present nuclear armed Israel as a victim in the Middle East. A cursory glance at the facts and the Israeli military industrial complex with a seven billion dollar annual budget says otherwise.
There are also the massive support tentacles of AIPAC – the high-powered lobby group and the greatest supporter and benefactor of the Israeli state and policy – with ties to boardrooms, media, the USA Congress and the Pentagon. Any objective observer, after considering these facts, would hopefully develop a more clear-eyed assessment of the manner in which the Jewish state behaves in the Middle East.
What are the reasons for this latest incursion? There are several theories but one is very straightforward: the continuation of a policy of expansion under the guise of the survival of the Jewish state. Most of Gaza’s populations are survivors of 1948 when 13,000 Palestinians were murdered and hundreds of towns were erased and people driven from their homes in the area. History records that in 1967 Israel, to cite one source, “seized the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine including East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, and continues to hold them in violation of United Nations resolutions.”
A second probable reason for the Gaza invasion is the Jewish state’s apprehension about the possible new direction of the incoming US president and the fact that the economic morass in the United States might lead to a fall-off in economic support for Israel.
The US military and state provide Israel with billions of dollars annually, by far the largest recipient of US foreign aid in the world.
The third reason is revenge for the defeat of the Israeli military at the hands of Hezbollah in their last incursion into Lebanon.
The fourth reason for the incursion is the forthcoming Israeli elections and its main contenders. Defence Minister Ehud Barak (the once and would-be prime minister) − his eye fixed on February elections – is employing mass murder as his party’s latest vote-getting appeal.
The western media hardly report protests of Jews in Israel, North America and Europe against the slaughter in Gaza. One of the foremost critics of the Jewish state is Noam Chomsky, himself a Jew. Other Jews inside and outside of Israel have condemned the incursion into Gaza. Naomi Klein, the internationally acclaimed writer and activist, has recently argued that the best strategy to “end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.” While she admits this will be a difficult task, she sees it as perhaps the only way that these massacres will end. And the massacres in Gaza have in fact provoked a rise in anti-Zionist activism by Jewish women and men who believe that the apartheid practised by the Israeli state is a betrayal of all that Jews have historically stood for.
Yours faithfully,
Andaiye, David Hinds, Rupert Roopnaraine, Karen de Souza, Wazir Mohamed, Denis Canterbury, Alissa Trotz, Nigel Westmaas, Eusi Kwayana, Chris Ram, Abbyssinian Carto, Moses Bhagwan
Thanks brothers you all did a wonderful article,nothing more than the fact,it shows how well read you all are,i see some bloggers here are very ignorant of the Israeli/Palestinan crisis,I think the negative ones are either trying to make mischief or peddle their Isreali propaganda.I studied the Israeli/Palestinan crisis very well and cannot be fooled about it,you all keep up the good work,if you all can get this book,read it(By way of Deception,The making and unmaking of a Mossad Officer)it’s on Amazon.com,keep up the good work brothers and god bless.
….not that i need to be in any “club” like the sort of the “group” of names seem to imply ,, but i think i was the first to bring to light in this very forum on January 1st of 2009 to the uncivilised and barbaric onslaught of the kind by the ukrainian jews on the Palestinaians whose land these refugees illegally occupy and dictate !…
does the compilation of the names of this “group” an assertion of the only minds in the GUYANESE strata that is capable of defining “right from wrong” ??????????…….
I support this statement of Bro Eusi and colleagues.
The death toll is something to lament especially when innocent civilians are killed, but remember,
Who rained 7000+ rockets on the Jewish State of Israel? And who call/swore to wipe them off the face of the Earth?
Never heard of of this group condemning it.
So many years the Israelis tried to `prevent a war with the hamas/palestinains, their death toll by the hamas rockets are not astronomical because the Jewish State always spend millones on their citizens safety by building bomb shelters.
Meanwhile hamas uses the civilians as human shields we all sees it daily in Iraq/Afganistan.
The World would judge the day a nuclear weapon falls in their hands, but the lament would be too late.
I could agree less, as this assumption is essentially false.Why are Palestinian suicide bombers and daily rocket firings into Isreal not a war crime also?
Nice and very true! Keep it up guys, way to go!!!!!
Certainly isreal has a right to defend themselves.
ISRAELI ACTION IN GAZA MERELY SHOWS WHAT WAR DOES
Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter by Andaiye et al (SN 14/1/09) captioned “Israeli Action in Gaza Is a War Crime”, and would appreciate the opportunity to rebut.
The letter is shallow and ill-considered, and is hopelessly inadequate as to its treatment of the opposing view. Guyanese are being asked, again wrongly, to pander to a careless and lazy point of view. The letter represents a unique alliance in off-the-shelf deception rarely seen in Guyana, and is easily rebutted on several distinct grounds.
Firstly, Israel’s action in Gaza is not a “war crime”, merely the expected and woeful result of war … any war. Melanie Phillips makes the point (“War Is Terrible, but the Alternative in Gaza was Worse”; http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=636 ) that, for persons like Andaiye and her colleauges, the main complaint is that Israel’s response is ‘disproportionate’, since some 900 Palestinians have been killed compared with ‘only’ 13 Israelis since the war started 20 days ago. This would be absurd. In World War II, 20 times more civilians were killed in Germany than in Britain. Did that make the war against the Nazis ‘disproportionate’? Of course not!
Secondly, Andaiye et al miss the point that wars do not start by themselves. To infer that the current catastrophe was somehow initiated by Israel is patently ridiculous. Melanie Phillips makes the UNDISPUTED point that “…. this is a war that Israel spent more than seven years trying to avoid, while no fewer than 6,000 rockets and other missiles rained down from Gaza upon its southern towns. No other country in the world would have sat on its hands while its traumatised children were raised in bomb shelters….” Despite Andaiye, destroying Hamas’ capacity became necessary!
Thirdly, to argue that Israel is investing in the ‘heavy and merciless blowing up of children, women and men’ challenges logic. If a modern army of Israel’s strength took 20 days to kill 900 people, this would be considered as incompetence. The reality is more believable. Melanie points out the following: “… Contrary to Arab propaganda, the Israelis are taking enormous pains to avoid civilian casualties in their attempt to curb these rocket attacks. The UN has confirmed that the vast majority (75 per cent) of the dead in Gaza have been Hamas terrorists. Given the huge number of bombing sorties that have been conducted, this proves that the Israelis are specifically targeting the Hamas infrastructure. Alas, the civilian death toll will unavoidably mount, which is deeply regrettable. But what must be understood is that Hamas have deliberately situated their weapons under apartment blocks, in mosques and in hospitals …”
Fourthly, therefore, some cruel facts: the Israelis build bomb shelters for their civilians; Hamas store bombs underneath their civilians in order to create as many civilian casualties as possible to manipulate world opinion. What people find so hard to grasp, says Melanie, is that Hamas actually want to maximise the number of Palestinians who are killed because, as they boast: ‘We desire death as you desire life.’
Fifthly, if the general Palestinian population (who foolishly elected Hamas to power on a promise of continued aggression against Israel) shares this outlook, it is indeed strange that Andaiye and her colleagues would defend the lives of those sworn to kill themselves … but then this is the nature of the abiding paradox and hypocrisy that drives her letter … and Hamas’ social policy. It is easy to infer that it was this self-induced suicidal idiocy of Hamas, masquerading as a plausible national defence strategy, that fuelled James Petras’s compellingly (but yet to be verified) poetic account of disaster. In the meantime, Israel’s practical and effective offensive counter-insurgency policy simply became: seek out and kill the Hamas-terrorist wherever he fires from.
Sixthly, Andaiye et al make the inane connection with “… the massive support tentacles of AIPAC …“ We are at a loss to understand where this is leading to, because Ahmed Ahmadinejad and his oil-rich country Iran is the foremost public bankroller for Hamas. While the AIPAC does not ask Israel to lob 6,000 missiles unprovoked at Gaza, Ahmadinejad has publicly promised to, upon acquiring nuclear capacity, “blow Israel off the face of the map”. Now Israel is a UN-created state, and enjoys legitimacy with that organization … but no one has labelled that threat as a “war crime”. If this is lost to Andaiye and her colleagues, then they are drinking from the cup of delusion. Phillips therefore concludes: “…. Most important of all, this war is not actually about Israel and the Palestinians. Hamas is controlled by Iran. Unless Hamas is stopped, Iran’s growing influence in the region will be entrenched and put Britain and the West in even greater danger from Islamist aggression and blackmail….”
Seventh, Andaiye et al display a remarkable degree of error in referring to “… the defeat of the Israeli military at the hands of Hezbollah in their last incursion into Lebanon…”. This would be laughable were it not a “serious” treatment with the signatures of eminent persons like Rupert Roopnarine and Eusi Kwayana. They obviously did not read the script before signing, and must by now be hugely embarrassed. The Israeli version makes for easier digestion. An enormous amount of Lebanese infrastructure was damaged in that campaign before Israel withdrew, and Hezbollah’s promise of future incessant rocket-fire was comprehensively stopped by an adamant Lebanese government. Hezbollah sustained heavy losses of personnel and munitions in that campaign, and the net result was a face-saving mantra that “to survive an attack by Israel equals victory”. What utter rubbish!
One of the contributors to SN’s webpage comments had already raised the ludicrous spectacle of a defeated Hamas leader throwing a rock over the border after Israel has withdrawn and shouting “Victory!”.
Andaiye and her colleagues should cease and desist.
Yours faithfully
Roger Williams
Jan 14, 2009