The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering That Candidates and Congress Ignore

The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering

That Candidates and Congress Ignore
By Ralph Nader

08/03/08 "ICH" -- The world’s largest prison—Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless—is receiving more sympathy and protest by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than is reported in the U.S. press.

In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other necessities from coming into this tiny enclave through international relief organizations is received with predictable silence or callousness by members of Congress, including John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The contrast invites more public attention and discussion.

Israel has militarily occupied Gaza for forty years. It pulled out its colonials in 2005 but maintained an iron grip on the area controlling all access, including its airspace and territorial waters. Its F-16s and helicopter gunships regularly shred more and more of the areas—public works, its neighborhoods and inflict collective punishment on civilians in violation of Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As the International Red Cross declares, citing treaties establishing international humanitarian law, “Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.”

According to The Nation magazine, the great Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, reports that the primitive rockets from Gaza, have taken thirteen Israeli lives in the past four years, while Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories in the past two years alone. Almost half of them were civilians, including some 200 children.

More:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19489.htm

I know we're supposed to excuse Israel's collective punishment of all of Gaza ("they celebrate death, see?"... "their leaders are terrorists, see?") but some of us just aren't that blind. Ralph Nader, clearly gets it on this issue.

Since when did anyone care what he thought?

Inconsequential, at best.

"A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

nt

a divider and not a uniter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Gaza have a coast along the Mediterranean and a border with Egypt? Is it against International Law for the Egyptians to allow NGO's to move humanitarian provisions through the border? If not how much humanitarian aid have the Egyptians or any of the members of the Arab League provided? If so, shouldn't the Egyptians amd the Arab League go to the UN and demand they be allowed to help?

about the sad plight of a people, you would help them regardless of permission from the UN or anybody else for that matter.
But first you must care.

So where is the Arab League? Where are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Oman, Qatar, Syria and United Arab Emirates,? I'll ask again, How much humanitarian assistance have they given? Surely ALL of the countries I've mentioned have the ability and a vested interest in the region. So where are they?

I suggest you check out the Wikipedia article on UNRWA, as well as UNRWA's own site (http://www.un.org/unrwa). Both are fascinating.

UNRWA was founded in 1948, and is one of the oldest UN organizations. Its sole purpose is the care of Palestinian refugees in 59 refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

These camps still exist, 60(!) years after the war ended, because... ummm...

"UNRWA is the largest agency in the United Nations family, employing over 25,000 staff; 99% of UNRWA's employees are locally-recruited Palestinians."


As to your question about assistance, the UNRWA site answers that question nicely:

"The Agency’s largest donors in 2006 were the European Commission, the United States, Sweden, Canada and the United Kingdom.
As of 30 November 2007, the Agency's largest contributors are the United States, the European Commission, Sweden, the Norway and United Kingdom."

For more details, see http://www.un.org/unrwa/finances/pledges_dec06.html.
In 2006, for example, Saudi Arabia gave $1,200,000. Norway gave more than 20 times that. The US gave more than 110 times that.

That Palestinian refugees continue to live in squalid refugee camps, dependent upon aid, for sixty years?

Why has there been no effort to try to disband these horrid camps, particularly those in Lebanon, for example, where the Palestinians have no rights, not even to the same jobs, as Lebanese?

by international law.
Criminal bastards that run the Israeli state are responsible.

One has nothing to do with the other.
Perhaps criminal bastards running those Arab states are (still!) punishing the Palestinians for something.

people in refugee camps IN Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are still considered refugees. Why aren't they citizens of the countries in which they are born?
And how about Yasser Arafat's wife:
"There are reports that the Palestinian Authority pays Suha $10,000 a month out of PNA's budget. Suha told the Sunday Times that the sum is her late husband's pension <4>. Suha has not denied receiving the money. Because almost all of the assets of the PA and the PLO were controlled by Arafat and actually held in his name personally it is thought that the PA's concession to Suha (the large monthly payment) was in return for her agreement not to demand a share of Arafat's wealth as an inheritance for her and her daughter.'

French prosecutors announced in 2003 that they had begun an inquiry into the transfer of $9 million into Suha's French bank accounts. The Paris public prosecutor confirmed a report in the magazine Le Canard enchaîné (a satirical newspaper) that the inquiry had been launched after information provided by the Bank of France and a government anti-money-laundering body. The investigations have not cleared Suha of any wrong-doing. Asked about the huge sums of money, an angry Suha replied: "What's wrong if my husband sends me some money? I'm working here (in Paris) for the benefit of my people." She, in turn, has accused her husband's close aides of being responsible for corrupt dealings, saying: "Every beautiful flower ends up surrounded by weeds."

hifalutin
If the Arab League cared enough about the sad plight of THEIR people, the Arab League would help them regardless of permission from the UN or anybody else for that matter.
But first they must care.

how some of the posters on this forum would react if the US kept refugees in similar conditions for sixty years.

Just another example of how some people regularly grind important progressive principles into the ground.

Because people apparently only wear their "progressive hat" on certain causes.

Question is why is the I/P issue one that burns progressives more than other significantly more heinous ones?

I am curious too.

I constantly see remarks to the effect that 'no one criticizes Israel' etc. It seems to me that Israel gets lots of criticism, and so do the Palestinians themselves; but the people who really escape criticism with regard to the I/P issue to a remarkable extent are the Arab states. Yet few of them have ever lifted a finger to help the Palestinians in any humanitarian way - even those who were born in their countries.

must be kept perpetual 'victims' or perceived as such, it is one weapon they can continually use against Israel.

The west must constantly be reminded that Israel is the 'oppressor' or what else is there to charge them with?

Zillions have been poured into their coffers but what is there to show for it, certainly no infrastructure or pretty picket fenced homes?

Disgusting!!!

had better be heavily armored. Google "gaza crossing attacks" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

The inmates are running the prison and it appears that they are more interested in firing rockets at Israel than creating a constructive society. When Hamas stops firing rockets at Israel, people will become interested.

thru the Gaza-Egypt crossing

I think you and i can see the goal of Israeli policies.
Ethnic cleansing.
It's pretty clear.

Unlike the Israelis, the Jordanians kicked them out BY FORCE. On to Lebanon until they "relocated" to Tunisia until 1994 and then Gaza. Seems they don't play well with others.
The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab League have refused EVERY ATTEMPT EVERYONE has EVER made for peace and they refuse to be peaceful everywhere they go.
Hamas has Gaza.
Hamas took it by force against THEIR OWN PEOPLE, so it's up to Hamas to govern the land THEY NOW OCCUPY.
Maybe someone needs to talk to them about swords to plowshares.

Palestinians have been kicked out almost everywhere they go.
Unlike the Israelis, the Jordanians kicked them out BY FORCE. On to Lebanon until they "relocated" to Tunisia until 1994 and then Gaza.

The PLO was kicked out of Jordan, not the Palestinian population. And Israel did expel Palestinian civilians in the 1940's. And it wasn't the Palestinian population that relocated to Tunisia, but the PLO, so you seem a bit confused in telling the difference between the PLO and the Palestinian people...

The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab League have refused EVERY ATTEMPT EVERYONE has EVER made for peace and they refuse to be peaceful everywhere they go.

Great. Someone else who hasn't heard of the Arab Peace Plan and motors along making stupid and nasty comments about the Palestinian people...

I am not confused.
THE PLO REPRESENTS THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization
"The PLO has a nominal legislative body, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), but most actual political power and decisions are controlled by the PLO Executive Committee, made up of 15 people elected by the PNC. The PLO incorporates a range of generally secular ideologies of different Palestinian movements committed to the struggle for Palestinian independence and liberation, hence the name of the organization. The Palestine Liberation Organization is considered by most countries, including the Arab League<1><7> the United Nations<8> and Israel, to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and holds a permanent observer seat in the United Nations General Assembly."

So, IF YOU think the Palestinian people are victims, and "there is a big difference between the Palestinian people and the PLO" who should negotiations be with?
Who should be authorized to disperse the humanitarian aid?

"And Israel did expel Palestinian civilians in the 1940's"
The emigration of Arabs from Palestine started way before the 40's so check you history. Leaders of the Arab High Committee were worried about it in 1918! http://lw.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story2667.html

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) penned an article in March 1976 in Falastin al-Thawra, the official journal of the PLO in Beirut:
"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe" (emphasis added).

"According to Walid Khalidi, perhaps the leading Palestinian nationalist historian and a highly reputable source, "The Arabs held their ground throughout the period from November 1947 to March 1948. Up to March 1, not one single Arab village had been vacated by its inhabitants, and the number of people leaving the mixed towns was insignificant."8 The mass departure from Palestine of 590,000 Arabs began only in April 1948; yet , Heykal Pasha had publicly and very formally announced a program to expel Jews from Arab countries fully five months earlier."

Thinking the Unthinkable: A Sovereign Palestinian State
Walid Khalidi

"If it is wondered why it was that throughout the period 1948-67 no one talked of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the answer is simple: Palestinian and Arab opinion was not prepared for it. It aspired to the recovery of the whole of Palestine or the establishment of a democratic secular state in it. Acceptance of partition or a state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip was treason. In some Palestinian and Arab quarters, it still is. Therefore, if partition is accepted today over a much smaller area of the country than under any previous partition formula, this is a measure of the evolution in the last decade or so of Palestinian and Arab pragmatism. It is the development that has long been awaited by outside observers and Israelis. It would be tragic if it were not recognized when it occurred. It would be more tragic if it were recognized and ignored."

The Arab Peace Plan is more of the same old same old.

refreshing.

and is personally responsible for the selection of George Bush, who is responsible for the death of thousands, the ruining of the US economy, etc?

And you support this bozo?

Why can't he find a different way to get his views heard?