In the long sixty-year tortured history of the Palestinian expulsion
from their lands, Congress has maintained that it is always the
Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and now Hamas who are to blame
for all hostilities and their consequences with the Israeli government.
The latest illustration of this Washington puppet show, backed
by the most modern weapons and billions of taxpayer dollars annually
sent to Israel, was the grotesquely one-sided Resolutions whisked
through the Senate and the House of Representatives.
While a
massive bombing and invasion of Gaza was underway, the resolution
blaming Hamas for all the civilian casualties and devastation—99% of it
inflicted on Palestinians—zoomed through the Senate by voice vote and
through the House by a vote of 390 to 5 with 22 legislators voting
present.
There is more dissent against this destruction of Gaza
among the Israeli people, the Knesset, the Israeli media, and
Jewish-Americans than among the dittoheads on Capitol Hill.
The
reasons for such near-unanimous support for Israeli actions—no matter
how often they are condemned by peace advocates such as Bishop Desmond
Tutu, United Nations resolutions, the World Court and leading human
rights groups inside and outside of Israel, are numerous. The
pro-Israeli government lobby, and the right-wing Christian
evangelicals, lubricated by campaign money of many Political Action
Committees (PACs) certainly are key.
There is also more than a
little bigotry in Congress against Arabs and Muslims, reinforced by the
mass media yahoos who set new records for biased reporting each time
this conflict erupts.
The bias is clear. It is always the
Palestinians’ fault. Right-wingers who would never view the U.S.
government as perfect see the Israeli government as never doing
anything wrong. Liberals who do not hesitate to criticize the U.S.
military view all Israeli military attacks, invasions and civilian
devastation as heroic manifestations of Israeli defense.
The
inversion of history and the scope of amnesia know no limits. What
about the fact that the Israeli government drove Palestinians from
their lands in 1947-48 with tens of thousands pushed into the Gaza
strip. No problem to Congress.
Then the fact that the Israeli
government cruelly occupied, in violation of UN resolutions, the West
Bank and Gaza in 1967 and only removed its soldiers and colonists from
Gaza (1.5 million people in a tiny area twice the size of the District
of Columbia) in 2005. To Congress, the Palestinians deserved it.
Then
when Hamas was freely elected to run Gaza, the Israeli authorities cut
off the tax revenues on imports that belonged to the Gaza government.
This threw the Gazans into a fiscal crisis—they were unable to pay
their civil servants and police.
In 2006, the Israelis added to
their unrelieved control of air, water and land around the open-air
prison by establishing a blockade. The natives became restless. Under
international law, a blockade is an act of war. Primitive rockets,
called by reporters “wildly inaccurate” were fired into Israel.
During
this same period, Israeli soldiers and artillery and missiles would go
into Gaza at will and take far more lives and cause far more injuries
than those incurred by those rockets. Civilians—especially children,
the infirm and elderly—died or suffered week after week for lack of
medicines, medical equipment, food, electricity, fuel and water which
were embargoed by the Israelis.
Then the Israeli bombing
followed by the invasion during the past three weeks with what
prominent Israeli writer Gideon Levy called “a brutal and violent
operation…far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its
south.” Mr. Levy observed what the president of the United Nations
General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann called a war against “a
helpless and defenseless imprisoned population.”
The horror of
being trapped from fleeing the torrent of the most modern weapons of
war from the land, air and seas is reflected in this passage from Amira
Hass, writing in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
“The
earth shaking under your feet, clouds of choking smoke, explosions like
a fireworks display, bombs bursting into all-consuming flames that
cannot be extinguished with water, mushroom clouds of pinkish-red
smoke, suffocating gas, harsh burns on the skin, extraordinary maimed
live and dead bodies.”
Ms. Hass is pointing to the use of new
anti-civilian weapons used on the Gazan people. So far there have been
over 1100 fatalities, many thousands of injuries and the destruction of
homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, pharmacies, granaries, farmer’s
fields and many critical public facilities. The clearly marked UN
headquarters and UN school were smashed, along with stored medicines
and food supplies.
Why? The Congressional response: “Hamas
terrorists” everywhere. Sure, defending their Palestinian families is
called terrorism. The truth is there is no Hamas army, airforce and
navy up against the fourth most powerful military in the world. As one
Israeli gunner on an armored personnel carrier frankly said to The New
York Times: “They are villagers with guns. They don’t even aim when
they shoot.”
Injured Gazans are dying in damaged hospital
corridors, bleeding to death because rescuers are not permitted to
reach them or are endangered themselves. Thousands of units of blood
donated by Jordanians are stopped by the Israeli blockade. Israel has
kept the international press out of the Gazan killing fields.
What
is going on in Gaza is what Bill Moyers called it earlier this month –
“state terrorism.” Already about 400 children are known to have died.
More will be added who are under the rubble.
Since 2002, more
than 50 Arab and Muslim nations have had a standing offer, repeated
often, that if Israel obeys several UN resolutions and withdraws to the
1967 borders leaving 22 percent of the original Palestine for an
independent Palestinian state, they will open full diplomatic relations
and there will be peace. Israel has declined to accept this offer.
None
of these and many other aspects of this conflict matter to the
Congress. Its members do not want to hear even from the Israeli peace
movement, composed of retired generals, security chiefs, mayors, former
government ministers, and members of the Knesset. In 60 years these
savvy peace advocates have not been able to give one hour of testimony
before a Congressional Committee.
Maybe members of Congress may wish to weigh the words of the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, years ago when he said:
“There
has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz but was that their
[the Palestinian’s] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here
and stolen their country.”
Doesn’t that observation invite some
compassion for the Palestinian people and their right to be free of
Israeli occupation, land and water grabs and blockades in the 22
percent left of Palestine?
– Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate.