The silence and inaction of the Western
governments over Israel’s crimes in Gaza has obliterated any residual moral
standing that the West has claimed for itself, a political analyst tells Press
TV.
In a Tuesday interview with Press TV, Jim W. Dean,
Chief Editor of Veteran’s Today, slammed the West for turning a blind eye to
Israel’s crimes, saying, “The whole reputation and morality of Western
jurisprudence and everything is … on display here as to how decrepit it is, and
how hollowed out, and how it really represents nothing.”
“Any claim to any morality by Western
governments is … dying in Gaza as we speak”
The analyst also lashed out at the UN for its failure to put an end to
Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and said, “They never contribute anything to try to
end this because they would rather be a friend of Israel than a friend to the
Arabs and the Palestinians in Gaza. For them they have earned a special disgrace
for their behavior.”
The Israeli regime is continuing its relentless aerial and ground attacks on
the besieged Gaza Strip for the 22nd consecutive day, causing more deaths and
destruction. At least 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and
many more injured since the Israeli regime escalated the war on Gaza Monday
night. Since July 8, Israeli warplanes have been pounding numerous sites in the
Gaza Strip, demolishing houses and burying families in the rubble. Israeli
forces also began a ground offensive against the impoverished Palestinian land
on July 17. The overall death toll among the Palestinians in more than three
weeks of Israeli attacks has neared 1,200. More than 6,700 others have been
injured.
Exceprt:
Press TV: Whether or not the attacks do end
today, tomorrow or within the week the question is these internationally
regarded crimes have been committed in the Gaza strip against the people of
Palestine, the Palestinians in Gaza...
What I’d like to know is will the Israelis ever be held accountable for what
they commit in the West Bank against the people of Gaza; the past three wars
over the past 5-6 years; and also the atrocities and crimes they commit in the
region altogether?
Dean: Well what we have on display here once
again is Israeli supremacism put out before the whole world that: we can do
this, we will do it on our terms; when the pile of bodies gets big enough that
we think is big enough we will stop and we will not stop before then.
And Mr. Kerry can twiddle his thumbs and do this; and they can stop the air
flights; but they’re showing once again... they were really worried about the
(Hamas Fatah PLO) coalition government and I think that what happened is that
they saw this as a very big threat and we’ve just got to blow the whole thing up
and buy ourselves another couple of years - which is what they usually do with
these Gaza attacks.http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/07/29/373269/any-west-claim-to-morality-dying-in-gaza/
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says the Israeli atrocities against
the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip cannot be countenanced by any conscientious
human being.
“The catastrophes and crimes by the Zionists in Gaza are not tolerable for
any human being,” Rouhani said in a Tuesday meeting with Iranian ministers,
deputies and state authorities.
The Iranian president expressed hope that all Muslims in the world would
fulfill their human and Islamic duty in the face of the Israeli regime’s brutal
attacks against the Palestinians.
“The Zionists behave very savagely as
they do not even have an iota of conscience and mercy and are only after their
own interests,” he added.
Rouhani further expressed hope that peace and stability would return to the
region, particularly in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, adding that all
countries will benefit from sustainable stability in the Middle East.
“Maintaining stability in the region
will be beneficial to all regional countries and the Islamic Republic of Iran,
based on its humanitarian and religious duties, has been making its utmost
efforts to settle regional woes.”
The Israeli regime is carrying out brutal acts in Gaza by killing civilians,
particularly children and women because Tel Aviv only seeks to achieve its own
interests, he pointed out.
Since July 8, Israeli warplanes have been pounding numerous sites in the Gaza
Strip, demolishing houses and burying families in the rubble. Israeli forces
also began a ground offensive against the impoverished Palestinian land on July
17.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s 22-day deadly military offensive
against the blockaded Gaza Strip has risen to at least 1,159. More than 6,700
others have been injured in the Israeli onslaught.
Countries divorcing from Israhell, recalling ambassadors
just a tip of the wave:
Chile, Peru,
Ecuador and Brazil recall envoys from Israel
citizens of Ireland and elsewhere are demanding their
countries recall ambassadors to Israel
Related:
Erdogan ‘glad’ to return Jewish award
Kashmiris slam Israel’s war on
Gaza
Tesco Ireland takes a small step towards
boycotting Israeli goods
Josh Ruebner, The Electronic Intifada, 19 July 2014
Earlier this month, fifteen-year-old
Tariq Abukhdeir, a US citizen from Tampa, Florida, was savagely beaten by
undercover Israeli police in the Shuafat neighborhood of occupied East
Jerusalem. The attack was caught on video, showing Israeli police repeatedly
kicking and punching Abukhdeir in the face and head as he lay handcuffed on the
ground.
According to the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer,
Abukhdeir was arrested without charge and denied urgently needed medical
attention and access to his family for five hours. He was released on bail after
three days in Israeli jail and placed under house arrest before returning to
Florida on 16 July.
On 5 July, the US State Department called “for a
speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any
excessive use of force” in Abukhdeir’s beating. However, in previous instances
of Israel injuring and even killing US citizens, the United States has pressed
similar demands, only to have Israel thumb its nose at its
benefactor.
History of attacks
Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old activist
from Olympia, Washington, was run over and killed by an Israeli soldier
operating a militarized Caterpillar bulldozer as she nonviolently attempted to
prevent a Palestinian home from being demolished in the Gaza Strip on 16 March
2003. Although the Israeli government promised the United States a “thorough,
credible and transparent” investigation into her death, the State Department
informed the Corrie family that the Israeli investigation did not meet these
standards.
But instead of taking up her case, the US government left the
family to its own devices, counseling the Corries to “use the Israeli court
system” to seek accountability. The case is now on appeal at the Israeli high
court, after a lower court ruled against the Corrie family, blaming Rachel for
her own death.
On 5 April 2003, Brian Avery, a 24-year-old activist from
Albuquerque, New Mexico, was shot in the face in the occupied West Bank city of
Jenin by Israeli soldiers who fired machine guns from an armored personnel
carrier.
Tristan Anderson, a 37-year-old activist from Oakland,
California, suffered permanent brain damage after Israeli forces shot him in the
forehead with a high-velocity tear gas canister as he observed a protest in the
West Bank village of Nilin in March 2009.
Furkan Doğan, an 18-year-old
Turkish resident born in Troy, New York, was killed aboard the Mavi Marmara in
the Mediterranean Sea on 31 May 2010 as a flotilla of international activists
attempted to break Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip and to deliver
humanitarian goods. The United Nations’ General Assembly Human Rights Council
found that Doğan was killed by Israeli naval commandos in an “extra-legal,
arbitrary and summary execution,” shot five times, including a shot to his face
at “point blank range.”
Broken promises
According to documents
obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) through a Freedom of
Information Act request, State Department officials were promised by the Israeli
foreign ministry that “each incident” on the flotilla involving US citizens
“would be thoroughly and transparently investigated by appropriate GOI
[Government of Israel] agencies and that information from those investigations
will be made available to the [US government] as soon as they are
available.”
CCR concluded, however, that “the Israeli government at every
step of the way declined to provide the US government information regarding the
investigation,” which was eventually released without “any information about how
and under what circumstances Furkan was killed.” Nevertheless, as of February
2013, the Obama administration still had not “conducted its own investigation
into the killing,” instead continuing “to defer to the Israeli government’s
investigation,” according to CCR.
The same day that Israel killed Furkan
Doğan, 21-year-old Emily Henochowicz of Potomac, Maryland, participated in a
protest against Israel’s attack on the flotilla at the Qalandiya checkpoint near
Jerusalem. An Israeli soldier fired a tear gas canister at her face, causing her
to lose an eye.
Impunity
Israel’s pattern of injuring and killing
Americans has drawn a woefully inadequate response not only from the White
House, but from Congress as well, and is symptomatic of the broader impunity the
United States affords Israel to commit systematic and egregious human rights
abuses against Palestinians and anyone standing in solidarity with
them.
A resolution introduced in 2003 by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) called
for a US investigation into Rachel Corrie’s killing and garnered 77 co-sponsors
but died in committee. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a resolution in 2010
merely calling on the United States and Israel to “intensify their cooperation
in determining the circumstances” of Tristan Anderson’s injury; it gained a
paltry four co-sponsors.
A US Senate report accompanying a 2011
appropriations bill would have required the State Department to report on
actions taken “to conduct thorough, credible and transparent investigations” of
these and other incidents in which US citizens were harmed by Israel; however,
this reporting requirement was rendered moot since Congress failed to pass
separate appropriations bills that year.
It is atrocious enough that the
US government has failed in its most elemental duty to advocate for justice for
those of its citizens injured or killed by Israel. This disgraceful position is
even more scandalous given that the weapons used to injure or kill these
Americans was, definitely in some and potentially in all of these cases,
provided to Israel by the United States as part of its more than $3 billion per
year military aid package. Thus, ironically, the US taxpayer is funding the
Israeli military to injure and kill US citizens with US weapons with the US
government failing to hold Israel accountable for its actions.
Last
month, after US forces apprehended Ahmed Abu Khatallah — suspected of
involvement in the attack on State Department and CIA installations in Benghazi,
Libya, which killed four Americans — President Barack Obama declared
unequivocally “that we will do whatever it takes to see that justice is done
when people harm Americans.”
It is high time for the United States to end
the double standard that affords Israel impunity to injure and kill Americans
and to see that justice is done for them.
Josh Ruebner is the author of
Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Policy
Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation.
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