Giving Israel An Automatic Seal Of U.S. Approval
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Courtesy Of: Axis Of Logic
By Doris Cadigan,
Massachusetts, U.S.
Dec 20, 2006, 13:56
"We witnessed the devastating consequences for the civilian population of years of Israeli operations. The checkpoints, closures and the severe restriction on movement and economic activity have contributed to rising unemployment, poverty accompanied by usually high rates of infant mortality, acute and chronic malnutrition and inadequate outpatient and hospital services."
- Dr. Alice Rothchild
I wish to thank Former President Jimmy Carter for his latest book, Peace not Apartheid. Jimmy Carter said he wrote the book to promote a frank discussion of the facts in the American press and thus I welcome and applaud his efforts and I wish to add my own frank voice to this discussion which as Carter explains has been long overdue:
"For 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize ant policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices."
"It would be political suicide for members of Congress to espouse a balance position between Israel and Palestinian, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinian ... What is even more difficult to comprehend is why editorial pages of major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint."
Yet Israel receives one-third of the United states foreign aid budget annually and billions more in loan guarantees without any discussion of its oppressive policies and human rights violations in the territories. That's even more foreign aid than the entire continent of Africa while so many in that continent are in such dire need and where poverty and aids takes of lives yearly needlessly that living saving aid could prevent.
Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories is anything but self defense as it claims but a gross violation of international UN Security Council Re- solution 242 which called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops following the 1967 war:
"... withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the recent conflict" and it emphasizes the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war".
As John Quigley, professor of law at Ohio State University points out in his book , A Challenge to Justice:
"Under the UN Charter there can be lawfully no territorial gains from war, even by a state acting in self-defense...The response of other states to Israel's occupation shows a virtually unanimous opinion that even if Israel's action was defensive, its retention of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was not. The (UN) General Assembly characterized Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a denial of self determination and hence a "serious and increasing threat to international peace and security"".
Jimmy Carter explains past American policy on the occupation in his book and in a column he wrote last year - The Colonization of Palestine Preludes Peace:
"FOR more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community. Israel’s occupation of Palestine has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had no formalised government, one headed by Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas, or with Abbas as president and Hamas controlling the parlia- ment and cabinet.
"The unwavering U.S. position since Dwight Eisenhower’s administration has been that Israel’s borders coincide with those established in 1949, and, since 1967, the universally adopted UN Resolution 242 has mandated Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. This policy was reconfirmed even by Israel in 1978 and 1993, and emphasized by all presidents, including George W. Bush. As part of the quartet, including Russia, the UN, and the European Union, he has endorsed a “Road Map” for peace. But Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites"
Still, US lawmakers continue to sign on the dotted line for Israel without any discussion about holding Israel accountable for violating international law or human rights laws or even America's own federal laws--US Foreign Assistance Act (FAA ) and the US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) prohibits sending aid to countries with known Human Rights abuses.
And still Israel continues to receive a failing grade on its human rights report card as it has done for the last 5 years during this conflict. Daily, the Israeli Occupation Forces deny ordinary Palestinians their essential freedoms by forcing them to live under an unjust military siege and it keeps them bainished behind a network of 450 checkpoints and behind a wall twice as high as the Berlin wall and three times as long (which is also in violation of the International Court's ruling in the Hague, '04) -Thus preventing Palestinians from being in relationship with one another as a people and denying them access to their fields and livestock when they need too, their jobs and markets, and schools and even their health clinics and hospitals.
In addition, the military continues to launches massive attacks and violence against the Palestinian civilian population and it has failed to honor the cease-fire President Abbas and PM Sharon agreed to at Sharms summit in Egypt two years ago. Palestinian factions on the other hand, have for the most part honored the cease fire; there has only been a few isolated attacks on Israelis. (This was the peace Sharon promised the Israelis but President Abbas is the one who delivered on it and yet he gets no credit for doing so.)
Instead, the Israeli army has continued to conduct its fascist0-like house raids, arresting, targeting and killing Palestinian leaders daily. Indeed, the Israeli Occupation Forces have killed over 4,000 Palestinians (half the victims were civilians) and have wounded some 30,000 others with their reckless use of fire, shelling and rubber bullets in the territories.
Last year, the group Human Rights Watch said many Israeli soldiers are literally getting away with murder. The Israeli military court has only processed about 5% of the serious human rights abuse cases during the last five years and it uses soldier's testimony instead of eye witness reports, and other evidence for deciding whether or not to open human rights violations. Thus those the court has convicted have only gotten a little more than a petty thief's sentence. How shameful!
"When Israel and the US collaborated to launch an international boycott against the Hamas-led government and the Palestinian people, they knew the PA were already in debt to the tune of 900 million dollars and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month for its workers."
Then Israeli officials have the audacity to label the Palestinians and their Hamas official representatives "international terrorists" when they are the international outlaws failing to comply with international laws and agreements. Israel has already over 180 UN Security Council Resolution to its name.
Nevertheless, last spring Israel and the US collaborated to launch an international boycott against the democratically elected Hamas government and the Palestinian people. At that time, they knew the PA were already in debt to the tune of 900 million dollars and that it would have no way to meet the payroll in following months for government workers. Yet as Dr. Dereck Summerfield and Dr. Alice Rothchild pointed out in their reports, Israel was already battering a Palestinian population malnourished and traumatized by their brutal military operations.
"Last year a UN rapporteur concluded that Gaza and the West Bank were "on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe." The World Bank estimates that 60% of the population are subsisting at poverty level (£1.12; $2; 1.6 per day), a tripling in only three years. Half a million people are now completely dependent upon food aid, and Amnesty International has expressed concern that the Israeli army has been hampering distribution in Gaza. Over half of all households are eating only one meal per day. A study by Johns Hopkins and Al Quds universities found that 20% of children under 5 years old were anemic, 9.3% were acutely malnourished, and a further 13.2% chronically malnourished. The doctors I met on a professional visit in March pointed to a rising prevalence of anemia in pregnant women and low birthweight babies."
"We witnessed the devastating consequences for the civilian population of years of Israeli operations. The checkpoints, closures and the severe restriction on movement and economic activity have contributed to rising unemployment, poverty accompanied by usually high rates of infant mortality, acute and chronic malnutrition and inadequate outpatient and hospital services.
"A recent study by the program of 10- to 19-year-old in Gaza found that two-thirds have seen a friend or neighbor killed or wounded, more than one-third have been tear-gassed and 82 percent suffer from moderate to severe PTSD".
Currently, the situation in Gaza is near intolerable levels as Dr. Eyad el-Sarra from the Gaza Mental and others note:
"The situation in Gaza Strip is escalating day by day...Gaza Strip is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis in all aspects of life as the Israeli Occupation Forces have imposed a strict siege for over 70 days. The Israeli Forces do not allow free access to goods to the Strip... They obstruct free movement of civilians at the borders. .. There is a huge shortage of basic needs, medicine and fuel..The price of all basic requirements are sky rocketing...critically patients are not allowed to pass through the crossing points to receive medical treatment, and consequently many of them have died or their health condition have deteriorated as they were waiting for days at the border".
I call upon all of us as American tax payers to raise our voices on our air waves and in the media and to support Jimmy Carter and other politicians who dare to speak out against this oppressive Israeli regime. I also call on US lawmakers to stop signing on the bottom line for Israel. In every way possible, let's hold Israel accountable for its aid and eliminate funding for Israel's war against Palestine. These funds can be put to use for building and helping people in places like Africa instead of commiting them to the crushing destruction brought down upon the poor Palestinian people by the rogue state of Israel.
© Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com
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