The Israeli government is taking advantage of the world’s preoccupation with developments in Libya to commit bloody massacres in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, its missiles killed eight people, including three children, and wounded at least ten others. Eyewitnesses said the bodies of some of the victims were dismembered by the bombing, which targeted them, shortly after stepping out of a car.
The three children were killed when rockets hit them as they were playing near their home in a residential neighbourhood. Palestinians in Gaza say that this confirms that the Israelis who fired the rockets killed the children deliberately, with the intention to intimidate and terrorise the population; children, they pointed out, do not fire rockets towards Israeli settlements and do not work in weapons factories.
However, the UN Security Council will not hold an emergency session to discuss the Israeli massacre, and will not pass a resolution imposing a no-fly zone on the Gaza Strip to protect civilians. The reason is simple and obvious: there is no oil in the besieged territory to warrant US aircraft carriers being mobilized to the Eastern Mediterranean and the declaration of a state of emergency in the British military bases in Cyprus, French bases in Corsica, and others. Israel can attack Gaza or south Lebanon at any time with impunity. It places itself above all international laws, supported by an ever-willing US veto to protect it from any international condemnation or sanctions. The Israel lobby in the US and Europe controls American, British and French foreign policy in this respect.
American F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft in Israeli livery make up the strike force which roams the skies above Gaza freely; they break the sound barrier to instil fear in the hearts of children and adults alike, and fire their missiles to kill civilians and Palestinian children. They face no opposition, for the Palestinians of Gaza have no anti-aircraft weapons, so the Israeli pilots have a picnic in the air. What is this if not state terrorism?
The Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, and other Arab leaders do not consider the massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as something worthy of their attention. They did nothing about the siege of the territory and the assault and invasion which started in December 2008 and claimed the lives of more than 1,400 civilians, one-third of them children. The killing of eight people, including three children, in one day is unlikely to move them.
There appears to be a priority list for caring about people killed in the Middle East and the people of Gaza are not on it. No one cares about them as long as they die at the hands of Israelis and their US tax-funded bullets and missiles. Officialdom in the Arab world only recognises the VIP martyrs approved by America, Britain and France.
The latest Israeli encroachment and aggression against Gaza will not kill the will of the Palestinians and will not stop resistance to the Zionist state’s illegal occupation of Palestine. The Palestinians will not abandon the struggle for their rights and will not give in to Israeli terrorism and abandonment by the Arab rulers, whose silence and indifference in the face of Israel’s terror makes them complicit in its war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The blood of Palestinian children torn to pieces by Israeli missiles is further evidence of the double standards and hypocrisy of the international community. Nevertheless, these killings by Israeli war criminals serve only to make the people of Palestine more determined than ever in their legitimate resistance to Israel’s illegal military occupation. It is clear now which side has blown the peace process to pieces. Israel has never been a genuine partner for peace; having been born through terrorism it continues to expand its territory through terrorism. Israel is a terrorist state, pure and simple.
Source: Al-Quds Al Arabi Opinion