From The European Weekly

Where has humanity gone? It’s gone from the Mideast

Author: Luisa Morgantini, from Italy, is a Vice President of the European Parliament, and the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left

12 January 2009 - Issue : 816

More than 700 Palestinian people killed, including 220 children in less than two weeks of Cast Lead operation actuated by the Israeli Forces against the Gaza Strip. That means against civil inhabitants, about one million and a half collectively punished by the ongoing Israeli bombing attacks and already devastated by a total and inhuman siege lasting several months. Where has humanity gone if this can happen today under our eyes without being able to do anything to stop this massacre, to protect all civilians, to defend human rights and dignity?

Qassam rockets against Israeli civilians are a crime, but the blockade of the Strip leading to an enormous and unprecedented humanitarian crisis is a crime too: about 290 Palestinians patients died since June 2007 unable to leave the Strip due to the closure imposed by Israel. Amongst these deaths, 35 percent are children. Now, adding to al this, by air, by land and by sea the Gazans are attacked by fire.

Homes, entire buildings, ministries, schools, pharmacies and police stations gutted. Children terrified, hospitals collapsed, medicines nowhere to be found. The Shifa hospital in Gaza city has appealed to the concerned international parties to supply the hospital with morgue fridge units after all its units were crammed with the growing number of bodies. The situation is unbearable. Nothing and nobody are safe from the bombings, also one UNRWA school has been hit killing 45 people in a bash, and no militants were inside shooting rockets, but only refugees and homeless civilians.



Israel is today -more than ever- an unpunished power that can freely break not only International law, but also abuse all human rights for “security reasons.” And we, the International Community and the Quartet, including the EU, have permitted this with our silence, with our negligence that means complicity. Yes, as the European Union, we did a lot to support economically the Palestinians, but they need freedom and independence. Since 1967, Israel has militarily occupied the Palestinian territories: a brutal and colonial occupation. The theft of land; the demolition of houses; checkpoints where Palestinians are treated with contempt, beaten, humiliated; colonies that grow alarmingly, taking over land and water resources, destroying crops. Thousands of political prisoners, who are even denied visits by family members.

STOP IT

We have permitted all this, not being able to say to the Israeli Governments “enough with the impunity, respect legality and human rights, respect the peace negotiations with concrete facts: Stop the occupation, Stop the Settlements, Stop the Gaza Siege”. Europe recognised the necessity of the creation of two States for two people living side-by-side in peace and security but since now it was not consequent and coherent in implementing this essential goal, opting for an assistance policy instead of a political solution. Aid not justice: exactly the opposite of what Palestinians, but also Israelis and the peace need.

Furthermore, the EU didn’t help the dialogue between Fatah and Hamas: it was a big mistake not to recognise the government democratically elected by the Palestinian people, and even more not to recognise the unity government which came out by the effort of the Palestinian prisoners belonging to all the factions, first of all by Marwan Barghouti. We should have helped Hamas to work on a democratic system and to fight the occupation through the non violent resistance. For this, the EU should ask forgiveness to all the victims - Palestinian, Israelis, Lebanese - of this endless tragedy.

Of course, also the Palestinian leadership has their responsibilities: the division between Hamas and Fatah have been paid in Gaza and in West Bank by civilians who are now suffering also for the responsibility of the leaderships who are not able to find a stable solution for their unity. And surely Hamas also must assume its responsibilities: launching rockets, generating fear and representing a threat against the Israeli civilian population represents unlawful and criminal actions that are to be condemned and stopped.

One death is enough to condemn all violence but we must recognise the asymmetry: since 2002, 20 people have been killed in rocket attacks by Palestinian extremists - too many - but at the same time more than 3,000 Gazans have been killed, including hundreds of children. On the other side, Israeli policies have never truly prevent the radicalisation of the conflict by giving a concrete signal of its will of peace nor showing the commitment to achieve a just and shared agreement that would be sustainable and lasting in all the region, and this is the main risk for the State of Israel.

We saw it with the recent pogrom by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Hebron, a ghost city where 120,000 Palestinians people live as hostages of 500 or 600 Israeli settlers protected by thousands of soldiers and paramilitary forces, where more than 800 Palestinian shops were forced to close because of aggressions and where, after years of complicity, backing, connivance by the different governments succeeded at the Head of the State of Israel carrying on a colonial policy the Israeli settlers’ violence exploded attacking Palestinians, uprooting trees, burning homes and mosques.

WHEN WILL IT END?

The ongoing war in Gaza is only the last signal of arrogance by Israeli policies and leadership unable or not interested to be farseeing in the way of peace: the risks of fuel the conflict, expanding it to the whole area is tangible now, since news already reports about at least two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon towards northern Israel, with the suddenly Israel response by shelling Lebanese lands.

And the price is and will be always paid by innocents, compelled into a never-ending slaughter under the bombs and probably also targeted by unconventional weapons: Israel admitted the use of white phosphorus bombs during war in Lebanon, weapons that causes very painful and often lethal chemical burns, and it is not excluded – as many medical witnesses reported from Gazan hospitals- that they are employed also for the Gaza War, together with Depleted Uranium or Dime (dense inert metal explosive) weapons made with tungsten, the victims might also die from cancers due to the toxicity of tungsten. A complete destruction.

Thinking of this and to all the victim of this unjustified and illogical violence, the three hours of lull for a “humanitarian corridor” in the Strip sounds like adding insult to injury, to the butchery, as well as the choice of the official name of this war, “Cast Lead,” two words from a children’s song about a Hanukkah toy. Humanitarian NGOs call on Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups to observe a full humanitarian truce to respond to the needs of the beleaguered civilian population, since a truce that lasts for a few hours a day is simply insufficient, too short to address the urgent and massive needs of the civilians suffering heavy casualties, often used as human shields, a practice prohibited under the Geneva Conventions and that according to Amnesty International is widely used by both sides of the conflict.

My Israeli friends and peace activists now demonstrating against the war and the siege on Gaza, the same people who since many years, day after day, have been repeating that the logical conclusion for an Israeli government seeking peace would have been to make concessions, ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty, foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian prisoners, say today that “logic has little influence on politics” and I completely agree.

People often have more gumption than their representatives and each time I go to Palestine and Israel accompanying delegations of MEPs or people of civil society I can meet many extraordinary Israelis and Palestinians struggling together in a non-violent way against the occupation and for rights and dignity for all, representing a culture able to destroy the figure of the enemy and revenge, where everybody loses.

They are a miracle in that consolidated context of humiliation and reiterated human rights abuses. A miracle that the ongoing war, the impunity of Israel helped by the silence of the International Community risk to destroy tragically together with all hopes of peace. Israel cannot search for security by creating instability and injustice, cannot search peace fuelling the hate and this not only among Palestinians, also civil society in moderate Arab countries are concerned in this escalating conflict: the world entire would be more insecure.

The International community bears the responsibility of not having the will to stop Israel. We should impose a ceasefire and send International forces to protect civilians. Border crossings in the Strip must be opened to the humanitarian aid and goods, in Rafah must come back International forces, including Arabs and Europeans, to control the entrance and exit. The EU should also tell to Israel that we cannot upgrade cooperation or relations unless it stops the bombing and massacre of Palestinian population in Gaza and stop to build settlement in the West Bank. Occupation, violence, suffering, injustice and the lack of freedom lead to indelible and disastrous consequences on the population. We should help to grow and rise the voices and the forces that in Israel are struggling for peace and say we refuse to be enemies, end the occupation.