PALESTINE EYEWITNESS: Attack on Gaza : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

The Israeli offensive, which began on the night of the fourth anniversary of the second Palestinian intifada (uprising), has been carried out in one of the most populated regions of Gaza. In the past six days, more than 2000 Israeli troops, accompanied by 200 Israeli tanks, dozens of apache helicopters and armoured bulldozers have entered Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun refugee camps which are home to more than 250,000 Palestinians.

The offensive also began within days of Yom Kippur, the Jewish festival of atonement. In a gross misappropriation of Jewish religiousity, the Israeli government has dubbed the operation Days of Penitence.

Medical staff in Balsam Hospital in Beit Lahia have reported severe food, medical and blood shortages, while the staff at Al Awda hospital in Jabaliya have reported that their medical emergency supplies have been exhausted as a result of the high number of causalities. According to the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, which is based in Jabiliya, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has denied the Ministry of Health access to the government clinic in Beit Hanoun, and denied all requests for access. Since the start of the offensive, the IDF has refused to allow United Nation Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) medical staff access to their clinic to assist with causalities.

IDF spokespeople have publicly claimed that the offensive is in response to the death of two children killed by a Hamas rocket attack upon the Israeli township of Sderot. However, a number of commentators in Israel have argued that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, under pressure from the extreme right because of his Gaza “disengagement” plan, is exploiting the death of the children to pursue his own agenda.

Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement plan”, announced in February, was designed to relieve international pressure on Israel, which had ratcheted up because of its construction of the Apratheid Wall. The plan was designed to give the impression that Israel was working towards peace without giving into “terrorism”, while allowing Sharon and his government to annex and consolidate more territory in the West Bank. Despite all the hue and cry by right-wing opponents of “disengagement”, the plan concedes little.

Under it, “disengagement” was not to be immediate or unilateral, instead it was to take “one or two years” to complete and would merely involve shifting the path of the Apartheid Wall east to a new security line within the Occupied Territories. This would take in more illegal settlements then the original path, and would not result in the immediate dismantling of those illegal colonies outside the new path, instead they would be relocated.

In addition, the plan would exclude Palestinians from the negotiating table, in favour of Washington-Israel talks. In return for “disengagement”, the US would be asked to recognise the Apartheid wall, as well as the illegal colonies of Ariel, Ma’aleh Adumim and Gush Etzio, annexing further sections of the West Bank. Within days of the announcement of the plan, however, the number of settlements to be moved dwindled from 17 to include only the “most isolated” colonies, with the evacuation of the Katif block, the biggest colony in the Gaza being postponed indefinitely.

In an interview in April with the Progressive magazine, Uri Avnery, a former Knesset member and founding member of Israeli peace organisation Gush Shalom, claimed that the plan would result in the incorporation of 55% of the West Bank into Israel. At the same time, Avnery argued, the Gaza “will become a giant prison camp, cut off on all sides. It will have no seaport or airport and be cut off from its only neighbour, Egypt. There will be no entering the Strip or leaving it except through Israel. Much as now, Israel will be able to cut off the supply of food, raw materials, water, fuel, gas and electricity, as well as the exit of workers and goods. Israel will also be able to invade the Strip at any time in order to ‘prevent terrorist actions’.”

Sharon’s plan might have meant little, but that did not stop other right-wing parties, the extreme right within his own party and extremist settler groups and rabbinical leaders condemning it. In early September, more than 20,000 settlers rallied in Jerusalem to protest the plan. Many of those attending the rally warned that civil war was inevitable and that there would be violent clashes between settlers and Israeli security forces should the plan go ahead. Other settlers at the demonstration carried signs calling Sharon “a dictator” and “traitor”.

Three days prior to the demonstration, 185 former members of the Israeli government, senior reserve officers in the IDF and other prominent Israeli professionals signed a petition declaring disengagement “a national crime, a crime against humanity and is a revelation of tyranny, evil and arbitrariness meant to deny Jews their rights… [that] lays the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland”. A number of the signatories to the petition went on to publicly accuse Sharon of Nazism and anti-semitism.

Given this pressure, Sharon is particularly wary of appearing to give in to Palestinian militants. According to Israel’s daily newspaper Ha’aretz, an October 3 statement by Israeli “defence” minister Shaul Mofaz argued that “the aim of the [Gaza] operation is `to send a clear message that Israel will not tolerate terrorist operations during the disengagement’, hints at the pressure by the right of the opponents of the disengagement plan, who are taking advantage of the suffering of the Sderot residents”.

The Gaza offensive allows Sharon to continue to pose as the “strongman” of Israeli politics at home, while propagating the fantasy that Israel is seeking peace — and is the victim in the conflict. Washington is quite happy to continue to foster this. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the New York Times that “Israel’s action in Gaza in relation to the rocket attacks was a legitimate response”.

The offensive also allows Israel to maintain its military and economic stranglehold on the Gaza. On October 3, Sharon and Mofaz separately described the Gaza offensive as “open-ended”, saying that the IDF would establish a “buffer zone” to “spare Israeli towns from rocket attacks” and ensure that “there is no withdrawal under fire next year”.

The current offensive is merely a continuation of military operations that have taken place since Sharon first announced plans for “disengagement”. For the past six months, the IDF has been systematically demolishing houses and olive groves in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. In addition, hundreds of houses have been demolished along the Philidelphi corridor near Rafah, ensuring that Israel will control the border between the Gaza and Egypt.

As the US prepares to veto a UN motion condemning the Israeli offensive and the illegal collective punishment of civilians, the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza continues to grow. Sharon’s strategy, if allowed to proceed, will ensure that there is no road to peace and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and the further illegal annexation by Israel of a further 55% of the West Bank.

[Kim Bullimore is a member of the Socialist Alliance and is currently working with the international human rights and solidarity group, the International Women’s Peace Service in Palestine. Visit <http://www.womenspeacepalestine.org>.

May the Great Energy of the Universe bring about a change in that part of the world where true peace can truly be achieved. May it also remove whatever obstacles that is keeping that from happening.

If Israel want Peace and Freedom, then the Palestinians must have Peace and Freedom in A Palestinian State in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza.

Without Palestinian Freedom, and with the U.S. supporting Israel, The U.S. is seen as Hypocritical and a nation of Double Standards.

In the end Israel with over 5,000,000 People and a Superior Military will have to be recognized, but not as long as the Palestinians are under Occupation and being Oppressed.

What we should have learned by the Gaza Pull Out.
That People whether Israelis or Palestinians do not like losing their land and homes.
So before we really have a huge problem in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Because until there is the Palestinian State there is still reason for the resistance.
Let us go ahead and make that Palestinian State in the Whole of the West Bank and Gaza.
That we do not have that State with its official Borders is the Problem Now.
Everyone is quite aware that there are some 1,200,000 or so Arabs living inside Israel Proper. Almost every single nation on earth is made up of more then one ethnic group.
So instead of forcing people to move, just fix the borders.
The 400,000 or so Jewish settlers will then be living in Palestine.
Let there be a five to ten year period on which they can decide on their own whether or not they like living in Palestine or if they want to move to the Official State of Israel.
Once they choose on their own, Israel can then help them financially to move.
Lets not have the forced move like in Gaza…….

The most important thing we can do for Peace Now and not in the distant future is to make the Palestinian State NOW! That will end the reason for the conflict.

Israel with some 5,000,000 or so Jews and 1,200,000 Arabs.
Palestine with some 4,000,000 or so Palestinians and some 400,000 Jews.

There is conflict because the Palestinians are being Oppressed not because a Jew lives down the Road.

I might not be saying this if there were not already Arabs living with Jews in Israel Proper.

The other Current Problem is the Wall inside the West Bank instead of on the Pre 1967 (Green Line) Border.

If the Wall was on the Green Line. The Jews who do not like living East of the line can choose on their own to move West of the Line.

Cleveland Indy Media Center