U.S., Israel step up war against Palestinians
By Richard Becker
With full backing from Washington, Israel has
qualitatively escalated its war against the Palestinian people
in recent days. Predictably, the corporate media here have
focused on Israeli casualties in the conflict, and largely
ignored the significance of the United States-Israeli
escalation.
The Bush administration has stepped up both its support for
Israel and its pressure on the Palestinian Authority to crack
down on the Palestinian resistance. In response to developments
in both Palestine and Iraq, anti-U.S. sentiment has risen
sharply throughout the region.
On Oct. 20, U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter-bombers and attack
helicopters struck northern areas of densely populated Gaza, in
and around Gaza City and the Nusseirat refugee camp.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed and more than 130
wounded--among them many elementary-school children--in the
day's six air raids.
The great majority of the casualties were civilians--and not
unintentionally. According to an account in the Oct. 21 Los
Angeles Times, in the attack on Nusseirat a missile was first
fired into a car by an Israeli combat helicopter. After people
rushed to the rescue, a second missile was fired into the
crowd.
The toll in the camp was seven killed and 75 wounded. Among
the dead was a doctor who was treating victims when a second
missile struck.
According to the Guardian newspaper, Israel's Channel 10 TV
said that all of those killed were civilians, and called the
refugee camp strike a "mistake."
The use of deadly high-tech weaponry against civilian areas
violates both U.S. and international law, though you wouldn't
know it based on the loud silence from Washington.
Under U.S. law, Israel is restricted to using such
U.S.-provided weaponry for "self-defense"--that is, in case of
attack by another state.
The extremely mild U.S. response to the Gaza air raids stood
in stark contrast to its standard ringing condemnation of any
Palestinian act of resistance. "We urge the government of
Israel to take all appropriate cautions to prevent the death
and injury of innocent civilians and damage to civilian and
humanitarian infrastructure," said State Department deputy
spokesperson J. Adam Ereli. "We continue to make clear that
while Israel has a right to defend itself, we remain concerned
of the impact of its actions on innocent civilians, and we
continue to reiterate that view."
Ereli added that the Bush administration also "reminds the
Palestinians of their commitments to crack down on terror." As
usual, "terror" is a word reserved only for Palestinian
actions.
PA spokesperson Saeb Erekat called the attacks in Gaza "a
bloody massacre."
The supposed pretext for bombing Gaza was a battle in the
West Bank near Ramallah in which three Israeli occupation
soldiers were killed and one wounded. The Israeli and U.S.
governments, as well as the corporate media, referred to the
Palestinians involved, reportedly the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,
as "terrorists." Images of weeping Israeli troops, mourning the
deaths of their fellow soldiers, were everywhere in the
media.
The heavy bombing of Gaza civilians was presented as
retaliation for the Israeli military casualties. But if that
were in fact the case, then the bombing would by definition be
an act of collective punishment, also prohibited under
international law.
The news stories left out the fact that people living under
military occupation have the universally acknowledged right to
resist by whatever means are at their disposal.
The week before, Israeli forces had carried out several days
of attacks and house demolitions in Rafah, the southern Gaza
city and refugee camp that borders Egypt. At least 15
Palestinians were killed and more than 1,200 left homeless.
Israeli militarized bulldozers--supplied and specially
armored for the job by Caterpillar Corp.--destroyed more than
100 Palestinian homes in Rafah. The aim, claimed Israeli
authorities, was to destroy tunnels used to bring in arms.
And on Oct. 21, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose
efficiency at refugee camp massacres is unrivaled, announced in
a speech to the Israeli parliament that Israel remains
committed to the "removal" of PA President Yasir Arafat.
Sharon cynically labeled Arafat "the greatest obstacle to
peace." Arafat has been under house arrest inside his largely
destroyed presidential compound in Ramallah for more than a
year-and-a-half, prevented from leaving by Israeli forces. Thus
far, Washington has blocked Sharon from expelling the PA
president, fearing that such a move might ignite a firestorm of
protest in the Middle East and beyond.
Sharon also announced that Israel is accelerating
construction of its apartheid wall in the West Bank. The wall
will fence in the Palestinian population while fencing out more
than 50 percent of West Bank land.
Anti-U.S. sentiment deepens throughout Middle
East
As both Israeli repression and Pales tinian resistance
continue, and as the United States steps up its multi-pronged
offensive in the region, the polarization of the Middle East is
rapidly intensifying. Whether this polarization is prelude to a
wider war remains to be seen.
Washington has made it clear that its objective is to
eliminate all independent states and popular movements in the
area. With the full support of most of the U.S. Congress, the
Bush administration is threatening new sanctions against Syria
and Iran and giving a blank check to the Sharon government in
its war on the Palestinians--while at the same time waging its
own war against the Iraqi people.
So one-sided is the U.S. support that when Israel
deliberately undermined Bush's own "road map for peace,"
Washington blamed the Palestinians. Likewise, when Israel
bombed Syria, Bush blamed the Syrians, and the United States
went on to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning the blatant violation of international law.
This year U.S. taxpayers will involuntarily donate around $5
billion to the Israeli state.
None of this escapes the attention of public opinion in the
Arab world.
"Negative perceptions of the United States have always been
there, but this is the worst we've ever seen it," said Khalil
Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and
Survey Research, which conducted a poll of 1,387 Palestinian
residents in the West Bank. The poll found that more than 95
percent of Palestinians believe the United States does not
really support the creation of a Palestinian state, and 97
percent believe the United States is biased in favor of
Israel.
Results of the new survey contrast sharply with one from
only five months ago. At that time nearly half of respondents
expressed the belief that the United States supported a
Palestinian state.
The UN's Arab Human Development Report, issued on Oct. 20,
reported deepening radicalization and anti-U.S. sentiment
throughout the region.
In a recent front page editorial, As-Safir, the biggest
daily newspaper in Lebanon, wrote: "One does not reveal a
secret by saying many Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims kill an
American every day in their dreams. ... The United States is
responsible for massive catastrophes that have befallen this
region and its people."
The editorial followed an unprecedented bomb attack on a
U.S. diplomatic convoy in Gaza on Oct. 16, in which three U.S.
contract personnel were killed. The three were employees of
DynCorp, the infamous Virginia-based security firm that has
supplied mercenaries for U.S. operations around the world.
In an Oct. 20 speech, Syrian Vice President Zuhair Masharka
condemned what he called a "war of extermination perpetrated by
the war criminal Ariel Sharon who wants to depopulate the
occupied territories.
"Massacres carried out several days ago in Rafah" in the
southern Gaza Strip and the ensuing "enormous destruction" are
a "clear sign that Sharon the terrorist is an enemy of peace
and that his government is a government of war," said
Masharka.
"Without the help, support and protection of the American
administration, Israel could never commit such terrorist acts
against Palestinians. The United States provides Israel with
political, military, economic and financial support," and
"tries to justify [Israeli] crimes on the pretext that the
Zionist enemy is acting in self-defense," Masharka said.
Reprinted from the Oct. 30, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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