| Israel's 'friends' also to blame | ||||||
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| By Mark LeVine
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Perhaps now Americans will understand the true nature of the Israeli occupation. It has never been about security. Not for one day. It has been about land and power. And this is where it has led. And we have made it possible. Since at least the mid-1970s, only one country has had the power to force Israel to give up its dreams of permanent occupation of the West Bank: The US. After the success against Soviet-backed Arab forces in 1967, Israel suddenly became a "strategic asset" - a useful proxy in the global great game against Communism. For three decades the US and its political class have feigned concern, affection and even love for Israel; the reality is that Israel has always been a tool to advance US strategic goals and power, and nothing more. All the while, thoughtful Israelis - not to mention Palestinians and the rest of the world - have begged the US to intervene, to stop the insanity before it created an abscess that threatened not just the Jewish state, but the whole region, and even global peace. But the US goal was never to "protect" or "support" Israel.
We have pretended to be its friend, but we are the friend in the way your drug dealer is your friend, sitting with you late at night listening to your problems while hooking you up with your next fix - only in strange twist, the American people rather than the Israelis are paying for the habit their government and corporate elites grow richer sustaining. We are the ultimate facilitators of this insane and immoral arrangement, which is part of our larger addiction to war that now reaches $1 trillion per year. We cannot see Israel and the occupation for what they are, because to do so would be to look into the most uncomfortable mirror imaginable. We are like the local arms dealer - Nicholas Cage's character in the chilling film Lord of War, only real, and 300,000,000 strong. We "defend" Israel from every criticism - "No! It doesn't have a problem!" "It's the only democracy in the region!" "We stand with Israel!" - really, we stand beside Israel, give it some more "brown-brown" (cocaine mixed with gun powder) to snort, hand it some new weapons and send it out to kill and oppress some more, in our name. Some friend. The occupation has been an act of sheer brutality for decades. What has happened in Gaza - what the US and the world community have allowed to happen, for we could always stop it with a simple phone call from the US president to the Israeli prime minister - is sheer madness. It is politicide. It is slow starvation, of the soul and mind as much as the body. Not the kind that produces pictures of distended bellies, blank eyes and ragged clothes, but that slowly eats away at the personality, the will to fight, the ability to overcome, that produces medical problems that will haunt a million people for life. And because the US and other so-called "great powers" would do nothing and Palestinians have little power left to effectively resist, people around the world, average people, from Palestinians to Holocaust survivors, have felt compelled to act. They have sent ships now numerous times to break the siege of Gaza. Israel could not allow the siege to be broken because if the world saw what Gaza has become, not merely a prison but something far worse and hard to speak of, even its vaunted "hasbara" or propaganda machine, would not be able to spin it.
And now at least 10 people are dead because of the shame, because of the inability of Israel's best friends to look it in the eye and say: "Stop this insanity. Treat Palestinians like humans before you destroy not only them, but you." We cannot say that because we are guilty as well, and the US has proved singularly unable to come to grips with our own culpability in occupations from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza and, of course, our own original sin, which demanded millions of dead native Americans to ensure the creation of the very country that now supplies Israel with its weapons and tells it everything is going to be okay. It is tragically fitting that this disaster should happen on Memorial Day in the US. The martyrs of the ships are heroes, they are warriors every bit as deserving of our tears and support as the soldiers of American wars past and present. They are, in fact, the soldiers of the future - the only ones who can help us get out of the disastrous slide to moral turpitude that we, as much as Israel, have descended as a country. Let us hope that the deaths of the Gaza flotilla activists will not be as in vain as those of the 5,000 American soldiers who have died in our own illegal and useless wars in the last decade. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. |
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Israel's 'friends' also to blame By:aljazeera
Terrorist attack on Gaza aid flotilla after Israeli assault on ships
Family and friends of Scots caught up in a deadly Israeli attack on a Gaza aid flotilla spoke of their anger and fears last night.
At least five Scots were in the flotilla, carrying aid to the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
TV journalist Hassan Ghani, from Glasgow, was reporting to camera from the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, when the Israeli commandos stormed the flotilla.
Dundee humanitarian Ali El-Awaisi was also on the Turkish ship, on which at least nine people died.
Artist Cliff Hanley, the Bristol-based son of late Scottish broadcaster and journalist Cliff Hanley, was also believed to be aboard when the commandos rappelled from helicopters on to the decks early yesterday morning.
Theresa McDermott, 43, a Free Gaza campaigner from Edinburgh, managed to get a text out to Glasgow MSP Sandra White before the Israelis imposed a communications blackout. It read simply: "Flotilla attacked, 10 dead."
Theresa was on one of the other ships, whi le the locat ion of another Scot, Hasan Nowarah, 45, an IT professional from Glasgow, was unknown.
Last night., the government of Turkey - whose citizens were the main casualties of the attack - labelled Israel's actions as "inhumane state terrorism" and there was outrage across the world.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, described the storming of the flotilla as a "massacre".
The communications blackout was still in place last night. as the flotilla ships were escorted into the Israeli port of Ashdod. The injured - dozens of protesters and at least six commandos - had already been airlifted to hospital.
As protests grew around the world, the families of those on the boats were desperately trying to learn their fate.
Haq Ghani, father of 25-year-old Hassan, said: "My family and I are fraught with worry for our son. On his last posting on Facebook he made mention that Israeli ships were spotted on the radar and since then we have heard nothing from him. "
Carl Abernethy, a co-ordinator with Free Gaza Scotland, said of Theresa, a Post Office worker : "We are obviously concerned for her safety and wellbeing."
Ali's brother Khalid and sister Sara met SNP MSP Joe Fitzpatrick last night. to seek his help.
Khalid said: "It is just awful to see the news that people are being shot and to think Ali could have been injured or been put in prison and tortured."
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has demanded the Israeli government provides immediate reassurance about the fate of the Scots on board the flotilla.
Last night., Israel ipol ice said 16 protesters had been jailed for refusing to identify themselves.
They added that activists, who joined the convoy from all over the world, would be given the choice to be deported or imprisoned.
Turkey withdrew their ambassador to Israel as news of the attack emerged and called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
Government after government demanded an explanation from Israel.
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "We are not going to remain silent in the face of this inhumane state terrorism."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "We have consistent ly advised against attempting to access Gaza in this way, because of the risks.
"But at the same time, there is a clear need for Israel to act with restraint and in line with international obligations. This news underlines the need to lift the restrictions on access to Gaza."
Greece, Egypt, Sweden, Spain and Denmark summoned Israel's ambassadors demanding explanations, with Spain and France condemning what they called the disproportionate use of force.
In Tehran, dozens of angry students pelted the UN offices with stones and eggs in protest. And in Baghdad, an estimated 3000 Shia followers of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr shouted: "Death, death to Israel".
Riot pol ice drove back scores of protesters demonstrating outside the Israeli Embassy in Paris and tear gas was used on demonstrators in Athens.
The Cairo-based Arab League called an emergency session for Tuesday to address the attack, as the two only Arab states with peace deals with Israel - Jordan and Egypt - sharply condemned the violence.
A group founded by Nelson Mandela, which includes Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu and former US president Jimmy Car ter, said last night.: "The treatment of the people of Gaza is one of the world's greatest human r ights violations and the blockade is not only illegal, it is counterproductive."
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu hurried back from Canada to take control of the situation last night., cancelling a meeting with President Obama planned for today.
Obama voiced "deep regret" over the assault and said he and Netanyahu had agreed to reschedule their talks.
Netanyahu said he regretted the loss of life but insisted his troops acted in self-defence when they came under attack as they tried to check the flotilla cargo to ensure there were no weapons.
He claimed this was done successfully on five ships but on the Mavi Marmara, hundreds of people beat, clubbed and stabbed soldiers .
Israel Defence Forces spokeswoman Av ital Leibovich said: "We found ourselves in the middle of a lynching. What happened was a last resort."
The Free Gaza Movement said last night. the IDF had started the violence, firing as soon as they boarded the ship.
Israel also insisted the organisers of the flotilla, the Turkish Islamic charity IHH, were well-known for their ties with al-Qaeda and Hamas, the Palestinian group who control Gaza.
But IHH vehemently deny ties to radical groups. They are not among some 45 groups listed as terrorists by the US State Department.