Paying The Price: Killing The Children Of Iraq

A documentary film by John Pilger

Sanctions enforced by the UN on Iraq since the Gulf War have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, including over half a million children - many of whom weren't even born when the Gulf War began.

Closed Zone

Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement calls on the State of Israel to fully open Gaza's crossings and to allow the real victims of the closure - 1.5 million human beings - the freedom of movement necessary to realize their dreams and aspirations.

For more information visit: http://www.closedzone.com

The War Prayer (Gaza Version)

The War Prayer by Mark Twain

O Lord our God, 
Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
Help us to cover their smiling fields, with the pale forms of their patriot dead,
Help us to drown the thunder of the guns, with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows, with unavailing grief; 
Help us to turn them out roofless, with little children to wander, unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,
Sports of the sun, flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it,
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, Make heavy their steps, 
Water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their Wounded feet! 

The Age Of The Siege

NATO Strategies, Economic Sanctions and The "Responsibility To Protect"

By Felicity Arbuthnot
Courtesy Of "Global Research"

Disengage, avoid, and withhold support from whatever abuses, degrades and humiliates humanity.” (Alice Walker, b:1944.).

“[former Danish PM and Secretary General of NATO] Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Du har blod på dine hænder” ( “You have blood on your hands”), Danish protester, 2003.

The siege of Leningrad is still considered the most lethal siege in world history, a shocking “racially motivated starvation policy”, described as: “an integral part of Nazi policy in the Soviet Union during World War 11.”

The 872 day siege began on 8th September 1941 and was finally broken on 27th January 1944. It is described  as: “one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and overwhelmingly the most costly in casualties.” Some historians cite it as a genocide. Due to record keeping complexities the exact number of deaths resultant from the blockade’s deprivations are uncertain, figures range from 632,000 to 1.5 million.

Sieges now extend to entire countries, they have become the torture before the destruction. And they are not counted in long days, but in long years. Iran thirty three years, Iraq thirteen-plus years. Ironically the disparity in the deaths in Iraq resultant from that siege, mirror near exactly what was considered a “genocide” in Leningrad.

Syria has been subject to EU “restrictions” since 2011, ever more strangulating, with near every kind of financial transaction made impossible by May 2011- when “restrictions” were also placed on President Assad himself, all senior government officials, senior security and armed forces Heads. The list of that denied is dizzying (i.) By February 2012, assets of individuals were frozen, as those of the Central Bank of Syria.

Cargo flights by Syrian carriers to the EU were also barred, as was trade in gold, precious metals and diamonds – anything which might translate in to hard cash, without which neither individuals or countries can purchase the most basic essentials.

By July 2012 Syrian Arab Airlines and even Syria’s Cotton Marketing Organisation had joined the EU’s victims.

America of course, had been way ahead of the game, with the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act (ii) signed in to law on 12th December 2003, the year of Iraq’s comprehensive US-led destruction. Thus the mighty USA’s personal siege on under twenty one million people, is now entering its tenth year.

By last August, as with Iraq before it, the inability to trade meant that, as ever, the now Nobel Peace Prize winning EU and the policies of the Nobel Peace Prize winning US President, were targeting Syria’s most vulnerable.

Many pharmaceutical companies had closed, resulting in severe shortages of medication for chronic diseases and the casualties of the insurgency, according to the World Health Organisation (iii.) Prior to the US-UK-EU-NATO supported insurgency, Syria had produced ninety percent of its drugs and medication needs.

However : “ … production has been hit by the fighting, lack of raw materials, impact of sanctions and higher fuel costs.” Further, near all pharmaceutical plants were located in areas of heaviest fighting, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus provinces and have suffered “substantial damage.” The result is: “a critical shortage of medicines”, according to WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic.

“Drugs for tuberculosis, hepatitis, hypertension, diabetes and cancer are urgently needed, as well as haemodialysis for kidney diseases.”

Health centres have closed due to violence, damage, or being taken over by the Western backed fighters. (image: Homs, 2012)

“The health facilities that have stopped functioning are located in the most affected areas where the urgent need for medical and surgical interventions is the most prominent,” Jasarevic said.

The Syrian Health Ministry reported that it “lost” – stolen or destroyed – two hundred ambulances in a few weeks through June and early August 2012.

Banks run out of cash and the 2012 wheat harvest is likely to have been wrecked because of the shortage of labour, according to U.N. agencies. In the Middle East bread is still truly the “staff of life.” The all mirrors Iraq, even down to the wheat harvest – in Iraq those bombing the country over thirteen years until the invasion, dropped flares on the harvested wheat and grains, reducing tentative bread security to ashes.

Syria struggles to meet it’s annual grain imports of around four million tons, because of a superb sleight of hand by the siege imposers. Essential foods are exempt from sanctions, but moneys are frozen, thus the wherewithal to trade. The country is ever potentially hours away from a bread crisis.

In 2011 Syria’s own harvest was hit by blight, water shortages and conflict. In December 2012 Iran sent consignments of flour to Syria, temporarily easing the bread crisis, but the siege under which Iran struggles is also of enormity – and shamefully under reported in the West.

As Iran shipped flour to Syria, Iran’s Health Ministry was approaching India for a life saving list of denied medications, for the most critical conditions in patients. Vital items denied included: “drugs to treat lung and breast cancers; brain tumours; heart ailments; infections after kidney, heart and pancreas transplants; meningitis in HIV patients; arthritis; bronchitis and respiratory distress in newborns; and epilepsy.” (iv)

And here again is that sleight of hand: “Although trade in medicine is exempt from international sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council and the unilateral sanctions announced by the US and EU, Western banks have been declining to handle transactions.” (Emphasis mine.)

Targeting the sick is the action of the criminally insane. For targeting the newborn surely no expression has been conceived, except by Madeleine Albright when referring to Iraq’s sanctions related, half million child deaths: “ … we think the price is worth it.” It was not a slip of the tongue, it was clearly to be the New World Order.

This partial list of medications unobtainable by Iran should be put on a wall of shame in Washington and all those Nobel winning EU capitol cities:

“Denied include chemotherapy; drugs used to prevent infections in kidney, heart and pancreas transplant patients and in AIDS treatment. Treatments for colon cancer; cell lung cancer; cancerous brain tumours; chemotherapy drugs for lung, ovarian and testicular cancer; treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphona.”

Also: “treatment for breast cancer therapy; a range of chemotherapy drugs; treatment for life threatening recurring heart conditions; specific meningitis treatments; drugs for respiratory distress in the new born; anti-convulsion treatments for epileptic seizures; wide spectrum treatment for heart ailments.”

Additionally:

“Nitroglycerine for angina and coronary artery disease; treatment for septicaemia and bacterial meningitis; medication to reduce risk of premature birth; treatments for acute bronchitis, pneumonia, bone infections, gynaecological infections and those of urinary tract.”

Nimidopine which reduces the risk of damage after bleeding inside the head, is also on the list. How fortunate Madam Clinton did not suffer her alleged brain-adjacent clot in Iran.

Last October Iran’s Head of The Foundation for Special Diseases, Fatemeh Hashemi, stated that six million patients were potentially at risk as a result of sanctioned medications (v.) A holocaust for-warned – and met by that murderous “international community” with near silence.

Mehrnaz Shahabi (vi) also encapsulates the captives in this Age of the Siege:

“Iran (made) ninety seven percent of its needed drugs domestically … The devalued currency means that raw materials imported for drug production are now a lot more expensive.

“In many cases, the raw material cannot even be paid for because of the banking sanctions, particularly as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) in compliance with the EU sanctions, has stopped its electronic communication services for Iranian financial institutions and transactions from Iran.”

Thus, as Syria, domestically produced drugs are near unavailable.

Additionally: “The most advanced life-saving drugs cannot be made in generic form.These include drugs for heart disease, lung problems, kidney disease and dialysis, multiple sclerosis, thalassaemia, haemophilia and many forms of cancer.”

Cancers in Iran have soared and a “cancer tsumani” is predicted by 2015. Since Iran borders and breathes the same air as Iraq, it would not be unreasonable to assume that as Iran is punished for its nuclear industry, America and Britain’s, in the form of the depleted uranium weapons used in Iraq, bears some responsibility for another health tragedy of enormity.

“All of the surgeries for thousands of haemophilic patients have been cancelled because a shortage of coagulant drugs. A 15-year-old child died at the end of October due to the absence of coagulant medication. The head of Iran’s Hemophilia Society has said, stating: ‘This is a blatant hostage-taking of the most vulnerable people by countries which claim they care about human rights. Even a few days of delay can have serious consequences like hemorrhage and disability.’ ”

As the New Year was celebrated across Europe and the “Land of the Free”, the Syrian Upper Mesopotamia Archbishop, Jaques Behnan Hindo, was writing an urgent appeal to the Presidency of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

In a situation which he warned: “could soon become catastrophic”, he said supply routes were halted and: “every economic activity appears paralyzed (causing) depletion of vital goods, and soaring prices.

“The lack of fuel prevents heating homes and leads to the complete closure of all agricultural activities, just as the planting season begins.

“The grain silos were looted and wheat was sold to Turkish traders who conveyed it in Turkey, under the gaze of the Turkish customs officers.”

It is impossible not to reflect that NATO ally Turkey is the equivalent of the bombing flame droppers on the Iraqi harvests.

In addition to the plundered, grain, the Archbishop denounced the gradual disappearance of other vital products including, as Iraq, baby milk.

Archbishop Hindo also sent an appeal to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki: “Please help us as quickly as possible, by sending 600 fuel tanks, 300 tanks of gasoline and some tons of flour.

“The first victims are the children. You experience in your body, in your soul – and in the children all the injustice”, caused by draconian, life threatening, illegal, collective punishment on a nation’s people, yet again starting with the unborn, the newborn, and the barely crawling.

At the end of WW11, Leningrad (now Saint Petersberg) was awarded the status of Hero City for collective unwavering courage, resistance and inventiveness under Nazi atrocities.

The world is surely in need of the status of Hero Country for those who exhibit the same courageous qualities against those nations who emulate the same atrocities.

Notes

i. http://www.sanctionswiki.org/Syria

ii. http://www.bis.doc.gov/licensing/syriaimplementationmay14_04.htm

iii. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/07/syria-crisis-health-idUSL6E8J74NZ20120807

iv. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/shackled-by-sanctions-iran-sends-india-sos-for-lifesaving-drugs/1054837/

v. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Oct-21/192191-sanctions-affecting-6-million-patients-in-iran-report.ashx#axzz2HZnCUyUS

vi. http://www.deliberation.info/sanctions-aganst-iran-a-form-of-genocide

US Officials Confess To Targeting Iran’s Civilian Population

By Franklin Lamb
Courtesy Of "Eurasia Review"

“It would be a defense lawyer’s worst nightmare wouldn’t it? I mean to have one's clients, in this case the Vice-President of the United States and the outgoing Secretary of state confess so publicly to serial international crimes against a civilian population?”

The confessions and the crimes, were those admitted to by US Vice-President Joe Biden and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this past week.

Both of the US officials, in discussing US relations with the Islamic Republic, openly admitted that the US-led sanctions against Iran (and Syria) are politically motivated and constitute a "soft-war" against the nearly 80 million people of Iran (23 million people in Syria) in order to achieve regime change.

Mrs. Clinton, was the first of the dynamic duo to be heard from. She acknowledged that the harsh US sanctions were intended to target and send the people of Iran a message. “So we hope that the Iranian people will make known their concerns… so my message to Iranians is do something about this.”

An Australian Broadcasting Company interviewer asked Clinton on January 31 of last year: “If you have issues with the government of Iran, why destroy the Iranian people with the current sanctions in place? It's very difficult to find certain medicines in Iran. Where is your sense of humanity?”

What the Clinton interrogator had in mind, she explained later, were the US-led sanctions reducing Iran’s GDP growth (-1.1% GDP) resulting in an inflation of 21.0% that is being felt mostly by the civilian population. As well as periodic food shortages in the supermarkets of such staples such as rice, there are price rises on everything. 

For example, per page printing for students is up as much as 400% and the cost of aused car up 300%. In general, supermarket items have risen 100 to 300 percent or higher over the past twenty-four months and, devastating for many, certain lifesaving medicines are no longer available.

Clinton: “Well, first, let me say on the medicine and on food and other necessities, there are no sanctions.” This statement is utter nonsense and Mrs. Clinton knows it.

The targeting process by the US Treasury Department is well entrenched in Washington.

When dear reader is next in Washington, DC, perhaps on a tour bus riding down NW Pennsylvania Avenue following a visit to the US Capitol, consider getting off the bus at 15th and Pennsylvania at the US Department of the Treasury. Walk around the main building and you will see an Annex building. This building, as Clinton knows well, and like Biden, has visited more than once, houses the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC). The well-funded agency’s work includes precisely targeting “food and medicines and other necessities” in order to force the civilian population of Iran to achieve regime change.

For more than two hundred years, since the War of 1812, when OFAC was founded to sanction the British, the office has become expert at imposing sanctions and it has done so more than 2000 times. OFAC currently uses a large team of specialists and computers to think-up, design, test, and send to AIPAC and certain pro-Zionist officials and members of congress their work-product topped off by recommendations.

OFAC and its Treasury Department associates have had a hand in virtually every US sanction applied to Iran since President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12170 in November 1979 freezing about $12 billion in Iranian assets, including bank deposits, gold and other properties. 

From the State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act in 1979 to the Syria Accountability Act of 2004, more than a dozen Presidential Executive Orders including the 2011-2012 Executive orders which froze the US property of high-rankling Syrian and Iranian officials and more broadly E.O. 13582 which froze all governmental assets of the Syrian government and prohibited Americans from doing business with the Syrian government and banned all US import of Syrian petroleum products.

What OFAC does with its data base is science not art. It can calculate quite precisely the economic effect on the civilian population of a single action designating one company, bank, government entity or infrastructure system of a country. OFAC, on behalf of its government, electronically wages a cold war against its civilian targets.

This week OFAC  and the Treasury Department blacklisted Iran’s state broadcasting authority, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, responsible for broadcast policy in Iran and overseas production at Iranian television and radio channels,  potentially limiting viewing and listening opportunities for Iran’s civilian population. Its director, Ezzatollah Zarghami, was included in the action. Additionally sanctioned are Iran’s Internet-policing agencies and a major electronics producer. 

David S. Cohen, the pro-Zionist Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, who oversees the OFAC sanctions effort, reportedly following meetings with Israeli officials, said last week's actions were meant to “tighten the screws and intensify the economic pressure against the Iranian regime.”

In reality, the sanctions target the civilian population and the “Iranian regime” won’t be much affected. The same applies to Syria. Despite the public relations language that “food and medicine are exempted from the brutal US-led sanctions, as OFAC well knows, the reality is something else. They know well the chilling effects of the sanctions on international suppliers of medicines and food stuffs with respect to a targeted country. 

The US Treasury department has thousands of gigabytes of data confirming that the boards of directors of international business do not, and will not allow their companies to risk millions of dollars in profits by technically violating any of the thousands of details in the sanctions -- many of which are subject to interpretation -- for the sake of doing business with Iran or Syria. This is why there are severe shortages of medicines and certain foodstuffs in these sanctioned countries and to state otherwise is Orwellian News-Speak.

OFAC does not operate in a vacuum. It works closely with other US agencies including the 16 intelligence agencies that together make up the UN Intelligence Community. 

Together they have applied sanctions of great breadth and severity against the civilian populations of Syria and Iran. These sanctions have been bolstered on occasion by several direct and/or green-lighted Israeli assassinations and cyber-assaults, hoping to foment civil unrest to achieve regime change and other political goals.

A few days after Mrs. Clinton's somewhat inadvertent confession that the US government intentionally targets the civilian population of Iran, Vice President Joe Biden chimed in on the 4th of February that the US was ready to hold direct negotiations with Iran but added the caveat, 

"We have also made clear that Iran's leaders need not sentence their people to economic deprivation,” acknowledging as did Hillary that the US sanctions are intended to target and harm the Iranian and Syrian people. 

A senior Obama administration official described the latest step as “a significant turning of the screw,” meaning that the people of Iran face a “stark choice” between bowing to US demands and reviving their oil revenue, the country’s economic lifeblood or more and more sanctions will follow until they do.

This targeting of Iran’s and Syria’s civilian population by US-led sanctions is a massive violation of the principles, standards and rules of international law and their most fundamental underpinnings which is the protection of civilians.

Some Examples

The 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit any measure that has the effect of depriving a civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival. 

Article 70 of Protocol I mandates relief operations to aid a civilian population that is “not adequately provided” with supplies and Article 18 of Protocol II requires relief operations for a civilian population that suffers “undue hardship owing to a lack of supplies essential for its survival, such as foodstuffs and medical supplies.”

Prohibition On Starvation As A Method Of Warfare

• Under international humanitarian law, civilians enjoy a right to humanitarian assistance during armed conflicts.

• Art. 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention obligates states to facilitate the free passage and distribution of relief goods including medicines, foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers, and maternity cases.

• Art. 70 of Additional Protocol I prohibits interfering with delivery of relief goods to all members of the civilian population.

• US-led sanctions are prohibited by the principle of proportionality found in Arts. 51 and 57 of Additional Protocol I.

• Under the terms of Art. 3 common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, humanitarian and relief actions must be taken. Pursuant to Art. 18(2) of Additional Protocol II, relief societies must be allowed to offer their services to provide humanitarian relief.

• The US-led sanctions violate the Rule of Distinction between civilians and combatants

The Right To Life

The US-led sanctions violate the right to life incorporated in numerous international human rights instruments including Art. 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; Art. 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950; and Art. 4 of the African Charter of Human Rights, 1981.

The Rights Of The Child

One of the groups most vulnerable to US-led sanctions in Syria and Iran are children. The rights of children are laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, which currently stands as the most widely ratified international agreement. 

Most relevant in the context of the US-led sanctions are Arts. 6 and 24 of the Convention, according to which every child has the inherent right to life and the right to the highest attainable standard of health and access to medical services.

If "terrorism" means, as the United States government defines it as the targeting of civilians in order to induce political change from their government, what is it called when the American government itself applies intense economic suffering on a civilian population, causing malnutrition, illnesses, starvation and death in order to induce regime change?

The US-led sanctions against Iran and Syria are illegal, inhumane, ineffective, immoral and outrageous. They must be resisted every day by every person of good will, everywhere, until they are withdrawn.

From The Lakota To Gaza

The Deep Wound Of Wounded Knee

By JOHNNY BARBER
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"

December 29^th marks the 122^nd anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It is a story that remains fresh in the lives of many indigenous peoples across America. Each generation is taught to never forget.

In 1891, reviewing the history leading up to the massacre, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Morgan said,

“It is hard to overestimate the magnitude of the calamity which happened to the Sioux people by the sudden disappearance of the buffalo. The boundless range was to be abandoned for the circumscribed reservation, and abundance of plenty to be supplanted by limited and decreasing government subsistence and supplies. Under these circumstances it is not in human nature not to be discontented and restless, even turbulent and violent.”

Commissioner Morgan was not empathetic about the plight of the indigenous people. He was just stating facts. One year prior to the massacre, in Oct 1889, he issued a policy paper stating his convictions regarding the native population.

“The Indians must conform to “the white man’s ways,” peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it. The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted.”

The Wounded Knee Massacre is still commonly depicted as a “battle” that no one can be blamed for, but if blame is assigned it is always made clear that a Lakota fired the first shot. This is the justification for all that followed. A century after the murders, Congress issued an apology, expressing “deep regret” for the events on that day in 1890 when upwards of 370 men, women, and children were gunned down as they fled for their lives. But the Wounded Knee Massacre was not an anomaly, nor was it an accident. Wounded Knee is the entire history of indigenous peoples relationship with Imperialism made manifest in a single event.

“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.” Black Elk.

The ancestors of the victims commemorate the massacre in order to honor those who have fallen and to foster healing of their still devastated communities. The ancestors of the perpetrators ignore inflicting the wound and the wound festers.

From Wounded Knee, where just days after the massacre a young newspaper editor named Frank Baum (later to become famous for the children’s story “The Wizard of Oz”) opined, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.“

To Vietnam, where Lyndon Johnson’s call to win hearts and minds of the civilian population was corrupted by GI’s to, “When you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”

To Iraq, where Madeline Albright was asked if the deaths of ½ million children during sanctions was worth it, she replied “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

To Gaza, where Dov Weisglass said, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

To Iran where a new sanctions regime is in place and the state department claims, “The sanctions are beginning to bite,” and dozens of places in between, the wound festers.

In each case, the power with the superior military claims that the occupied and oppressed are dangerous and threaten the very existence of the state, even as the state starves the population, restricts their every move and denies them the most basic rights under the guise of “security”.  All attempts by the “enemy” to seek peace are ignored or derided as “lies” while the theft of land and/or resources continue unabated. Each time the oppressed demand their rights or dare to strike back against their oppressors, the oppressor claims that the people are motivated by hate and seek the annihilation of the state. Negotiations are viewed as a sign of weakness and are rarely pursued unless they can be used as a tool to further oppression. The oppressors continually talk about “pursuing peace” as they systematically destroy any and all opposition.

We kill by starvation, we kill by denying medicine, and we kill by isolation. When that doesn’t silence dissent of the “malcontents” we do not hesitate to kill with bullets and bombs. Remember Commissioner Morgan’s words, “This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best they can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it.”

One day we too will be crushed by this flawed concept of civilization.

The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy in which the Israeli army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure as a means of inducing suffering on the civilian population, making it so difficult to survive that fighting back or resisting occupation are no longer practical, thereby establishing deterrence. The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment blocks. Israeli bombs flattened the entire neighborhood during the 2006 Lebanon War. But this doctrine is not a modern strategy for controlling populations. Nor is putting the people of Gaza on a “diet” new- subjugating an entire population through a combination of poverty, malnutrition, a struggle over limited resources, and violence is the American way, adopted by our closest allies, (and “the only democracy in the Middle East,” with the “most moral army in the world,”) the Israelis.

Dec 27th marks the 4^th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, (the name derives from a popular Hannukah children’s song about a dreidel made from cast lead.) During this attack on Gaza, 1,417 people were killed (330 children), 4336 were wounded. 6,400 homes were destroyed. Hospitals, mosques, the power plant, and the sewage system were deliberately targeted.

Israel accuses Hamas of war crimes for shooting rockets without guidance systems indiscriminately into Israel. Israeli officials claim that “Hamas hides behind civilians” as a justification to bomb civilian population centers and infrastructure. Killing civilians in Gaza using precision munitions, is a war crime, no matter who is hiding behind them.

After the recent killing of 20 children in a Newtown, Connecticut grade school, President Obama, wiping tears from his eyes said,

“This is our first task — caring for our children.  It’s our first job.  If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.  That’s how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations?“

The just completed eight-day Israeli operation against Gaza called the Pillar of Cloud (The name is derived from a Biblical passage) saw three generations of the al-Dalu family wiped out in a single bombing, including 4 children between the ages of 1 and 7 years old. The surviving son does not speak of surrender, relinquishing the families land, or disappearing. He demands justice. His tears are mixed with fury. Can he be blamed?

As the ceasefire went in to effect there was one consistent message from the people of Gaza. We are here. This is our home. We will never leave. They will have to kill every one of us.

Upon cessation of the bombing, our Congress immediately voted to replenish Israel’s bombs and munitions in order for Israel to “protect itself”. The wound festers.

In his speech the President went on to say,

“If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that — then surely we have an obligation to try.”

Wounded Knee has not disappeared. The Lakota people remain. Gaza has not disappeared. The Palestinian people remain. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia people grieve for the loss of their children. The violence wrought upon them in our name continues.  If we can take one step to save another child, we have an obligation to try.

Israel's Self-Defense Doesn’t Legitimize It’s Assault On Gaza

Disregarding Law and Facts

James Marc Leas reports that,

Obama and Netenyahu disregarded law and facts:

* In 2004, the International Court of Justice rejected Israeli Government arguments and found that as an occupying power, Israel’s right to defend itself under a UN Charter provision does not apply against those living under its rule.

* The Court found that the right, and indeed the obligation, to protect citizens does not trump Israeli obligation to conform to international law when doing so.

* Israeli military assaults on Gaza, including “Operation Pillar of Defense,” caused a vast increase in rocket fire from Gaza, so the assaults endangered rather than defended Israeli citizens.

* Israeli political and military leaders have long known how to quickly halt or substantially dial down rocket fire that involves no bombs, no killing, and no destruction: ceasefire agreements. However, Israeli forces have repeatedly ended effective ceasefire agreements with aerial extrajudicial executions of Palestinians in Gaza that dialed up rocket fire.

 International Court Of Justice Rejects Israeli Self-Defense

Rejecting the Israeli government arguments, the Court first found that the Article 51 right to self-defense “has no relevance” when the attacks on Israel, the occupying power, are from people living under Israeli rule rather than coming from a foreign state. The Court found:

Article 51 of the Charter thus recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defense in the case of armed attack by one State against another State. However, Israel does not claim that the attacks against it are imputable to a foreign State. The Court also notes that Israel exercises control in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and that, as Israel itself states, the threat which it regards as justifying the construction of the wall originates within, and not outside, that territory. . .  Consequently, the Court concludes that Article 51 of the Charter has no relevance in this case.

The Court thus concluded that self-defense under Article 51 does not apply to an occupying power with respect to those living under occupation. Although Israel withdrew its illegal settlers from Gaza in 2005, Israel still controls all aspects of life in Gaza, including air, land and sea borders, and therefore Israel continues to be regarded as an occupying power over Gaza.

The decision that an occupying power cannot invoke Article 51 self-defense is complementary to provisions of the UN Charter, UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under which self-determination is a principle of international law.

More specifically, the decision is complementary to UN General Assembly Resolution 2649, adopted November 30, 1970, that “affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal.” Resolution 2649 also “considers that the acquisition and retention of territory in contravention of the right of the people of that territory to self-determination is inadmissible and a gross violation of the Charter;” and “condemns those Governments that deny the right to self-determination of peoples recognized as being entitled to it, especially of the peoples of southern Africa and Palestine.”

The rejection of Israel’s Article 51 argument leaves Israeli forces and their US sponsors at risk of prosecution for the crime of aggression, the subject of another article.

Court Rejects Israeli Argument That Self-Defense Trumps International Law

The Court also concluded that construction of the wall on occupied Palestinian land was not in conformance with applicable international law because the route of the wall across Palestinian territory was illegal. “The Court considers that Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defense or on a state of necessity in order to preclude the wrongfulness of the construction of the wall.” Thus, the Court established that defending its citizens does not relieve Israeli government officials of their responsibility to observe international law.

International law for an occupying power includes the responsibility to protect civilians living under occupation and their property and to provide for the humanitarian needs of the population living under the occupation. International humanitarian law requires all combatants to protect civilians and civilian property during any armed conflict.

Court recognizes Israeli Right To Protect Citizens If Method Conforms To International law

The Court recognized that “Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population. It has the right, and indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the life of its citizens. The measures taken are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law.”

Israeli Argument Before The Court Can Be Applied In Reverse

The argument the Israeli permanent representative introduced is remarkable in that it can be applied in reverse in view of the Court’s decision: the Court rejected an occupying power’s right to use a non-forcible measure–the fence–in self-defense because the fence illegally encroached on occupied territory. Therefore, the Court would surely reject forcible measures that violate the law.

The Israeli Assaults On Gaza  

During Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009, Israeli military and political leaders failed to take heed of the decision of the International Court, as described in a report issued by a delegation from the National Lawyers Guild, and reports issued by Human Rights Watch, the Palestine Center for Human rights, Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Council–“the Goldstone Report,” Defence for Children International (Palestine Section), Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, and the League of Arab States, all available at Universal Jurisdiction. Instead, Israeli political and military leaders–and their US sponsors–wrongfully continued to rely on Israel’s supposed right to protect its own citizens as justifying measures, such as intentionally attacking civilians and civilian property, that violate international law.

Israel’s “Pillar of Defense” November 14-21 failed to heed both the decision of the Court and the law as described in those reports, as described in articles on Counterpunch, “Wrecking Gaza: Civilian Infrastructure Targeted by Israeli Military” and “Shattered Lives in Gaza: How the IDF Targeted Civilians.”

Reports by Human Rights Watch also describe Israeli violations during Operation Pillar of Defense, including “Gaza: Unlawful Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Media” and “Gaza: Israeli Airstrike on Home Unlawful.” An HRW report on November 15 warned both sides, “Gaza: Avoid Harm to Civilians.”

A December 24 report by Human Rights Watch, “Gaza: Palestinian Rockets Unlawfully Targeted Israeli Civilians” sharply criticizes Palestinian resistance groups that fired rockets at Israeli population centers:

Under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, civilians and civilian structures may not be subject to deliberate attacks or attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets. Anyone who commits serious laws-of-war violations intentionally or recklessly is responsible for war crimes. . .

The November 14 to 21 hostilities between Israel and Hamas and armed groups in Gaza involved unlawful attacks on civilians by both sides.

As will be further described in a forthcoming article, data on the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs web site, on the allied Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) web site, and on the Palestine Center for Human Rights web site shows that Israeli forces have levers of control over rocket fire from Gaza. Data on the web sites shows that Israeli extra-judicial executions in Gaza dialed up rocket attacks on Israel to extremely high levels. The data also shows that Israeli government and military leaders dialed down rocket attacks to zero, or very close to zero, by using a readily available non-violent technique: a cease fire agreement.

Israeli political and military leaders who set the policy, those carrying out the attacks, and US government and corporate sponsors who provided the weapons and political backing are all liable for prosecution for war crimes because of their unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian property. The decision of the International Court of Justice on the wall indicates that liability for war crimes would not be precluded even if Israeli forces could prove they were acting to defend Israeli citizens. Similarly for the crime of aggression: particularly when Israeli forces violated effective ceasefires and initiated the military conflicts with their extra-judicial executions in Gaza. Claims that Israeli forces acted to protect their own citizens will have “no relevance” under Article 51.

Investigation and Prosecution

With its upgrade in status to non-member state at the UN on November 29, Palestine can now bring its case against Israeli and US political and military leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. If the prosecutor of the ICC refuses the request to investigate, the Palestinian Authority can bring a proposal to the UN General Assembly to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel as a ‘subsidiary organ,’ as provided under U.N. Charter Article 22 to conduct the investigation and prosecution.

The Palestinian Authority has been under intense pressure not to bring the case. Or to use the possibility of bringing a case at the ICC as a bargaining chip for other objectives, such as an agreement to halt illegal Israeli settlement building. However, pressure on Palestine not to bring a case and Palestine holding the possibility of criminal prosecution as a bargaining chip both threaten foundational principles of justice: respect for the rule of law, equal justice under law, and judicial independence. Rather pressure and bargaining are consistent with corruption and a culture of impunity for wrongdoers with powerful friends.

A worldwide campaign for justice is needed. The system of immunity and impunity enjoyed by Israeli political and military leaders and by their US government sponsors must end now. Without accountability for violations of international law, the law will become mere recommendation, the violations will be repeated, hundreds more Palestinians will be killed and wounded, more of their homes will be destroyed, rocket fire will be dialed up, and we will hear again about “Israel’s right to defend itself” while Israeli forces cynically take actions that put Israeli citizens more at risk for political goals. Only if those responsible are brought to justice can we expect that military and political leaders in Israel and the US would be inclined to think seriously before again initiating aggression while pleading self-defense. Public pressure is needed to ensure that the criminal cases are brought at the ICC–or, if the ICC refuses, to an Article 22 Tribunal–and to counter the vast US political influence to undermine an independent, impartial, and unbiased investigation and prosecution.

Via: "CounterPunch"

On Killing Children (and Others)

LAWRENCE DAVIDSON writes,

The domestic death toll caused by America’s civilian propensity to act out moments of power through violence is but a pittance compared to the carnage the U.S. produces through the projection of military and other forms of force abroad.  Using guns, mechanized weapons, and chemical agents in Vietnam the United States demonstrated its power and managed to kill anywhere between 500,000 to 2 million civilians.  it is not possible to know how many of these were children, but the number must run at least into the tens of thousands.

In Iraq, the U.S. developed a new official weapon that has proved particularly fatal to children.  This is the weapon of sanctions. Such sanctions demonstrate that the U.S. has the power to manipulate most of the world’s economy to the detriment of it’s enemies.  In the case of Iraq, sanctions functioned as a sort of economic Agent Orange.  They defoliated that country’s societal infrastructure over a thirteen year period.  Sanctions were Imposed in 1990 as a consequence of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and maintained after the conclusion of the First Gulf War.   As a consequence of these sanctions,  important medicines, vital repair parts for water purification and sewage systems and  other necessary items were not allowed to be imported into Iraq.  The deaths of some 350,000 Iraqi children (the low end estimated number), most under five years of age, can be  directly or indirectly tied to this sanctions regime. The sanctions were only removed in 2003 when the U.S. invaded the country.

Then came the weapons-related deaths as a result of the Second Gulf War (2003 to 2011) launched on false pretenses by the Bush Jr. administration.  Realistic estimates range from 600,000 to one million additional Iraqi deaths (adults and children) in this stage of operations.

The Latest Target

Now there are reports that Washington is once more, through the weapon of sanctions, creating the conditions for the deaths of the young and vulnerable.  This time the target is Iran. According to Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, U.S. sanctions are starting to impact the health of innocent Iranian citizens. Iran’s ability to purchase some medicines and hospital equipment has been impaired by U.S. sanctions and people have already died as a result.

Nonetheless, American lawmakers such as Robert Menendez (D-NJ) have successfully sponsored ever more sanctions for Iran.  “It seems to me we have to completely exhaust all the tools in our sanctions arsenal, and do so quickly, before Iran finds a way to navigate out of its current crisis.”

Why is Menendez and his fellows in Congress doing this?  Because of some alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program?  No.  The Iran sanctions, growing slowly in intensity, predate that concern.  Since the fall of the Shah in 1979 Washington has conceived of Iran as an enemy and therefore a legitimate target against which to demonstrate our power.  It is reasonable to assume that Menendez knows what such policies means in human terms.  But, like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright referring to the disastrous consequences of the Iraq sanctions, he seems to believe that the horror of it all is worth it.

Many Americans are dismayed, as they surely should be, by the domestic massacres of their children.  These are the deaths closest to home and the ones they are forced to face up to due to media attention. They are also confused about what to do because, for so many, guns and freedom are synonymous.  All the other instances of violence:  the nightly murders in poor districts of cities and towns across the nation, the piled up bodies of adults and children in places like Vietnam and Iraq, are largely hidden from the citizenry.  And certainly the consequences  for the average of citizen of Iran of the U.S. government acting out in a powerful way,  will be kept remote enough so as to avoid all empathy.

Whether Americans are paying attention or not, their government, their elected officials, continue to make sure that the U.S. remains out and about across the globe, projecting the nation’s power via guns and sanctions, and thereby helping to lower the world’s burgeoning population in the most negative of all possible ways.

The politicians who initiate these murderous policies may hardly know, in any fully analyzed way,  why they do so. But they know it feels culturally comfortable to persist.  They have their superficial ideological conviction that there must be an evil enemy to fight and, in juxtaposition to that enemy, they are always the good guys.  

Via: "CounterPunch"

Israel Preparing To Attack Hamas, Again!

Netanyahu Warns Hamas: We’re Not Finished With You Yet. IDF Preparing To Hit 'With A Still Heavier Blow.'

The Israeli army is preparing to deal Hamas “a heavier blow” than it sustained in last month’s Operation Pillar of Defense, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a television interview broadcast on Saturday night.

“I’d suggest that Hamas not celebrate” any ostensible victory in the wake of that eight-day operation, Netanyahu told Channel 10, indicating that Israel was not finished yet with Hamas.

“We inflicted a very heavy blow” on Gaza’s Islamist government, he said. “We destroyed almost all of their long-range rockets,” he noted. “But I’m telling you that the IDF is preparing to strike a still-heavier blow. Our account with Hamas is not closed.”

Via: "The Times Of Israel"

Why Israel Desires To Be Hated By Palestinians

By OREN BEN-DOR
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"

War is useful because the passion it arouses prevents people from asking two basic questions that must be addressed if the core of silencing and violence that we are witnessing is to be grasped and, in turn, if progress is ever to be made towards justice and enduring peace. First, what kind of state is Israel?  Second, who are the Palestinians that this state is in conflict with?

Israel was established to be a Jewish state. Its institutions have always been shaped and constrained so as to ensure the continued existence of a Jewish majority and character.  Passing a test of Jewishness entitles someone to Israeli citizenship regardless of where in the world she lives.  Furthermore, her citizenship comes with a bundle of political, social and economic rights which are preferential to that of citizens who do not qualify as Jewish.  This inbuilt discriminatory premise highlights the apartheid nature of the state.  But apartheid is not an accidental feature of Israel. Its very creation involved immense injustice and suffering.  Shielding and rationalizing this inbuilt premise prevents the address of past injustices and ensures their continuity into the future.  It is a premise that, in matters of constitutional interpretation, takes precedence over, and thus involves the imposition of ‘reasonable’ limitations on, equality of citizenship.

The Palestinians, we are told, are a people who live in the West Bank and Gaza. The impression forced on us is that the conflict concerns a compromise to be made the correct border between Israel and a Palestinian state.  We are led to believe that a partition into two-states would satisfy both genuine and realistic aspirations for justice and peace.  In this view, the violence in Gaza is just an unreasonable aberration from an otherwise noble peace process.

But Palestinians actually comprise three groups.  First, those whose families originate in the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967 (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem). Second, the descendants of the approximately 750,000 non-Jews who were ethnically cleansed in 1947-9 in order to ensure a Jewish majority in the new Jewish state.  This group is dispersed around the world, mostly in refugee camps in the territories occupied in 1967 and the neighbouring states. Israel has persistently denied them their internationally recognized legal right to return.  The majority in Gaza consists of refugees from villages which are now buried under Israeli towns and cities that were created explicitly for Jewish citizens, places which include Ashkelon and Tel Aviv that were hit by rockets in the current conflict.   The third group of Palestinians, which Israel insists on calling by the euphemism ‘Israeli Arabs’, are the non-Jews who managed to evade ethnic cleansing in 1947-49 and who now live as second-class citizens of Israel, the state which likes to claim that it is ‘Jewish and democratic’.

Until 1948, the territory of Palestine stretched from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean. The violence that has afflicted the area ever since is the direct result of an event whose true nature our society seems determined to deny.  Violence keeps erupting because of the silencing and marginalization of a simple truth surrounding any partition policy: that the injustice that afflicts Palestine can not be partitioned.  It is because of the desire to preserve a Jewish state that first, the legal dualism that exists in the 1967 Occupied Territories as well as the horror at the ‘Separation Wall’ have become the dominant political discourses of apartheid, second, that the refugees are remained dispossessed and, thirdly, that both actual and potential non-Jew Arab citizens do, and would, suffer discrimination.   The two-state vision means that the inbuilt apartheid within Israel, and in turn the injustice to two groups of Palestinians, does never become the central political problem.

The range of reactions to the current carnage shows just how successful violence has been in sustaining the legitimacy of Israel by entrenching the political focus merely on its actions rather than on its nature.  These reactions keep the discourse that calls for criticizing Israel rather than for replacing it with an egalitarian polity over the whole of historical Palestine.

Israel desires to be hated by Palestinians.  By provoking violence Israel has not merely managed to divert the limelight from itsapartheid nature.  It has also managed to convince that, as Joseph Massad of Columbia University once captured, it has the right  to occupy, to dispossess and to discriminate, namely the claim that the apartheid premise which founds it should be put up with and rationalized as reasonable.  Would anybody allow such a right-claim to hold sway in apartheid South Africa?  How come that the anti-apartheid and egalitarian calls for the non-recognition of Israel right to exist are being marginalized as extreme and unrealizable?  What kind of existential fetters cause the world to exhibit such blindness and a drop of compassion?  Is there no unfolding tragedy that anticipates violence against Jews precisely because past violence against them in Europe is being allowed to serve as a rationalizing device of an apartheid state?

Israel has already created a de facto single state between the river and the sea, albeit one which suffers from several apartheid systems, one within Israel and another in the occupied territories. We must not let Israeli aggression prevent us from treating as moderate and realistic proposals to turn this single state into one where all would have equal rights.