I've been trying to think what's held me back from blogging much this week. Of course I've been busy, but who isn't?
Finally I came to the conclusion that there was so much I wanted to write about, so many extraordinary events, a kind of paralysis came over me-- I could never catch up.
May 31: Doctor George Tiller, one of the few U.S. doctors to perform late-term abortions, was shot at his church in Wichita Kansas by anti-abortionist Scott Roeder.
June 1: a 23 year old Army private was shot outside a recruitment center in Arkansas by a convert to Islam.
And on June 10: "Big John" Stephen Johns, a security guard at U.S. holocaust Memorial Museum was shot to death by an 88-year -old white supremacist.
I want to call these killings crazy, but of course they are not: they are the natural outcome of policies of hate.
It's the murder at the Holocaust Museum that is most on my mind.
Right now one of our Arise members, Ellen Graves, is at the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza with hundreds of other international activists, trying to break the blockade of food and medical supplies so desperately needed in Gaza. I've been posting her emails at the Arise for Social Justice blog.
It's not difficult for progressives to support the struggle of the Palestinian people. In spite of the perspective that Western media have put on the conflict, still, information is available, and most of us think that Israel's response to the rockets fires at it by Hamas is way out of proportion to the damage done to Israel. The 1907 Hague Convention defines proportionality in this way: "a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante."
What is harder for progressives to remember, I believe, is that Israel was founded for a particular reason: to keep the Jewish people safe from from annihilation. Six million Jews dying in work and extermination camps is the most horrific example of antisemitism, but antisemitism and the murder of Jews did not begin or end with World War Two. This evil is fading from people's minds but I was born only two years after the end of World War Two and trying to understand the roots of the Holocaust is what started me on a lifelong quest for social justice.
I'm no academic and most of my political life has revolved around domestic issues like homelessness and poverty. I've also carried some essentially innocent belief that those who have experienced oppression will not oppress others, and this belief has to be built afresh each time it comes face to face with reality. Thus I remember my disappointment to learn that, during the height of South African apartheid, Israel was willing to sell armament to the South African government. Then of course I learned about Palestine. And I also learned that even the slightest criticism of Israel's policy toward Palestine is likely to bring out accusations of antisemitism.
So what is a non-Jewish social justice to believe? To do?
I take my cue from progressive Jewish activists in the U.S. and Israel. I check in regularly with Jewish Voice for Peace and I'm on their mailing list and others. I also check out Rabbis for Human Rights.
What I fear is that U.S. activists are forgetting about antisemitism. The murder at the Holocaust Museum ought to be a wake-up call.
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaza. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Gaza casualties
Local blogger Bill Dusty challenged info in my last post about 90% of the casualties in Gaza being non-combatants. That figure does seem wrong. I took a look online for some estimates and they follow below, and while I rarely print newspaper articles in their entirety, I must do so for an NYTimes article about the death of three of the daughters of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza.Just remember: no CHILD voted in any Palestinian election, not for Hamas, not for anyone.
Gaza: UN official reports horrific hospital scenes of casualties
12 January 2009 – Appalled that fighting was still continuing in Gaza despite the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, senior United Nations officials said today they were horrified at the human costs amid reports that over 40 per cent of the nearly 900 Palestinians killed in the Israeli offensive, and almost half of the 3,860 wounded, were women and children.
“Behind those statistics that we read out every day is really profound human suffering and grave tragedy for all involved and not just for those who are killed and injured but for their families as well,” UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Director of Operations John Ging told a news conference in New York, speaking by video link from Gaza, where he had just visited the main Al Shifa hospital.
“(It) is the place of course where you see the most horrific human consequences of this conflict. Among the tragic cases that I saw were a child, six years of age, little or no brain activity, people don’t have much hope for her survival; multiple amputee – another little girl; and a pregnant woman who’d lost a leg,” he said, as the Israeli offensive went into its 17th day with the stated aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks into Israel.
“The hospital is really full of patients whose lives have been in many instances really destroyed, and they’re alive.”
UNICEF: Number of child casualties still rising in Gaza
Humanitarian situation is desperate
JERUSALEM/NEW YORK, 9 January 2009 - The number of children being killed and injured in the fighting in Gaza continues to climb and the humanitarian situation is becoming more desperate every day.According to figures cited by OCHA today, there have been 758 Palestinian deaths since December 27 , out of which 257 were children and 56 were women. At least, 3,100 have been injured including 1,080 children and 452 women.
Red Cross accuses Israel over 'shocking' Gaza casualties
Posted
The Red Cross has accused the Israeli army of hindering its rescue teams after saying it found four children lying next to their dead mothers in the wreckage of a shell-battered Gaza City neighbourhoood.
In a scathing statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) accused the Israeli army of failing to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.
The Red Cross said its rescue teams had been refused access to the Zeitun neighbourhood for four days.
Gazan Doctor and Peace Advocate Loses 3 Daughters to Israeli Fire and Asks Why
TEL HASHOMER, Israel — Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Gazan and a doctor who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
But on Saturday, the day after three of his daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, Dr. Abuelaish, 53, struggled to hold on to the humane philosophy that has guided his life and work.
As he sat in a waiting room of the Israeli hospital where he works part time, he asked over and over, “Why did they do this?”
Elsewhere in the hospital another daughter and a niece were being treated for their wounds.
“I dedicated my life really for peace, for medicine,” said Dr. Abuelaish, who does joint research projects with Israeli physicians and for years has worked as something of a one-man force to bring injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel.
“This is the path I believed in and what I raised and educated my children to believe,” he said.
Dr. Abuelaish said he wanted the Israeli Army to tell him why his home, which he said harbored no militants, had been fired upon. He said if a mistake had been made and an errant tank shell had hit his home, he expected an apology, not excuses.
The doctor, a recent widower, had not left Gaza since the Israeli assault began last month and was at home in the Jabaliya refugee camp with his eight children and other family members during the attack on Friday.
An army spokesman said that a preliminary investigation had shown that soldiers were returning fire toward the direction of areas from which they had been fired upon.
“The Israeli Defense Forces does not target innocents or civilians, and during the operation the army has been fighting an enemy that does not hesitate to fire from within civilian targets,” said the spokesman, speaking anonymously on behalf of the army.
The Israeli public became witness to the Abuelaish family’s tragedy on Friday night when a conversation that a television journalist was having with Dr. Abuelaish was broadcast live.
In a video now available on YouTube, the doctor implored the journalist, whom he had called, to help send assistance, wailing, “My daughters have been killed.”
Journalists had come to know the doctor, who was already well known in the country’s medical establishment, because he has been providing witness accounts of the Israeli operation for television stations. After the broadcast, an ambulance was sent to a border crossing to pick up the doctor and the two wounded girls. His four other children remain in Gaza and are expected to join him in Israel soon.
At the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on Saturday, Dr. Abuelaish was surrounded by Israeli colleagues. Several were crying. Tammie Ronen, a professor of social work at Tel Aviv University, knelt beside the doctor. “You cannot let yourself collapse, you have your living children to take care of,” said Dr. Ronen. Dr. Ronen had worked with him in researching the effects of conflict-related stress on Palestinian children in Gaza and Israeli children in Sderot, a border town that has been the main target of Gazan rocket fire in recent years.
“Tell them who my children were,” said Dr. Abuelaish, spotting Anael Harpaz, an Israeli woman who runs a peace camp in New Mexico for Israeli and Palestinian girls that three of his daughters attended, including his eldest, Bisan, 20, who was killed Friday. The other two daughters who were killed were Mayar, 15, and Aya, 13. The doctor’s niece who died, Nur Abuelaish, was 17.
Dr. Abuelaish recalled that it was Bisan who, after her mother died of leukemia, urged him to continue his work in Israel, saying she would look after the younger children.
In a hospital room, Ms. Harpaz held 17-year-old Shada Abuelaish’s hand as a nurse placed drops of medicine on her tongue. The girl’s forehead was covered in bandages as was her right eye, which had been operated on in hopes of saving it. The niece who was wounded is in critical condition, with shrapnel wounds.
Outside the room, Ms. Harpaz crumpled into a chair, sobbing.
“I hope this is a wake-up call,” she said. “This is such a peace-loving family.”
Dr. Abuelaish is a rarity: a Gazan at home among Israelis. He describes himself as a bridge between the two worlds, one of the few Gazans with a permit to enter Israel because of his work.
“I wanted every Palestinian treated in Israel to go back and say how well the Israelis treated them,” he said. “That is the message I wanted to spread all the time. And this is what I get in return?”
Later, sitting on a plastic chair near his daughter’s hospital room, Dr. Abuelaish spoke with the prayer of so many parents who have buried their children as part of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I hope that my children will be the last price.”
Springfield's "Israel Solidarity Week" infiltrated by peace activists
A ceasefire may hover on the horizon, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from ended.It's hard to know what role the nearly universal horror of Israel's invasion of Gaza, and the intense political activity that's followed, has had on moving the conflict closer to peace. But speaking out is simply what people of conscience have felt compelled to do.
On Friday, a group of peace activists brought their message to an event at the Jewish Community Center in Springfield, MA. The following is a report from one of those activists.
A lot of people have been asking for a report of our direct action at the Jewish Community Center yesterday evening in Springfield so here it is.
A group of 28 of us went to -- essentially infiltrated -- the "Israel Solidarity Week" rally at the Jewish Community Center (JCC)/Jewish Federation in Springfield. A series of these events were held all over the U.S. over the last two weeks. The rallies are sponsored and coordinated by the national organization United Jewish Communities (UJC). UJC's webpage defines the organization's mission as:
"Unifying North American Jewry: United Jewish Communities represents and serves 157 Jewish federations and 400 independent Jewish communities across North America. It reflects the values of social justice and human rights that define the Jewish people." [Emphasis mine.]
We planned our action very carefully so as to ensure the safety of all participants. Our goal was to get the media that was inevitably going to be at the event, as it always is for Israel solidarity rallies, to get footage of our protest that made clear to a broader public that the rally did not represent the sentiment about Israel's actions and policies of all Jews, Israelis, and other people of conscience. (As part of our group we had three Israelis and several Jews.) We didn't for a minute think we'd be changing the minds of the Israel supporters in the room.
We organized into "affinity groups" and drove to Springfield in six cars. The JCC auditorium was packed with over 200 people. Our group sat throughout the auditorium. After a welcome speech by the JCC's president; a short, sycophantish speech by the Springfield mayor in support of Israel; and the singing of the U.S. national anthem and the Israeli anthem, "Hatikva;" all the members of our group rose and went and stood at the sides of the auditorium. We unfurled three large banners and held up signs condemning Israel's actions in Gaza and calling for solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Audience members all looked at our signs and started to "get" what was going on. Immediately the verbal abuse from the audience began with calls of: "get the garbage out of here," "ANIMALS!!!" and "TERRORISTS!!!"
Within a matter of a minute or two, about ten Springfield police who were there doing security for the event approached us and started physically pushing and pulling us out of the auditorum to the hallways on both sides of the space. As soon as we were pushed out of the range of the news cameras' view, the police became physically and verbally aggressive and abusive. They herded us like cattle smashing us one into the other, dragging some of us by our clothing and scarves around our necks, screaming at us abusively all the while, and ultimately beating a few of the members of the group with batons.
Meanwhile, one policeman radioed for additional units to come to the JCC and requested a K-9 (canine) unit as well. Members of the group reported that at least one policeman had his gun drawn and ready to shoot. Their verbal abuse was tremendous, extremely loud and often shouted into our faces literally just inches away from our heads. They demanded that we get into our cars and threatened repeatedly to arrest the entire group. Approximately 10 squad cars arrive on the scene and cops swarmed us pushing us into our cars all the while screaming and physically pushing and pulling us.
One policeman slammed the car door on my leg as I was getting into the car. I got back out of the car and yelled at him that he has slammed the door on my leg and that that was not acceptable. He responded by putting his face right up to mine and screaming, "No I didn't! You're Lying."
A night to remember.
Unfortunately, the news media did not follow us out into the hallways or into the parking lot to record the abuses wreaked upon us. There was short clip of our demo on the 10 p.m. Fox News program (Channel 6) and ABC's channel 40 at 11 p.m.
I saw a cop writing down my license plate number. They probably recorded those of our other cars as well. What will happen to that information? Will it go to the FBI and Homeland Security? I recently heard an interview with Naomi Wolf about her book Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries in which she talked about the increasing force with which local police forces are responding to civil society's protests and political actions. She discussed how police are intimidating people calling for social change with such brutality that protesters are becoming more and more scared to participate in actions.
I don't know if we achieved the goal we had set for ourselves. The media coverage was fairly marginal and some of us sustained bruises and increased rage. We continue to struggle with questions about what our next steps should be toward ending the current carnage and cruelty in Gaza; ending Israel's occupation, siege, blockades, and dehumanization of Palestinians for the longterm. How can we, here in little Western Massachusetts, influence the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens and the politicians who are supposed to represent us? For those of you who are local, I'll send out just one more email today with ideas some of us are working on. We'd like to solicit your participation and support.
We are an ad-hoc, multi-generational coalition of students, members of academia, Israelis, Americans, internationals, Jews, and people of conscience in
- The 1.5 million Palestinian people in
- The Palestinians in
We call on the
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Gaza and Israel: how many deaths?
To see the full impact of 879 coffins, go to Israeli Palestine Coffin Counter.
Current Figures:
Israel: 13
Palestine: 879
Israeli Deaths
Palestinian Deaths
Current Figures:
Israel: 13 Palestine: 879 Israeli Deaths Palestinian Deaths
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