The Butchering of Gaza

The Butchering Of Gaza - Nazi Germany Revisited
Joe Quinn
SOTT.net
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:00 UTC



Much has already been written about the eight-day-long running massacre of Palestinians that is taking place in Gaza. Indeed, what more can be said when it is clear that the Israeli government is intent on blithely ignoring all petitions, both the ambivalent and the unequivocal, to stop the indiscriminate murder.

At least 450 dead so far (other reports put the figure closer to 500), many of them civilians, women, children, old and young, the rest policemen or Hamas officials. At least 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive or be treated in Gaza's severely blockaded hospitals. In short, in the last eight days the state of Israel has murdered approximately 500 innocent Palestinians and seriously injured 2000, and the representatives of the world's leading democracies sit virtually silent. Make no mistake and do not be fooled by the mainstream media reporting, every single Palestinian that has died or been injured as a result of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is innocent. When a people that have been dispossessed of their land, livelihoods and homes, occupied, periodically murdered and regularly starved take action to resist and defend themselves, they are guilty of nothing but standing up for their human rights and their rights under international law.

Israel government ministers and their lackeys in the mainstream press are however eager to muddy the waters of this plain truth. They try to present the Gaza turkey shoot in much more vague terms. Reference is repeatedly made to the "violence" in Gaza and the toll it is taking. Consider this CNN headline and summary from the first day of the bombardment:

Obama, Rice discuss Gaza strikes

President-elect Barack Obama spoke with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday about the violence in Gaza, which has left as many as 225 people dead, two transition aides told CNN.

You see? It's the "violence in Gaza" that has been killing Palestinians, not Israeli government policy and war planes.

A Reuters report of the same day at least made reference to "Israel" and "kill" in the title:

Israel kills scores in Gaza air strikes

But the 229 people that had been killed by Israel was for some reason translated into "scores" for the title. You had to read the article to find out that "scores" actually means "hundreds" in Reuters-speak.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 229 people in one of the bloodiest days for the Palestinians in 60 years of conflict with the Jewish state.

Taken in the context of the current deplorable state of our world, the fact that Palestinians are being indiscriminately murdered may not seem so important to the average Westerner. After all, over the past few weeks thousands of Ugandans have been killed by DRC rebels (for but one example of the bloodletting going on around the world). Is the suffering of Ugandans any less significant to the average Western citizen than that of the Palestinians? Yes and no. From a humanitarian point of view it is no less significant, but from a political and social point of view the crimes against humanity in Gaza are more significant. As a member of a first world democracy, you are being asked to believe by your political leaders and the mainstream press that Israel and its armies are acting justifiably and that even as they drop one ton bombs on Palestinian homes, the state of Israel remains, in the recent words of George Bush, "a light onto the nations" and a fellow democratic nation. You are not being asked to believe that the DRC rebels are anything but murderous psychopaths (albeit secretly supported by Western governments). At stake then (other than the lives of innocent Palestinians) is your conscience and your ability to recognise blatant and murderous lies when you read or hear them. Also at stake is, perhaps, a final chance to understand the true nature of Western democratic government.

I have already noted that most of what can be said (by alternative news sites like Sott.net) about Israels flattening of Gaza and its inhabitants has already been said. Most of what you need to know to discern the reality of the situation in Gaza is available in the articles below this one - most, but not all. There is one detail that has not yet (to my knowledge) been exposed, but which is crucial if we are to understand the true depth of Israeli state mendacity.

The Israeli government claims that Hamas broke a ceasefire recently and began firing rockets into Israel and that the bombing of Gaza by the Israel air force is to stop the firing of these rockets by Hamas.

The truth is that Israel broke a five-month-long ceasefire with Hamas on November 4th, 2008 by assassinating six Hamas officials in Gaza. Please note the date that was chosen to do so (election day in the US). As reported recently in Haaretz, the attack on Gaza was planned six months ago. The Israel government has also flagrantly violated the terms of an agreement that it signed in November 2005 which stipulated that 400 truckloads a day of exports should have been leaving Gaza by the end of 2006. No goods have been allowed to leave Gaza and vital medical and food supplies have been regularly cut off over the past 4 years leaving much of Gaza's 1.5 million people malnourished.

Israel claims that the homemade, sugar-fueled rockets that wobble their way from Gaza towards the vicinity of nearby Israeli towns and which generally land harmlessly far and wide of their targets are its causus belli. These rockets are clearly primitive and by now every Palestinian must realise that they are useless as a weapon against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. More than that, every Palestinian must realise that the surest way to increase the chance that they or several members of their family will be dismembered by an Israeli missile is to keep firing impotent rockets into Israel. The REAL value of such rockets therefore is as justification to the Israel government to continue massacring and generally brutalizing the Palestinian people.

The logical deduction therefore is that it is not Hamas that has been firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza strip but the state of Israel itself. Back in October a senior Hamas leader said as much:

Hamas blames 'Israeli collaborators' for launching rockets

Albawaba.com
Sun, 12 Oct 2008

The Hamas rulers of Gaza Strip on Tuesday lashed out at gunners who fire rockets at Israel from the Palestinian territory in violation of a seven-week-old calm, calling them Israeli collaborators. "About the rocket-firing, I think those who are responsible are those who collaborate with Israel because there is a consensus by all Palestinian groups to respect the truce," said Dr. Mahmud Zahar, a senior leader of the Hamas movement.

On Monday, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in an empty field outside the southern Israeli city of Sderot, causing no casualty or damage.

According to AFP, Zahar told a Gaza radio station that the party which fired the rocket was "linked to Israel as they provide a pretext to exercise pressure on the Palestinian people."

After the latest incident, Israel on Tuesday closed the Nahal Oz crossing to Gaza Strip that is used to ferry in fuel and the Sufa passage for food deliveries to the impoverished and blockaded territory. On his part, MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, strongly denounced Tuesday the Israeli decision to close the crossings, noting that the Gaza commercial crossings are already paralyzed despite the calm.

In June 2008, in an admission that he did not know who was firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh appealed for "factions" to maintain the cease fire.

That agents of the state of Israel are behind much if not all of the "Hamas rockets" is a reasonable conclusion and backed up by the Israeli governments long term penchant for fabricating Muslim terrorism.

For example:

Yemen seizes Israel-linked cell

BBC News
Oct 7th 2008

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.

Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.

The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".

"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.

And from the Yemen Observer:

President Saleh revealed on Monday that security forces in Yemen caught an espionage network for Israel made up of Arab nationals. This announcement came during his speech in front of MP's, Shura Council members, local council members, scholars and military and security leaders at Hadhramout University.

According to the president the suspected spies will be brought before the courts shortly in a public trial after investigations are complete.

The network was comprised of 40 people from different Arab nationalities spying for Mossad, the Israeli international intelligence said sources from National and Political Security Units. The members of the espionage network entered Yemen on the premise of conducting business, tourism and even for preaching in mosques. Saleh said that the suspected spies form a terrorism cell that uses also Islam to reach their targets.

Or this from the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002:

Palestinians arrest al-Qaeda 'poseurs'

December 8 2002

Palestinian security forces have arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, a senior official said yesterday.

The arrests come two days after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged al-Qaeda militants were operating in Gaza and in Lebanon.

"The Palestinian Authority arrested a group of collaborators who confessed they were working for Israel, posing as al-Qaeda operatives in the Palestinian territories," said the official, on condition of anonymity.

He said the alleged collaborators sought to "discredit the Palestinian people, justify every Israeli crime and provide reasons to carry out a new (military) aggression in the Gaza Strip."

Or these: Lebanon's Army captures Israeli Mossad 'Terrorist Ring'

Wednesday, 14 June, 2006

Beirut - The Lebanese army has said it had captured members of a terrorist network allegedly working for the Israeli Mossad and that a suspect confessed to his role in assassinating Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

Last Saturday, the army said it had arrested Mahmoud Rafeh, a 59-year-old Lebanese citizen and retired police officer, for a May 26 car bombing that killed Mahmoud Majzoub, a senior Islamic Jihad official, and his brother in front of their home in the southern city of Sidon. Rafeh "had links to Israeli intelligence," a statement said.


On Tuesday, the army said that Rafeh ( left) had confessed to his role in killing the Majzoub brothers, and to other operations ... including bombings that killed two Hezbollah officials; Ali Hassan Dib in 1999 and Ali Saleh in 2003 and the 2002 killing of Jihad Jibril, the son of Ahmed Jibril, leader of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which based in Syria with bases in Lebanon.

Rafeh was part of a "terror network working for the Israeli Mossad," and its members took "training courses in and outside Israel," the statement said.

Investigators found Israeli computers, cameras, ammunition, military uniforms and forged identity cards in ring members' hideouts ( shown below), it added.

The ring smuggled the booby-trapped door of the Mercedes car that killed the Majzoub brothers from Israel, the army said.

An investigation was underway to arrest remaining collaborators, it concluded.

As Safir newspaper said a manhunt is currently underway to catch another suspect whom it identified as Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian official in the PFLP-GC. Lebanese police and the security apparatus of the PFLP-GC had believed he was involved in Jibril's murder but he was later cleared of the crime, the paper said.

An Nahar newspaper reported that Rafeh had been working for the Mossad since 1994. It said the army found in his house forged Lebanese papers that female Mossad agents used to enter the country as the alleged wives of the ring members.

Israeli intelligence agents stayed at the flat Rafeh had rented in Sidon near the residence of the Majzoub brothers to monitor their movements, the paper said.

Six ring members have already been arrested and another two are believed to have fled to Israel, An Nahar added.

President Emile Lahoud praised Lebanese forces for breaking up the terrorist network, saying "solidarity is the real power that can stand in the face of Israel and prevent sectarian conflicts," according to a statement released by his office.

Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, called the arrest and confession "a message" to all Lebanese that their country was not immune from "direct Israeli influence" -- despite Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

"Israel still sees Lebanon as a field to achieve political and future gains," Kassem told Hezbollah's Al Manar television late Tuesday.

Many people have previously been arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of spying for Israel. In 2004, a Tunisian woman of Palestinian origin and four accomplices were indicted on charges of plotting with Israel to assassinate Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Lebanese Army praised

Ahmad Yasseen a local political observer told Ya Libnan, "the fact that the Lebanese army captured the Mossad terrorist ring is proof that it should be the only authority that should be responsible for Lebanon's security "

Yasseen added: "It is time all Lebanese and Palestinian armed militia put their faith in the Lebanese army, instead of acting as 'state inside a state', which is destabilizing the country".

Commenting on the statements of Lahoud and Hezbollah Yasseen told Ya Libnan" they both should have praised the army instead of trying to justify the existence of the resistance groups".

Lebanese army shows a picture of the Mossad documents and equipment captured

Arafat: Israel Behind Suicide Bombings

August 25, 1995

Jerusalem Post

The complex Israeli-Palestinian relationship has given birth to a nasty new myth which began, like many such myths, with a lie so egregious that it could only be considered laughable. Now it threatens to become conventional wisdom.

Soon after the Beit Lid massacre, in which 21 Israeli soldiers were killed by two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers, Palestinian Authority chief Yasser Arafat told a group of visiting dignitaries that right-wing Israelis had collaborated with the killers. Otherwise, he said, the killers could not have passed through several army check posts without being stopped.

The implications were mind-boggling: not only was Arafat implying that Israelis would participate in the mass murder of Israeli soldiers. He was saying that the Israeli conspirators were so powerful that they could exercise control over the army units all along the route the killers took from Gaza to Beit Lid.

The visitors who heard the story, knowing that it could only be interpreted as the ravings of a lunatic, kept it mostly to themselves.

Being supporters of the peace process, they thought reporting it would embarrass Arafat and harm his credibility. But at least one listener divulged its contents privately, and it became known. To the amazement of many, Arafat kept repeating it both before visitors from abroad and to visiting Israelis.

On Tuesday, the day after the bus bombing in Jerusalem, Arafat decided to come out publicly with these "revelations." He not only announced in Gaza that there was collaboration between what he called "Israeli and Palestinian extremists," but that he had documents proving it.

One of his lieutenants, Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority Tayeb Raheem, went into details. He said that the Israeli army and other security services contained secret organizations like the French OAS during Algeria's war of independence. They and the Islamic fanatics have a common interest to defeat the Oslo agreement, he said, repeating that the PLO has documents to prove the allegation.

Portraits of Palestinian Resistance

Electronic Intifada
Rima Merriman
8 June 2006

Palestinian resistance to the occupation comes in many shapes and forms, some of which involves armed resistance undertaken by organized groups with various ideologies. These groups are composed of barely trained young men who pit their meager and crude resources against one of the best trained and best equipped military body in the world, the Israeli Occupation Forces. Of the 76 Israeli soldiers who died in 2005, only six were killed as a result of Palestinian attacks. The rest died of illness or accidents. Thirty of them committed suicide.

The imbalance in the resources between the two sides of the conflict predictably yields a steady mowing down on the part of the Israelis of one young Palestinian martyr after another. Most Palestinian deaths, however, are of civilians (and children) simply going about their daily lives, getting caught up in Israeli ground and air attacks, Israeli indiscriminate fire and Israeli raids.

Israel's control of and entrenchment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, its continual attempts to stamp out Palestinian resistance to the occupation at any cost, relies heavily on intelligence gathered by Shabak, the 5,000-strong Internal General Security Service of Israel, whose motto is "Defender who shall not be seen".

With a cadre of well-trained, Arabic-speaking Israeli informants who are indistinguishable physically from the Palestinian population, Shabak has little problem gathering intelligence on a people whose every movement is regulated by hundreds of check points and by total Israeli control on their borders. These infiltrators prey on Arab innate hospitality and friendliness. The Palestinians call them "musta'ribeen", i.e., "those who appear to be Arabs". Palestinians are not surprised when someone, somewhere comes up to them and says: Got you!

PA police fire on undercover IDF unit in Bethlehem

Ha'aretz
11/30/2005

Palestinian policemen opened fire at undercover Israel Defense Forces soldiers during an operation in Bethlehem yesterday. No soldiers were hurt during the incident, and the IDF said its inquiry revealed that no policemen were hurt. However, the Palestinians said one policeman was wounded. According to the army's initial inquiry, the Palestinian police had not been informed about the army operation. Thus, when the soldiers, who were disguised to look like Arabs, came to arrest a wanted man not far from City Hall, the policemen took them for members of an armed Palestinian gang.

Confusion in PA: Who launched Qassam?

Ynet
27/11/2006

There has been general confusion in the Palestinian Authority after a Qassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the western Negev. One of the cells of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military arm, has taken responsibility for the firing.

However, Abu Ahmad, one of the group's senior officials in the northern Gaza Strip, said to Ynet that he had no knowledge that his people carried out the shooting.

"As of now, we continue to be committed to the truce, but are reserving our right to respond to Israeli infractions," said Abu Ahmad.

Israeli agents accused of creating fake al-Qaeda cell

Sophie Claudet in Gaza City
AFP
December 9 2002

A senior Palestinian security official says his services have uncovered an Israeli plot to create a fake al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip, a charge Israel has dismissed as absurd. The head of preventive security in Gaza, Rashid Abu Shbak, said Israeli agents posing as operatives of al-Qaeda recruited Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. "Over the past nine months we've been investigating eight [such] cases," Mr Abu Shbak said.

His claims came after the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said al-Qaeda militants were operating in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, raising fears of an intensification of Israeli military occupations. How much evidence is required before we accept the fact that Israel's existence, in its current form, is predicated on a "threat to its existence" from its Arab neighbors and that the Israeli government will do whatever it takes to maintain that threat? How many times will the Israeli government be allowed to dismiss as "absurd" the repeated allegations and evidence that it is behind much of the major "Muslim terrorism" to which it so enthusiastically responds?

The Israeli air force is currently bombing Palestinian civilian homes, universities, mosques.

The work of Bush's "light unto the nations" - Five Palestinian sisters, brutally murdered as they slept in their beds by Israeli forces

It is using massive GBU-39 "bunker buster" missiles recently acquired from and with the blessing of the US government. It is firing missiles at carloads of civilians and then posting videos on Youtube claiming that the cars were carrying rockets. Two days ago the state of Israel murdered five young girls, all sisters aged four to 17, while they slept in their beds. Even Palestinian donkeys and carts carrying children are fair game to Yahweh's storm troopers. Yesterday an "pin point accurate" Israeli missile decapitated a Palestinian child and dismembered her two brothers, all of whom were playing in the street. The Israeli government is urging you, the Western public, to not only condone these atrocities but to accept them as being carried out in your name.

Sixty some years ago very similar scenes to those in Gaza today were playing out in Germany and Poland, and the then Nazi government urged Western citizens to accept it all as necessary and justified. Many people then accepted and condoned the Nazi atrocities, and many more turned a blind eye.

The Nazis 1942 war on Poland's "terrorists"

Israel's 2009 war on Palestine's "terrorists"

You are probably bored of being reminded that those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or that history really does repeat itself. But you should remember that history only repeats itself when we the people sit back and wishfully think that this time things will be different. The Nazis massacred millions of people over a twelve year period from 1933 to 1945. WWII (which claimed the lives of 65 million people) was ignited by an act of brutality very similar in nature to the Israeli actions in Palestine. The ideological descendants of the bankers, political leaders, military men and global geopolitical strategists that financed, pursued and profited from that last "great" war are today sitting in Tel Aviv, Washington and London with mass murder and mayhem once again on their minds.

So let us not allow history to repeat itself, yet again, by permitting the clearly psychopathic morality of our political leaders to be passed off as "freedom and democracy" or a "just fight" against some manufactured foe. Let us, if only with our collective conscious awareness, resist the blatant crimes against humanity and massacring of the innocent that is taking place in Gaza. And let us remember the core issue and injustice that must be addressed before Israel's right to exist can ever be recognised: