GAZA HASN’T FORGOTTEN

September 18, 2014

Gaza hasn’t forgotten. There’s a whole list of people who can never forget: the 1,500 orphaned children; the 3,000 wounded children; the 1,000 crippled children; the 110,000 residents still crowded in UNRWA shelters in inhumane conditions; the tenants of the 18,000 buildings destroyed or badly damaged, leaving 2.5 million tons of debris nobody knows what to do with; the 450,000 people without water and the 360,000 who, according to the World Health Organization, are suffering from PTSD after our bombardments. None of these people can be expected to forgive, and this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: War? What war? Gaza gets forgotten in a hurry

PUT THE CHILDREN FIRST

September 17, 2014

The children of Gaza have bleak horizons. About 60,000 houses were damaged of which 20,000 are uninhabitable. Even before the current violence 71,000 homes needed repair or rebuilding. The public infrastructure on which they depend has been eroded by years of blockade with water, sewage and electricity systems decimated further by the latest violence. The neighborhoods where the children of Gaza once played lie in ruins, their recreational spaces littered with unexploded Israeli ordnance, which must be cleared before recovery can begin in earnest. The majority of Gaza’s 110,000 homeless people are children.

Let us move ahead with rebuilding Gaza on the clear understanding that steps will be taken by all sides to avoid another round of violence. It is time to escape the familiar pattern of blockade, rockets and destruction. The children of Gaza and southern Israel deserve better.

Chris Gunness is Spokesman and Director of Advocacy and Strategic Communications at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

Visit the link: Put the children first: Lift the blockade on Gaza

 

THE HIDDEN WOUNDS

September 8, 2014

According to UNICEF Chief of Child Protection Bruce Grant, these cases represent only a fraction of the needs.

“There are at least 373,000 children in desperate need of psychosocial support, and we have to move fast to help them,” says Grant. “Time is not on our side.”

While the current ceasefire holds, UNICEF and its partners are accelerating work on identifying the families most in need. Over the next four months, PCDCR, with help from UNICEF, will provide psychosocial support to 35,000 children and 10,000 caregivers through structured activities and one-on-one counselling. Symptoms of distress commonly exhibited by children include bedwetting, clinging to parents and nightmares.

At least 494 Palestinian children were reported killed during the hostilities in Gaza, and 2,101 others injured. UNICEF is seeking to raise US$4.5 million for psychosocial support programmes, as part of a larger appeal of $12.5 million for the whole child protection response plan.

Visit the link: Treating the hidden wounds of Gaza’s children

A LIVING NIGHTMARE

September 11, 2014

Has anyone who supports the two-state solution looked at this map recently? Israeli settlements – the splashes of blue – have turned the idea of a contiguous Palestinian state into a bad joke. The prospect of an Israeli government being willing to pull its citizens out of Ariel, for example, Israel’s fourth–largest settlement which sits slap bang in the middle of the West Bank, is inconceivable.

Clearly, this is a living nightmare for the Palestinians: unless there is a serious sea-change in Israeli politics, any hope of a real future state will soon be dead.

Venetia Rainey is a Middle East correspondent for TheWeek.co.uk based in Lebanon where she works for the national English-language paper,

Visit the link: After Gaza, Israel plays another card: land grabs

THE JEWISH JUSTIFICATION?

September 10, 2014

We need to examine difficult decisions that were made that run counter to halakhic morality – starting with: Can you wage war when the population has no place to escape to, in violation of Maimonides’ clear dictum that refuge must always be available even to our worst enemies – and certainly to a civilian population?

What is the Jewish justification – I see none – in dropping a bomb when it is known that it will certainly kill the wife and eight month-old baby of a terrorist leader?

Rabbi Landes is Director of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where he teaches the Senior Kollel Talmud class and Theology. The views expressed here are his own.

Visit the link: Why as Jews, as Israelis, we must repent for Gaza’s dead

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

September 8, 2014

Over the past five years, a pattern of targeted attacks against schools has been reported in 30 countries and five – Afghanistan, Colombia, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Syria – have each experienced 1,000 or more attacks on schools and universities and their staff and students. In Syria alone, by early 2013, 2,445 were reported as damaged or destroyed but, in addition, nearly 1,000 schools have allegedly been used as detention centres and in some cases torture centres. And an all too high number of children are taken from the school playground to be enlisted and brutalised as child soldiers.

Gordon Brown, a former British prime minister and chancellor, is member of parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. He is UN special envoy for global education, and a patron of the Burma Campaign UK.

Visit the link: These attacks on children are crimes against humanity

TERMINAL DISEASE

September 4, 2014

The Israelis who shout for the two-state solution say in the same breath that the settlement blocs belong to us. And they do – they are our disease, our terminal disease, which somehow remains to be diagnosed.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: It’s time for a diagnosis: Israel’s settlement disease is terminal 

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.613988

A HUMANITARIAN IMPERATIVE

September 4, 2014

Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza can’t continue. It is neither possible nor acceptable that 1.8 million Palestinians continue to live in the world’s biggest open-air prison, and that they be required to surrender and acquiesce to the conditions of their detention. It is unacceptable that Palestinians living there are banned from travelling out of Gaza. How much longer will Israel continue to rule the lives of Palestinians and demand their compliance, branding all those who resist the state of siege and occupation terrorists?

Ali Jarbawi is a political scientist and a former minister of the Palestinian Authority. This article was translated by Ghenwa Hayek from the Arabic.

Visit the link: Israel’s Lessons From the Gaza Wars

 

AN OPEN LETTER FOR GAZA

August 26, 2014

We as scientists and doctors cannot keep silent while this crime against humanity continues. We urge readers not to be silent too. Gaza trapped under siege, is being killed by one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated modern military machines. The land is poisoned by weapon debris, with consequences for future generations. If those of us capable of speaking up fail to do so and take a stand against this war crime, we are also complicit in the destruction of the lives and homes of 1•8 million people in Gaza.

By Paola Manduca, Iain Chalmers, Derek Summerfield, Mads Gilbert, Swee Ange, on behalf of 24 signatories

Visit the link: Gaza Under Seige

IF GOD STAYED ABRAHAM’S KNIFE

August 4, 2014

The question for Elie Wiesel and the Jewish establishment is not about Abraham’s binding of Isaac – a treasure trove for interpreters of all types – but how many Palestinians children will be sacrificed on the alter of Israel’s national security.

If god stayed Abraham’s knife, who will stay Israel’s?

Marc H. Ellis is a retired Director and Professor of Jewish Studies at Baylor University and author of Future of the Prophetic: Israel’s Ancient Wisdom Re-Presented.

Visit the link: Elie Wiesel plays the Holocaust trump card in Gaza

A RARE VOICE OF COURAGE

March 31, 2010

DC: What role can journalists play in trying to achieve a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

GL: There is an enormous historic role that the Israeli media is playing. The Israeli media, which is a free media, free of censorship, free of governmental pressure, has been dehumanizing the Palestinians, demonizing them. Without the cooperation of the Israeli media, the occupation would not have lasted so long. It is destructive in ways I cannot even describe. It’s not Romania, it’s not Soviet Russia. It’s a free democracy, the media could play any role but it has chosen to play this role. The main thing is about the flow of information. It is so one-sided, so much propaganda and lies and ignorance.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: A Rare Voice Of Courage

THE MOST BRUTAL WAR

August 27, 2014

Israel can win this war only by complying with its enemy’s just demands: truly opening Gaza to the world and beginning negotiations over the future of the occupied territories. No more “understandings” that will quickly bring the next “operation,” but a new approach to Gaza, Hamas and the entire Palestinian people. No more photo ops with Mahmoud Abbas, but serious negotiations aimed at making peace with the Palestinian unity government.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: Lessons from the futile Gaza war

TO RETHINK

August 26, 2014

The writers of the letter are addressing some of their appeals to the German taxpayers because there are also projects funded by German tax money which are being destroyed in Gaza. The German government had already explained in 2012 that German-funded projects were being hampered or even destroyed in the Palestinian territories under Israeli control. The writers claim that, in the present conflict, almost the entire work of international development organisations, charities and NGOs working on the ground in the Gaza Strip has also been destroyed; in a material sense with the bombings, but the effects on the people are even worse. The entire civilian population is traumatised. The writers state that this situation cannot be changed through projects and that there’s a need for a wholesale policy reform, as demanded in the open letter.

The scholars urge the German government to:

• give emphatic support to the recognised Palestinian unity government which was sworn in officially in July, and to strengthen its governing power over the Gaza Strip, as well as its capacity to act in all of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem;

• investigate the killing of civilians before and during the attacks on the Gaza Strip, to actively contribute to an international inquiry and to support Palestine in joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the same time to investigate the destruction of civil infrastructure (such as the bombing of Gaza’s only power station, sewage treatment plants, hospitals etc.) which has been financed by EU and German funds for years, and to demand compensation off Israel;

• do all that it can to put an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and to suggest legally-binding strategies in accordance with international law for both sides to settle the conflict.

Visit the link:  Scholars Are Urging the German Government to Rethink Its Unconditional Support of Israel

 

TO BREAK THIS VICIOUS CYCLE

August 26, 2014

There is a way to break this vicious cycle. Israelis want the Gaza Strip demilitarized, and the Palestinians want a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. From an Israeli perspective, lifting the economic siege is essential for demilitarization, since the blockade generates a demand for commodities that can only be met through smuggling, via the tunnels. And those tunnels can only be financed with hard currency, obtained through the exchange of weapons and explosives.

So the most efficient way to “destroy” the tunnels is not by sending Israeli tanks into Gaza, but by lifting the blockade, reviving the local economy and offering, at last, other opportunities than militant Islam to young Palestinians (more than half of the Gazan population is unemployed). Gaza has to be able to rebuild, to sell the products of its farms and workshops; its people must be allowed to move freely. It is certainly easier said than done, but there is no alternative to achieve a sustained peace in Gaza.

And yet, both Israel and Hamas still harbor elusive dreams of military victory.

Jean-Pierre Filiu is professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po, a former career diplomat for France, and the author of the forthcoming book “Gaza: A History.”

Visit the link:  Gaza: Victim Of History

AN IRON WALL OF DENIAL

August 24, 2014

In a world where there is some good, children would be left out of the cruel game called war. In a world where there is some good, it would be impossible to understand the total, almost monstrous unfeelingness in the face of the killing of hundreds of children – not ours, but by us. Imagine them standing in a row: 478 children, in a graduating class of death. Imagine them wearing Messi shirts – some of those children wore them once too, before they died; they also admired him, just like our Daniel from a kibbutz. But nobody looks at them; their faces are not seen, no one is shocked at their deaths. No one writes about them: “Hey Messi, look at that boy.” Hey, Israel, look at their children.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: The Difference Between Children

NEW EPISODE OF MORAL BLACKMAIL

August 19, 2014

Let’s conclude by calling upon the timeless moral wisdom of Hillel the Elder. One day, a man approached Rabbi Hillel with this challenge: “Teach me all the Torah while I stand on one leg.” In response, the rabbi offered this immortal advice: “What is hateful to you, don’t do unto others – that’s the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn.”

Introspection is in short supply, so too is its prerequisite – willingness.

Abukar Arman is a former diplomat and a widely published foreign policy analyst.

Visit the link: ‘Moral Blackmail’ Still Stifles Debate on Israel

WE CANNOT LET IT GO ON

August 17, 2014

It will be tougher still for those children on the roof next door. They have no air-raid shelters and very little chance of escaping to the wider world as long as Israel and Egypt maintain strict controls on all movement across Gaza’s borders.

So these thoughts do not end with some neat aphorism which offers a little hope for the future. You just wonder how long it will be before those children, who have lived through three wars, find themselves living through a fourth.

And you wonder what will become of them.

Kevin Connolly, one of the BBC’s Middle East correspondents.

Visit the link: Gaza: What does the future hold for the children?

A TRAUMATISED GENERATION

August 11, 2014

A study conducted by Unicef, the UN agency for children, following Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012 found that 91% of children reported sleeping disturbances during the conflict; 94% said they slept with their parents; 85% reported appetite changes; 82% felt angry; 97% felt insecure; 38% felt guilty; 47% were biting their nails; 76% reported itching or feeling ill; and 82% were either continuously or usually in fear of imminent death.

… This time, says Zeyada, it is likely to be worse. “Any child above six years old has now been exposed to three wars. We are talking about a traumatised generation. They will perceive the world as dangerous, and they will have a lot of frustration and anger. And a desire for revenge.” The current war, he says, is “more intensive, more brutal” than the past two. The two main pillars of Palestinian society – family and religion – have been relentlessly targeted. Scores of families have suffered multiple deaths; thousands of homes and dozens of mosques have been destroyed.

Harriet Sherwood is the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent. She was previously foreign editor and home editor

Visit the link: Gaza’s children: ‘Israel is creating a new generation of enemies’

THE MEANING OF “BARBARIC”?

August 11, 2014

We need to recognize what barbaric is. Barbaric is racism. Barbaric is defining Palestinians as a ‘demographic threat.’ A demographic threat and therefore considering that Palestinian existence is a threat to Israeli survival. Our existence is a threat to their survival, which means that the mere fact that we exist is justification for them to kill us. That is barbaric.

Dr. Rania Masri, a political commentator, a regular on the Real News, a scholar, a human rights activist, a university professor of environmental science and a writer. Her activism has centered on environmental justice, civil rights, anti-war, anti-apartheid, of course Palestine.

Visit the link: Rania Masri Gives Barack Obama Lesson On The Meaning of “Barbaric’ 

IT IS ALL ABOUT DEHUMANIZATION

August 8, 2014

It is all about dehumanization. As long as Israelis don’t perceive Palestinians as equal human beings, there will never be a real solution. Unfortunately, dehumanizing the Palestinians has become the best tool to strengthen the occupation, to ignore and deny its crimes and enable the Israelis to live in peace, without any moral dilemmas. If the Palestinians are not human beings, there is no question about human rights. This process climaxed in this war and this is the real basis for the moral blindness which has covered Israel.

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which appears both in Hebrew and in English. He has covered the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for the last 25 years.

Visit the link: Why Israel Is Its Own Worst Enemy