I want you to remember this picture when you think of Israel’s use of chemical weapons every time someone parrots the talking points of the Israeli government. This picture was taken in Gaza, Palestine; this is a war crime.
No this isn’t photoshopped. If this isn’t a war crime then I don’t know what is.
Now – when discussing Israel’s use of chemical weapons
– I have heard many justifications, excuses and obfuscations to minimize the
criminal element of “Operation Cast Lead” that lasted just over 3 weeks from
December 28th, 2008 to January 18th, 2009. The timing of Operation Cast
Lead is important since the U.S. and the world was focused on the horror of an
economic downward spiral and the hope of a new way forward … President Barack Obama was waiting for his inauguration at this point.
Now – many Israel advocates like to claim that this isn’t illegal and that
Israel used white phosphorous (which is irrefutable and the Israeli government
acknowledges) only as a smoke screen.
Under international law – white phosphorous may be used as a smoke
screen but not on civilian populations. Gaza is one of the most densely
populated ares in the world and Israel’s use of white phosphorous is very
clearly being used over civilian areas. Operation Cast Lead resulted
in between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths; 4 of them were
from friendly fire. The United Nations conducted an investigation and released
the now famous Goldstone report which acknowledged that Israel’s use of white phosphorous
was indeed a war crime. It was after significant pressure and a couple of
years later – the author retracted his report’s findings. The United
Nations Human
Right Council,
however, still found Israel guilty of war crimes and they ordered that Israel
compensate Palestinian families for the damage caused by the Israeli
government. They wrote HERE:
The approval of USD
85 million worth of United Nations projects remains pending. Israel recently
released 20,000 tons of construction materials for Gaza’s private sector. However, the border
closures and restrictions on passage through border crossings continue to
seriously negatively affect the population of the Gaza Strip. Over 75 per cent
of the units needed to replace homes destroyed during Operation Cast Lead have
not been constructed. Gaza’s unemployment rate remains high. This combines with
the urgent demand for construction materials to reconstruct homes, schools and
other infrastructure to result in thousands of people continuing to risk their
lives to work in tunnels along the border with Egypt.
If another country took this kind of
action – the U.S. would be invading them. Not only did the U.S. not
invade Israel, we give them money to continue their human rights violations and
we continue to veto any resolution to hold Israel accountable on the UN
security council. And we wonder why so many other countries hate the U.S.
Quite simply – we live by double standards. We support democracy
only if its the result we want i.e. Gaza 2006, Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo
1960, Dominican Republican 1961, South Vietnam 1963, Brazil 1964, and Chile
1973 to name only a select few not including many
attempted coup attempts like Venezuela 2002.
The double standard continues for the
use of chemical weapons. President Obama is looking to attack Syria after
an apparent chemical weapons attack although there are reports that these
chemical weapons attack were in fact not committed by the Syrian government . President Obama claims that we must set a red
line for those countries willing to utilize chemical weapons; he has however
not taken the same stance with the Israeli government despite countless human
rights violations. One of the most ironic elements of this entire
situation is that the #1 force pushing for an attack on Syria is Israel and
their lobbying arm AIPAC
Israel’s military has said that it will
not use white phosphorous “for the time being” with two exceptions that the
state attorney would not disclose in a public hearing in front of the Israeli
High Court; the Israeli High Court dismissed a petition to make the use of
white phosphorous illegal . So – the Israeli military can’t be held
accountable externally because the U.S. blocks any resolutions on the UN
Security Council and it won’t be held accountable internally because the
Israeli High Court has prioritized the promises of the military over “right and
wrong”.
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