NefeshBarYochai
2024-11-26 04:21:05 UTC
The International Criminal Courts (ICJ) January finding of a
plausible genocide in Gaza, and subsequent ruling that Israel is
responsible for an apartheid system in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem would not have surprised former Presidents Truman,
Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, or indeed Reagan, who famously denounced
Israels 1982 levelling of West Beirut to Prime Minister Menachem
Begin as a holocaust.
Israel is the only US ally that has been exercising such oppression
and terror for a lifetime. For many years, consecutive American
administrations, both Democratic and Republican, condemned Israels
recurring practice of terror. Today, however, the Biden-Harris
administration has been supporting these practices to the extreme.
Harry S Truman recognised Israel in May 1948, yet once re-elected in
November, wrote of his disgust over how the Jews are approaching
the refugee problem. Then his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, joined
Winston Churchill, whod returned as the UKs prime minister, to
censure Israel in the UN Security Council in November 1953.
Paratroopers under Colonel Ariel Sharon, a future Israeli prime
minister, had shot every man, woman and child they could find, in
the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Qibya, according to Time
magazine, leaving 69 dead. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion cried
anti-Semitism.
Eisenhower had Israel censured twice more: In March 1955, after a
self-described Israeli terror unit bombed US consulate libraries in
Cairo and Alexandria, seeking to blame Egypt, followed by an attack on
Egyptian-controlled Gaza that killed 38; and in March 1956 over a
so-called retaliation against Syria that killed 56 soldiers and
civilians.
Upward of 2,700 Arab infiltrators, and perhaps as many as 5,000, were
killed by the [Israeli military], police, and civilians along Israels
borders between 1949 and 1956, writes Israeli historian Benny Morris,
the vast majority of those killed were unarmed. They were shepherds,
farmers, Bedouins, and refugees.
Eisenhower was unpersuaded by Israeli ambassador Abba Ebans claims of
self-defence, and Israel would keep inflicting vastly asymmetric
episodes of terror for decades.
In October 1956, after killing some 49 civilians in the village of
Kafir Qasim near Tel Aviv, Israel invaded Egypt and immediately began
massacring refugees in Khan Younis and Rafah. Eisenhower responded by
declaring that the US would apply sanctions on Israel. When Israel
still refused to withdraw from Gaza and Sharm El Sheikh, the US
president threatened to block its access to US financial markets. The
Israeli retreat followed.
In November 1966, Lyndon Johnson once again put the Palestine
Question on the UN agenda to condemn Israel, this time after a
massive attack on Jordan involving more than 3,000 soldiers. The
Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to
their own, concluded his National Security Adviser W W Rostow, adding
that theyve wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation.
All-out war followed in 1967, after which Israel occupied the West
Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The martial law imposed on the Arab
population in Israel since the founding of the state was lifted in
1966, but Jimmy Carter described the conditions imposed on
Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory after the beginning
of illegal Israeli settlement there as apartheid.
With nothing resolved by 1982, Prime Minister Begin, a former Irgun
terrorist against British authorities, vowed to destroy the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He oversaw then-Defence
Minister Ariel Sharons killing of some 18,000 Palestinians and
Lebanese, overwhelmingly civilians, in Beirut. Belatedly, Reagan
stopped the slaughter with a phone call, given Israels dependence. It
was then that he described the Israeli onslaught as a holocaust.
Despite using a word with such weight, however, the White House did
not demand the UN censure Israel. The US had not attempted to sanction
Israel even over its illegal settlements which spawned from the 1967
war. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren explained why in his
2007 book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776
to the Present. In the mid-1970s, he wrote, Israels supporters began
to achieve the financial and political clout necessary to sway
congressional opinion meaning that they had acquired enough power
to impede US official opposition to Israel at the UN or elsewhere.
Ever since, Israel has taken US backing for granted, no matter the
record of wildly disproportionate atrocities.
In 1991, Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, who had approved the
murder of UN negotiator Folke Bernadotte, tried to explain why
terrorism was acceptable for Jews, but not Arabs: Palestinians are
fighting for land that is not theirs. This is the land of the people
of Israel.
Hamass October 7 attack on Israel was distinct. It was the only time
that Palestinian resistance groups were able to react to decades of
Israeli terror on a similar scale. In response to the attack, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply doubled down on Israels
recurring massacre-making, now backed by starvation and disease. The
US administration took no meaningful action to stop plausible
genocide.
At this time, Israel has also become the only entity in the world that
Washington allows to kill US citizens with impunity. The ever-growing
list from the West Bank includes Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Mohammad Khdour,
and Shireen Abu Akleh each killed with a shot to the head. No
sanctions or renditions followed their deaths. The White House simply
suggested the sniper-killings were not acceptable and asked Israel
to investigate itself. The issue was swiftly dismissed.
As Gazas torment enters its second year, Israels killing has reached
unprecedented levels in the West Bank, and Lebanon once again becomes
a target of Israels self-described retaliation. More is needed from
Israels patron than mutterings to perhaps halt some arms shipments.
Washington should not only stop upholding Israeli brutality, which
includes apartheid but, like the UK, it can support the pending
International Criminal Court indictments which are to, finally,
include an Israeli prime minister.
Past US presidents had tried to reign in Israeli behaviour of the sort
that statesman Abba Eban came to describe, during Israels previous
bombing of Beirut, as wantonly inflicting every possible measure of
death and anguish on civilian populations. Time is overdue for
Washingtons decisionmakers to follow those presidents examples, and
to rescind diplomatic protection as well as weapons exports for
Israel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/11/israels-forgotten-terror
plausible genocide in Gaza, and subsequent ruling that Israel is
responsible for an apartheid system in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem would not have surprised former Presidents Truman,
Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, or indeed Reagan, who famously denounced
Israels 1982 levelling of West Beirut to Prime Minister Menachem
Begin as a holocaust.
Israel is the only US ally that has been exercising such oppression
and terror for a lifetime. For many years, consecutive American
administrations, both Democratic and Republican, condemned Israels
recurring practice of terror. Today, however, the Biden-Harris
administration has been supporting these practices to the extreme.
Harry S Truman recognised Israel in May 1948, yet once re-elected in
November, wrote of his disgust over how the Jews are approaching
the refugee problem. Then his successor, Dwight Eisenhower, joined
Winston Churchill, whod returned as the UKs prime minister, to
censure Israel in the UN Security Council in November 1953.
Paratroopers under Colonel Ariel Sharon, a future Israeli prime
minister, had shot every man, woman and child they could find, in
the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Qibya, according to Time
magazine, leaving 69 dead. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion cried
anti-Semitism.
Eisenhower had Israel censured twice more: In March 1955, after a
self-described Israeli terror unit bombed US consulate libraries in
Cairo and Alexandria, seeking to blame Egypt, followed by an attack on
Egyptian-controlled Gaza that killed 38; and in March 1956 over a
so-called retaliation against Syria that killed 56 soldiers and
civilians.
Upward of 2,700 Arab infiltrators, and perhaps as many as 5,000, were
killed by the [Israeli military], police, and civilians along Israels
borders between 1949 and 1956, writes Israeli historian Benny Morris,
the vast majority of those killed were unarmed. They were shepherds,
farmers, Bedouins, and refugees.
Eisenhower was unpersuaded by Israeli ambassador Abba Ebans claims of
self-defence, and Israel would keep inflicting vastly asymmetric
episodes of terror for decades.
In October 1956, after killing some 49 civilians in the village of
Kafir Qasim near Tel Aviv, Israel invaded Egypt and immediately began
massacring refugees in Khan Younis and Rafah. Eisenhower responded by
declaring that the US would apply sanctions on Israel. When Israel
still refused to withdraw from Gaza and Sharm El Sheikh, the US
president threatened to block its access to US financial markets. The
Israeli retreat followed.
In November 1966, Lyndon Johnson once again put the Palestine
Question on the UN agenda to condemn Israel, this time after a
massive attack on Jordan involving more than 3,000 soldiers. The
Israelis have done a great deal of damage to our interests and to
their own, concluded his National Security Adviser W W Rostow, adding
that theyve wrecked a good system of tacit cooperation.
All-out war followed in 1967, after which Israel occupied the West
Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. The martial law imposed on the Arab
population in Israel since the founding of the state was lifted in
1966, but Jimmy Carter described the conditions imposed on
Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory after the beginning
of illegal Israeli settlement there as apartheid.
With nothing resolved by 1982, Prime Minister Begin, a former Irgun
terrorist against British authorities, vowed to destroy the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He oversaw then-Defence
Minister Ariel Sharons killing of some 18,000 Palestinians and
Lebanese, overwhelmingly civilians, in Beirut. Belatedly, Reagan
stopped the slaughter with a phone call, given Israels dependence. It
was then that he described the Israeli onslaught as a holocaust.
Despite using a word with such weight, however, the White House did
not demand the UN censure Israel. The US had not attempted to sanction
Israel even over its illegal settlements which spawned from the 1967
war. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren explained why in his
2007 book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776
to the Present. In the mid-1970s, he wrote, Israels supporters began
to achieve the financial and political clout necessary to sway
congressional opinion meaning that they had acquired enough power
to impede US official opposition to Israel at the UN or elsewhere.
Ever since, Israel has taken US backing for granted, no matter the
record of wildly disproportionate atrocities.
In 1991, Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, who had approved the
murder of UN negotiator Folke Bernadotte, tried to explain why
terrorism was acceptable for Jews, but not Arabs: Palestinians are
fighting for land that is not theirs. This is the land of the people
of Israel.
Hamass October 7 attack on Israel was distinct. It was the only time
that Palestinian resistance groups were able to react to decades of
Israeli terror on a similar scale. In response to the attack, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply doubled down on Israels
recurring massacre-making, now backed by starvation and disease. The
US administration took no meaningful action to stop plausible
genocide.
At this time, Israel has also become the only entity in the world that
Washington allows to kill US citizens with impunity. The ever-growing
list from the West Bank includes Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Mohammad Khdour,
and Shireen Abu Akleh each killed with a shot to the head. No
sanctions or renditions followed their deaths. The White House simply
suggested the sniper-killings were not acceptable and asked Israel
to investigate itself. The issue was swiftly dismissed.
As Gazas torment enters its second year, Israels killing has reached
unprecedented levels in the West Bank, and Lebanon once again becomes
a target of Israels self-described retaliation. More is needed from
Israels patron than mutterings to perhaps halt some arms shipments.
Washington should not only stop upholding Israeli brutality, which
includes apartheid but, like the UK, it can support the pending
International Criminal Court indictments which are to, finally,
include an Israeli prime minister.
Past US presidents had tried to reign in Israeli behaviour of the sort
that statesman Abba Eban came to describe, during Israels previous
bombing of Beirut, as wantonly inflicting every possible measure of
death and anguish on civilian populations. Time is overdue for
Washingtons decisionmakers to follow those presidents examples, and
to rescind diplomatic protection as well as weapons exports for
Israel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/11/israels-forgotten-terror