IMPUNITY FOR ISRAEL
u.s | 31.07.2014 23:21 | Palestine | Cambridge | London
July 31,2014 - Eighty years ago the world turned its back on the brutal persecution of European Jews. Today we suffer from similar global apathy -- though this time the persecutors are Jews.
Born by the conquest of the land of others the State of Israel has been guilty since 1948 of the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their territory, either by force, by trickery or if the expropriated fought back by outright killing.
Born by the conquest of the land of others the State of Israel has been guilty since 1948 of the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their territory, either by force, by trickery or if the expropriated fought back by outright killing.
IMPUNITY FOR ISRAEL
by Uli Schmetzer
www.uli-schmetzer.com
Undated, July 31 - Eighty years ago the world turned its back on the brutal persecution of European Jews. Today we suffer from similar global apathy -- though this time the persecutors are Jews.
Born by the conquest of the land of others the State of Israel has been guilty since 1948 of the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their territory, either by force, by trickery or if the expropriated fought back by outright killing.
During all those years of the Israel-Palestinian conflicts, two intifadas and the bloody invasions of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, the international community has not once imposed sanctions on the Zionist State because Israel’s propaganda machine both at home and in the U.S. has always managed to convince the world Israel was the victim and not the aggressor.
Once again these days the international community is silently watching another Israeli military exercise which already has killed around 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 297 children. Once again Israel claims it is acting in self-defense as its troops march in while its artillery and missiles lay waste a Gaza Strip inhabited by 1.7 million people. (Israeli casualties so far are 53 soldiers and three civilians)
While the bombs rained on Gaza Europe mourned Dutch and Australian children killed when a Malaysian passenger airliner was shot out of the sky over the Ukraine. But there were no ceremonies and vigils held for the Palestinian children killed during the ruthless bombing of their homes by sophisticated Israeli weaponry provided by the U.S and its allies.
Europe and the U.S. raged because Ukrainian insurgents made access to the bodies of the passengers difficult. No one raged as the dead lay unburied in Gaza’s slums and ruins or were hastily buried during lulls in the fighting. While special European units collected the scattered limbs of the dead in the Ukraine the wounded in Gaza died because there was no way to evacuate or treat them.
In our global power game where foes and friends can change roles overnight indignant officials blamed Ukrainian insurgents and a Russia which armed them - just as the US arms and finances Israel. However there was viable evidence the ill-fated Malaysian airliner may have been shot down by a Ukrainian government missile or a Ukrainian government fighter jet.
Propaganda is half the victory. In Gaza for example the number of home-made rockets fired at Israel. has grown to nearly three thousand by Israeli reckoning though only one or two have reached their target, apparently killing one civilian. The rest were all shot down by the Israelis, allegedly.
Does anyone ever notice these glaring discrepancies?
We live at a time of orchestrated perceptions dished up by a mass media which in Israel’s case has managed to convince two thirds of the public in the United States alone whatever Israel does to Gaza is justified.
We live at a time of sanctions, of demonizing nations from one day to the other, of inventing ‘rogue’ nations so we can control their resources, break their power and cast their nations into civil wars, using the millennia old Roman wisdom: ‘Divide and Rule.
We instigate war to protect ourselves from those who think different, pray different and most of all – so the PR blurb goes - to liberate these unfortunate nations from the rule of their tyrants. In the process we have turned orderly tyrant-ruled nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Egypt into basket cases run by thugs, gangs, militias and fortune hunters while their populations seek asylum abroad, something few did in the time of tyrants.
We live at a time when even the most outrageous official lies are accepted, printed and repeated as truth, when an invasion and destruction of a country like Iraq is triggered by fake claims of weapons of mass destruction when an Israeli spokesperson can repeatedly claim – and not be ridiculed – that the bombing of schools and hospitals in Gaza is due to Hamas rockets intended for Israel but which fell short on the people of Gaza, especially schools, hospitals and U.N. sanctuaries. And that excuse is not made once, as may be acceptable, but each time more children and civilians are killed.
Are we all that stupid?
Don’t we remember the massacre of Shabra and Shatila refugee camps (1,700 murdered by Israeli allies while the Israeli army stood by) or the 1982 invasion of Lebanon that cost the lives of 17,500 people most of them civilians? At that time Israeli spokespersons boasted that the Israeli army has the highest standard of any army in the world and does NOT target civilians. (Does any army admit it does?)
Sadly we live at a time when mini-wars are profitable for the few and disastrous for the many, when millions are made homeless and forced to seek refuge abroad while we overthrow their ‘tyrannical’ regimes and leave their bombed out countries in the hands of opportunists, thugs, gangs and religious fanatics – all fighting one another.
We live at a time when our minds are daily groomed by spin doctors persuading us why one country is bad, another country good, why this person is a terrorist and that person is a freedom fighter, why our System is superior and our Religion better, why we must neutralize the others so we can remain prosperous and happy in our fairytale cocoons – until we suffer some more “terrorist” attacks – thanks to our silence NOW.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and is the author of “Gaza” and “Times of Terror” both available in print on www.amazon.com and in digital form.
by Uli Schmetzer
www.uli-schmetzer.com
Undated, July 31 - Eighty years ago the world turned its back on the brutal persecution of European Jews. Today we suffer from similar global apathy -- though this time the persecutors are Jews.
Born by the conquest of the land of others the State of Israel has been guilty since 1948 of the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their territory, either by force, by trickery or if the expropriated fought back by outright killing.
During all those years of the Israel-Palestinian conflicts, two intifadas and the bloody invasions of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, the international community has not once imposed sanctions on the Zionist State because Israel’s propaganda machine both at home and in the U.S. has always managed to convince the world Israel was the victim and not the aggressor.
Once again these days the international community is silently watching another Israeli military exercise which already has killed around 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 297 children. Once again Israel claims it is acting in self-defense as its troops march in while its artillery and missiles lay waste a Gaza Strip inhabited by 1.7 million people. (Israeli casualties so far are 53 soldiers and three civilians)
While the bombs rained on Gaza Europe mourned Dutch and Australian children killed when a Malaysian passenger airliner was shot out of the sky over the Ukraine. But there were no ceremonies and vigils held for the Palestinian children killed during the ruthless bombing of their homes by sophisticated Israeli weaponry provided by the U.S and its allies.
Europe and the U.S. raged because Ukrainian insurgents made access to the bodies of the passengers difficult. No one raged as the dead lay unburied in Gaza’s slums and ruins or were hastily buried during lulls in the fighting. While special European units collected the scattered limbs of the dead in the Ukraine the wounded in Gaza died because there was no way to evacuate or treat them.
In our global power game where foes and friends can change roles overnight indignant officials blamed Ukrainian insurgents and a Russia which armed them - just as the US arms and finances Israel. However there was viable evidence the ill-fated Malaysian airliner may have been shot down by a Ukrainian government missile or a Ukrainian government fighter jet.
Propaganda is half the victory. In Gaza for example the number of home-made rockets fired at Israel. has grown to nearly three thousand by Israeli reckoning though only one or two have reached their target, apparently killing one civilian. The rest were all shot down by the Israelis, allegedly.
Does anyone ever notice these glaring discrepancies?
We live at a time of orchestrated perceptions dished up by a mass media which in Israel’s case has managed to convince two thirds of the public in the United States alone whatever Israel does to Gaza is justified.
We live at a time of sanctions, of demonizing nations from one day to the other, of inventing ‘rogue’ nations so we can control their resources, break their power and cast their nations into civil wars, using the millennia old Roman wisdom: ‘Divide and Rule.
We instigate war to protect ourselves from those who think different, pray different and most of all – so the PR blurb goes - to liberate these unfortunate nations from the rule of their tyrants. In the process we have turned orderly tyrant-ruled nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Egypt into basket cases run by thugs, gangs, militias and fortune hunters while their populations seek asylum abroad, something few did in the time of tyrants.
We live at a time when even the most outrageous official lies are accepted, printed and repeated as truth, when an invasion and destruction of a country like Iraq is triggered by fake claims of weapons of mass destruction when an Israeli spokesperson can repeatedly claim – and not be ridiculed – that the bombing of schools and hospitals in Gaza is due to Hamas rockets intended for Israel but which fell short on the people of Gaza, especially schools, hospitals and U.N. sanctuaries. And that excuse is not made once, as may be acceptable, but each time more children and civilians are killed.
Are we all that stupid?
Don’t we remember the massacre of Shabra and Shatila refugee camps (1,700 murdered by Israeli allies while the Israeli army stood by) or the 1982 invasion of Lebanon that cost the lives of 17,500 people most of them civilians? At that time Israeli spokespersons boasted that the Israeli army has the highest standard of any army in the world and does NOT target civilians. (Does any army admit it does?)
Sadly we live at a time when mini-wars are profitable for the few and disastrous for the many, when millions are made homeless and forced to seek refuge abroad while we overthrow their ‘tyrannical’ regimes and leave their bombed out countries in the hands of opportunists, thugs, gangs and religious fanatics – all fighting one another.
We live at a time when our minds are daily groomed by spin doctors persuading us why one country is bad, another country good, why this person is a terrorist and that person is a freedom fighter, why our System is superior and our Religion better, why we must neutralize the others so we can remain prosperous and happy in our fairytale cocoons – until we suffer some more “terrorist” attacks – thanks to our silence NOW.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and is the author of “Gaza” and “Times of Terror” both available in print on www.amazon.com and in digital form.
u.s
