09) NOT ONE MORE
ISRAELI
MASSACRE IN GAZA!
(The
following
article is from the February 1-14, 2009, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
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By Darrell
Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba
The government of Israel's media
blackout could not stop the world from seeing that it was massacring a
largely defenceless population which offered no serious military
resistance. Israel carried out the massacre brazenly, before the eyes
of all who watched the news. Planned for many months, the carnage
inflicted by Israel on the people of Gaza is one of its most horrible
aggressions.
Its purpose
was to block
humanity's aim to bring peaceful solutions to the area, a purpose made
clear by the support Israel received from other imperialist
governments. The one-sided statements and military trade from Harper,
Bush and other imperialist leaders make it clear they support the agony
Israel has imposed for many decades on the Palestinian people, in and
out of exile. It is the future they offer to any people that resists
their hegemony.
The call for
criminal
prosecution of Israel's war leaders is loud, ranging from the 118
countries that comprise the Non-Aligned Movement to prominent jurists -
hundreds of them. Israel bombed schools, hospitals, food depots, United
Nations sanctuaries. It used phosphorus shells, DIME weapons and much
of its modern military arsenal.
Almost a
year ago, Israel's
deputy defence minister threatened a "shoah" in Gaza, a Hebrew word
meaning calamity and often used to describe the Nazi holocaust. He
warned the Palestinians "will bring upon themselves this destruction,"
as if the Israeli war machine had no choice.
The minister
dishonestly
portrayed this supreme crime as legitimate, but the horrible truth is
that Israel's leaders are making far more serious threats to the
Palestinian people and neighbours such as Iran. In the short span of
three weeks Israel's leaders killed or injured 6,780 people; the
overwhelming majority civilian and about one-third children. The
heavily televised terror of Israel's massacre wounded every feeling
person on earth who support justice, Palestinian or not.
Israel made
no attempt to hide
the massacre. It used the most monstrous and twisted lies, half truths
that only the most hardened murderer could use. For example, was
Israel's real aim to stop the comparatively puny rockets launched by
Hamas - the occupied territories' elected government? No, the Israeli
government planned the attack more than a year in advance.
Even if we
consider the rockets,
Hamas used them to retaliate in a relatively modest way against deadly
Israeli air attacks. Israel made these air attacks four months into a
ceasefire which was honoured by Hamas even as Israel killed hundreds of
people through its Draconian blockade of food and humanitarian aid - an
act of war according to any jurist or human being. In Gaza half a
million people are completely dependent on food aid and over half of
all households eat less than one meal a day.
Nothing can
be explained if all
one sees is rockets and Israel's accusation that Hamas is a terrorist
group. The real starting point is Israel's illegal sixty-year
occupation of Palestinian territories and the brutal repression it has
inflicted all that time on the national liberation movement of the
Palestinian people.
The "war on
terror" must end.
Countries like Canada, the United States and Israel use this war to
impose state-military terror on people who are struggling for their
rights. It is the dishonest rationale for imperialism's wars of
domination and plunder.
Prime
Minister Stephen Harper's
government has cast criminal shame on Canada by aiding and abetting
Israel's massacre. The two ministers of Manitoba's NDP government who
attended Winnipeg's January 8 pro-war rally are no different than
Harper.
The
Canadians, including many
trade union leaders, the peace movement and left groups, who acted and
spoke in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza brought honour
and truth to our country.
The most
important historical
lesson about the massacre in Gaza is the sharp contrast between what
imperialist countries like Canada, the United States and Israel offer
humanity compared to the resounding chorus from the non-imperialist
world, the world dominated by imperialism's giant corporations - the
chorus for the national liberation of the Palestinian people, for an
end to war, and for solving humanity's great problems.
Will Israel
use nuclear weapons
in its next massacre? Or will world protests, combined with the
resistance of the Palestinian people and Israeli peace activists,
create the political and military isolation of Israel needed to
liberate the Palestinian people and to achieve the balanced, verifiable
disarmament that would allow all nations in the region to live in
peace? War will not solve a single problem of humanity, but imperialist
countries are using war to prolong their unsustainable hegemony over
humanity.
For decades
the Palestinian
Liberation Organization was labelled a terrorist group, allowing Israel
to assassinate, torture and imprison its members. Israel must not
continue to use the same excuse it used with the PLO to block talks
with the Hamas government. Without justification, Israel is dividing
those with whom it will talk from those who it will massacre. Divide
and rule.
It is time
for Israel to end the
aggression, talk to the elected government of the occupied territories
and respect the full national rights of the Palestinian people in line
with United Nations resolutions!