Opinion Editorials, June 2010

Why Vice President Joe Biden and USA Occupied Congress are Wrong!

By Eileen Fleming

Al-Jazeerah: ccun, June 14, 2010

The Israeli blockade on Gaza was begun as a direct response to the election of Hamas in January 2006 and also as an evil sick 'joke.'
 
 
On February 19, 2006,  Gideon Levy wrote for HA’ARETZ:
 
 "The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory.
 
"Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line:
 
"It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter." [1]
 
 
On June 2, 2010, Vice President Joe Biden told Charlie Rose:
 
"We have to remember how we got here...The international community, the so-called Quartet; the United States, Europe, Russia, and the U.N., said, 'Look, in order for you [Hamas] to be part of that government, you have to agree to four conditions. One, you'll abide by previous agreements that have been made by the government of -- by the Palestinians. Two, you are going to renounce terror. Three, you're going to recognize Israel.'" 
 
On January 25, 2006, Hamas had already honored a 1-½ yearlong ceasefire and they won an open, transparent democratic election.
 
But, the world's leading democracies failed the test of democracy!
 
Rather than recognize the legitimacy of Hamas as the freely elected representative of the Palestinian people and seize the opportunity to support the development of good governance in Gaza Palestine and seek an end to the bloodshed; Israel, the US and EU collectively punished the Palestinian people for exercising their right to choose their own parliamentary representatives.
 
On 12 January 2006, Hamas had already dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto.
 
The Islamist faction, responsible for a long campaign of suicide bombings and other attacks on Israelis, still called for the maintenance of the armed struggle against The Occupation, but stepped back from Hamas's 1988 charter demanding Israel's eradication.
 
In 2006, Gazi Hamad, a Hamas candidate in the Gaza Strip, said:
 
“We cannot give up the right of the armed struggle because our territory is occupied in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That is the territory we are fighting to liberate.
 
“The policy is to maintain the armed struggle but it is not our first priority. We know that first of all we have to put more effort into resolving the internal problems, dealing with corruption, blackmail, and chaos. This is our priority because if we change the situation for the Palestinians it will make our cause stronger.
 
"Hamas is looking to establish a new political strategy in which all Palestinian groups will participate, not just dominated by Fatah. We will discuss the negotiation strategy, how can we run the conflict with Israel but by different means." [2]  
 
What Biden and the US Congress do not have eyes to see or ears to hear:

Both Israel and Hamas should be investigated for war crimes perpetuated during the 22 days of assault on Gaza which began two days after Christmas Day 2008, when the Israeli military launched Operation Cast Lead, that killed 1,400 Palestinian and 13 Israelis.
 
Over 5,000 Palestinians were injured, 400,000 were left without running water, 4,000 homes were destroyed, rendering tens of thousands who are still homeless because of Israel's targeted attacks upon them, their schools, hospitals, streets, water wells, sewage system, farms, police stations and UN buildings.  
 
During the 22 days of Israeli assault on Gaza, "Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles, and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus and DIME. The weapons required for the Israeli assault was decided upon in June 2008, and the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39) were approved by Congress in September. The GBU 39 bombs were delivered to Israel in November (prior to any claims of Hamas cease fire violation!) for use in the initial air raids on Gaza." [3]

In a 71-page report released March 25, 2009, by Human Rights Watch, Israel’s repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.

"Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza," provides eye witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.

"Human Rights Watch researchers found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended in January.

"Militaries officially use white phosphorus to obscure their operations on the ground by creating thick smoke. It has also been used as an incendiary weapon, though such use constitutes a war crime.

"In Gaza, the Israeli military didn’t just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." [Ibid]
 
During the 22 days of attack on Gaza, the UN Security Council, Amnesty International, International Red Cross, and global voices of protest rose up and demanded a ceasefire, but both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed resolutions to support a continuation of Israel’s so called "self defense." 
 
On June 2, 2010, Charlie Rose said to Joe Biden:

"I have to leave with this story -- I could do this for a long time -- which you tell better than I do. Golda Meir says we have something; we have something that they don't have, which was...? 
 
Joe Biden responded:
 
"I just spent a long time with Golda Meir and just after the Six-Day War and before the Yom Kippur War, just days before. And she was flipping maps on her desk there and, you know, showing me this and that and we're surrounded by and everything and I was getting very depressed. And there was a guy sitting next to me who was her aide and his name was Rabin, a future prime minister. He was then a general. And all of a sudden she said, 'Would you like a photo opportunity?'
 
"And I thought, I'm 30 years old, 'Yes, ma'am.' And those double doors open and we walk out and are standing there and they're clicking pictures and I guess I must have looked really worried because of the picture she painted. She looked at me, she said, while looking at the camera, you know, we're doing this photo shot, she said, 'Senator, why do you look so worried?'
 
"I said, 'My God, Madame Prime Minister, I mean, the picture you drew.'
 
"She said, 'Oh. Don't worry, Senator. We have a secret weapon in our conflict with the Arabs.'
 
"And I said, I turned like she was going to tell me some secret, I looked at her and said, 'Madame Prime Minister, what's that?'
 
"She said, 'We have nowhere else to go'."  
 
MY RESPONSE to that was taped 11 March 2010: 

5:20
Message to President Obama RE: Biden in Tel Aviv, March 11, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgoYo4P0Oxk

In August 2005 the world praised Ariel Sharon for evacuating settlements in Gaza but the world has ignored that Israel has been building them even faster in the West Bank.
Sharon was labeled a 'man of peace' but he refused even to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that had secured a successful ceasefire!

Sharon, Biden and the USA Congress all remind this muckraker of what Bob Dylan sang:

"Masters Of War"

 Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion'
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

Fat'h has been ruling the Palestinian people since the Oslo Agreement in 1994.
 
Fat'h selected the negotiation track and accepted the Oslo agreement and also the Road Map.
 
When the Palestinian people supported Abu Mazen in the presidential elections they hoped for improvements in their lives - reducing the checkpoints, improving the economic situation, or fighting corruption.
 
They received none of that!

The Palestinian vote for Hamas was a protest against the ‘peace process’ that has failed to cancel the British Emergency Laws, which have ruled the indigenous Palestinian people of the Holy Land ever since 1945. 
 
Security and Peace in the so called Holy Land can only happen when the lives of the people change;
 
When all children have a hope for a future and that requires an end to the occupation, the double standards and hypocrisy in high places!

Notes:
 
1. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/as-the-hamas-team-laughs-1.180500
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5372294-103681,00.html
3. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-us-arms-used-for-war-crimes-in-gaza/

Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org

Staff Member of Salem-news.com

A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com and Dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming  

Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org