Opinion Editorials, June 2010

Twelve Reasons for the International Community to Punish Israel

By Yamin Zakaria

 
"Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks" – (Robert Fisk)

1. Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction; Iran or any of the other peaceful countries in the region does not have any nuclear weapons, except Israel.
2. Israel refuses to become a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and denies international inspection of its nuclear weapons; the recent declassified documents shows Israel offered nuclear weapons to the old apartheid regime of South Africa. One can see Israel’s natural affinity towards another racist regime; it is a clear threat to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
3. Iran has not attacked any of its neighbours, whereas Israel has constantly attacked its neighbour, and repeatedly in some cases, killing thousands of innocent civilians. It has now sent two of its submarine equipped with nuclear weapons to the coast of Iran. In the words of Norman Finkelstein, Israel is a lunatic state, armed with nuclear weapons, constitutes a real threat to the peace and security in the region.
4. Israel has been violating UN resolutions almost from its illegitimate birth in 1948, and it continues to steal lands by building illegal settlement in the West Bank. Israel is a bastard child that fails to see the legitimate fathers of the land; they are the Palestinians.
5. Israel operates like the criminal mafia organisation, resorts to cowardly assassination; recently it murdered the Hamas commander in Dubai, and earlier Sheikh Ahmed Yasin.
6. The Gaza slaughter in 2009 has been certified as a war crime by the UN Judge, Richard Goldstein, where Israel broke the norms of warfare and used chemical weapons on the civilian population, attacked ambulances carrying the dead and injured. They killed 1500 Palestinians, bulk of them innocent women and children.
7. Israel’s disregard for the UN goes beyond ignoring UN resolutions; it attacked the UN compound during the carnage in Gaza. It also attacked and killed Journalists.
8. Israel has an official policy of ethnic cleansing; accordingly, it systematically targets Palestinian women and children. This is partly because the Palestinian population is growing at a much faster rate, and the Israelis cannot compete on demographic front, perhaps the Zionist seeds are weak; this is compounded by a religion that emphasises on racial exclusivity.
9. Israel is not the democracy of the Middle East, but symbolises tyranny and oppression that has no place in the civilised world. It regularly demolishes Palestinian homes and continues to prevent the building of basic facilities; thus, deprive them of the most basic human rights. Far from being a democracy, Israel displays all the traits of a Fascist state that has no regard for anyone else.
10. Israel is a racist state that practices hate and intolerance of non-Jews. The policy of the right to return means, any Jew can come and occupy the Arab land, whereas the Palestinians displaced in 1948 cannot return, which is a clear violation of international law.
11. Israel is responsible for creating the largest concentration camp of Gaza by the illegal blockade placed over it for the last three years, which the Amnesty International has called a flagrant violation of international law. It defies belief that these were the people put in concentration camp by the Nazis only 60 years ago, yet they find it so easy to treat other human beings in a similar way.
12. Now, Israel has shamefully attacked a peace convoy in international water, killing innocent peace activists carrying aid for the desperate people of Gaza. Subsequently, Israeli authority imprisoned the activists, which is akin to holding them as hostages.

Why was there a need to conduct the raid in the middle of the night using live ammunition, instead of rubber bullets? Those boats would have come to the ports, and the Israelis could have easily inspected the boats for weapons. In any case, the boats had already passed through several European ports and cleared by customs. Maybe Israel has become accustomed to attacking the weak and defenceless, but it is the shame in seeing that many people around the world coming to break the criminal siege of Gaza that prompted the shameless Israelis to react in a shameful way.

If this were Iran or any other Muslim nation, condemnation would have been swift; the US would have been preparing to send bombing raids, the politicians and the media would have made the usual howling noise about terrorism and militancy, demonising the entire civilisation of Islam. The initial reaction from the US shows great caution, rather than a single word of condemnation for the murderous acts of Israel.

So, where is the will of the international community now? The arrogant US always talks as the ‘international community’ when it speaks to Iran. However, the real international community has spoken today in response to Israeli terrorism and piracy, as they did over the Gaza carnage. Will the UN Security Council reflect the voice of the real international community now? Unlikely, because the US will most likely use its veto power to protect the tiny pariah nation, and ignore the voice of the majority nations, in line with its democratic credential!

A military response of Israel needs to be met with a military response, and it would be within Turkey’s right to (do so). At the very least, Turkey should demand compensation, UN sanctions, and the extradition of the Israeli soldiers responsible for the crimes committed in the international waters.

Peace cannot take place without justice; Israel is an obvious obstacle to peace. It is time for the real international community to demand the current international trend of bombing a nation, to bring about a regime change. Israel has committed war crimes, state terrorism, piracy, theft of land, murder of innocent civilians, assassination, ethnic cleansing. Why should it be any different for Israel? Bringing Israel to account would be the first step to bring about real justice, which would allow real peace to prevail in the region.

Yamin Zakaria, London, UK

http://yaminzakaria.blogspot.com

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