intolerable cruelty
Editing by Carolyn Bennett
What we are doing in the Middle East and against the peoples
of these great lands falls far short of America’s promise as a great nation. Outstanding political activist Hanan Ashrawi says what many others think. “So
far, the United
States has not lived up to any expectations. …
As they (the United States) should
be on the side of genuine peace and human rights, everything we have seen from the
United States has been fully supportive to Israel and the Israeli violence and
occupation against Palestinians.
 |
| Ismail Haniyeh |
Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh
“The demands of our people are clear,” Ismail
Haniyeh says. “The aggression must be stopped, and a guarantee should be given [that] it would not be repeated.
Haniyeh says. “The aggression must be stopped, and a guarantee should be given [that] it would not be repeated.
“This unjust blockade that our Palestinian people are living
in… the blockade must be lifted.”
Ismail Haniyeh was born in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the
Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ismail Haniyeh’s
parents became refugees after fleeing their homes, which were located close to what
is now Ashkelon, Israel. He attended
United Nations-run schools and in 1987, graduated from the Islamic University
of Gaza with a degree in Arabic literature.
Redress
I
|
n an interview with U.S. interviewers on Sunday July 20,
2014, Hanan Ashrawi said that she cannot take the “language,” “the propaganda,”
“the mantra that Israel has a right to defend itself.
“Against whom,” she asks: “Against innocent civilians? More
than 80 children torn to bits-- Is this self-defense?” These, she said, “are
war crimes being committed before the world, before the eyes of the whole world
and I just cannot understand how people sit back and say [it is] self-defense.”
Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian legislator, activist, scholar, Member
of the PLO Executive Committee
Palestinians to UN
International Criminal Court in The Hague
International Court for Justice at UN
 |
| International Criminal Court |
Two years ago Hanan Ashrawi spoke of Israeli crimes, the prosecution
of these crimes, justice for Palestinians and their self-determination.
“If Israel is not guilty of war crimes or crimes against
humanity, then it has no reason to worry and to fear the International Criminal Court
and International Court for Justice.
“…The attack on Gaza indicates that finally we do need to
deal with the real causes. We need a real solution. We don’t need ceasefires
and we don’t need bandage treatments. It is time that the Palestinians gain
their freedom and their right to self-determination.”
Going to the United Nations, “we do not believe can in any way be
misconstrued as being unilateral; it is not. It is a commitment to
international law and to responsibility as an equal player on the international
arena and if there are to be negotiations then this would form the basis of negotiations
because international law should be the basis of negotiations -- something
Israel has rejected and Netanyahu has refused to acknowledge. That means that Israel will be a neighbor negotiating with a state and occupying another state, rather than pretending that our territory is up for
grasp or is only disputed.”
“We don’t have unrealistic expectations, we know the
occupation will not disappear, we know that there might be certain consequences
because Israel or the U.S. feels that they have to punish us.… Lately Canada
feels like it has to outdo Israel in terms of its positions; they are also
threatening to cut aid and relations.… [However]
As we are moving ahead, Israel and
the U.S. and a handful of countries will find themselves on the wrong side of
morality, justice, and on the wrong side of the law ….
“Hopefully, [the United States] will grasp the opportunity
quickly to show that they can rectify their position and undo a serious mistake
that has undermined the American standing and interest throughout the region,
and that they can demonstrate that they really are for those principles that
they say they support in the ‘Arab spring’ and yet they deny us as Palestinians
those principles and rights.”
 |
| Hon. Hanan Ashrawi |
Her activism extends to the early 1970s. Ashrawi serves on advisory boards of the World Bank Middle East and North Africa (MENA), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the International Human Rights Council and others. She received academic (undergraduate, graduate, doctoral) credentials at the American University of Beirut and the University of Virginia (USA).
Beleaguered Forever?
T
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oday, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman asked what constitutes the
siege of Gaza. “When you talk about the siege,” she said, “it is not something
that’s covered very much in the United States. Can you just elaborate more fully what you
mean when Palestinians say ‘lift the siege.’?” Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is an
Egyptian-born journalist and Democracy Now correspondent answered.
Palestinians can’t get in or out of
Gaza.
They are prevented by Israel.
They are prevented by Egypt-- which
largely executes U.S. and Israeli policy.
Foods, basic goods, the right to
import and export, all of these things are [prohibited]
This has devastated Gaza’s economy.
It has devastated people’s lives. People feel trapped. They often speak of how
they live in the biggest open-air prison in the world.
Even access to the sea, fishermen
cannot go out more than a couple of kilometers (2 kilometers are equivalent to
1.2 miles) to go fish, where Israeli warships await them.
This war exacerbates all those effects, he said.
You feel [and] hear drones in the
air. You hear the booms of the ships.
Even if you wanted to leave, you
couldn’t. Even if journalists wanted to leave today, they couldn’t. Erez
crossing was closed, the border with Israel, and the Egyptian border is closed,
as well. There are no shelters.
Walled out and walled in
“The Israel−Gaza barrier is a border barrier first constructed by Israel in 1994 between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The barrier was extended in 2005 to cover the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (the Egypt-Gaza barrier). The fence-- made up of wire fencing with posts, sensors and buffer zones on lands bordering Israel, and concrete and steel walls on lands bordering Egypt-- runs along the entire land border of the Gaza Strip.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Gaza_Strip_barrier]
Sharif Abdel Kouddous continues
There is no air defense system, no sirens
[to alert the people]. There is nowhere to run. You don’t know where is safe.
People are dying inside their homes
and inside hospitals—not from their wounds, but from being bombed and wounded
again by the Israeli military.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an Egyptian-American journalist
based in Cairo, a correspondent for Democracy Now and a fellow with the Nation
Institute (USA). Before his current position, according to a Wikipedia article,
“Kouddous was an investment banker in the leveraged buyout division of Bank of
America and volunteered with Democracy Now then became a full-time DN producer and
occasional correspondent and co-host. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharif_Abdel_Kouddous]
Cruelty not forever endured
Also in interview today on Democracy Now was Israel-born Gideon
Levy who marveled at what the Israeli siege of Gaza did or did not accomplish. “Any
siege can be broken for certain purposes,” he said, “but the siege breaks the
people of Gaza and pushes them again and again to the corner --to the corner of
violence and to the corner of desperation.”
“Israel has to react and has to defend itself, but,” Levy, directing
a series of questions to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asks “Where
did it start?
[Did] those rockets fall on our
heads just by chance?
[Is] there no context to this?
[Was there not] the breaking of the
political negotiations by the Israelis refusing to release some few veteran
prisoners?
[Was there] not a war declared on
Hamas in the West Bank after the kidnap and the murder of three Israeli
youngsters, arresting 500 Hamas activists who were not involved in this kidnap?
 |
| Gideon Levy |
Did Israel not stop the salaries—stop
the transfer of the salaries to 40,000 Hamas workers, employees in Gaza?
What did Israel think?
Wasn’t Israel against the [Fatah-Hamas]
unity government?
Did Israel think that all this will
pass like nothing and Hamas will accept everything?
“I have news,” Levy
concludes, “Those who believe that nothing will happen were either extremely
arrogant or blind or both.”
Gideon Levy was born in Tel Aviv, the son of Heinz Loewy, who
had been born Czechoslovakia and had fled the Nazis in 1939. In 1974, Levy was
drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces and served as a reporter for Israel
Army Radio. He later was an aide to then Israeli Labor Party leader, Shimon
Peres. IN the early 1980s, he began his work as a journalist with the Israeli
daily Haaretz and he is quoted saying it is here that his views on Israel’s
policies toward the Palestinians began changing. Today Gideon Levy is credited
with being an Israeli journalist who writes opinion pieces and a weekly column
for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Levy]. Today Levy told Amy
Goodman that he has to have security around him because his life is often
threatened because of his writings.
Sources and notes
Ismail Haniyeh translation excerpted at Democracy Now July
22, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/22/what_does_hamas_really_want_israeli
“Ashrawi: Israel Commits War Crimes in Gaza: RAMALLAH, July
21, 2014 (WAFA) - PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi described during
a TV interview the Israeli killing of Palestinians in Gaza as ‘war crimes’ and
a ‘deliberate massacre.’” http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=25948
“Ashrawi: Voting for Palestine, is Voting for Justice and
Peace” by: Tala Al-Rimawi,
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=21195
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi speaking
Ramallah, November 28, 2012 (WAFA)
“‘A Place of
Indescribable Loss’: As Ceasefire Talks Begin, Israel Bombs Hospital, Mosques
and Homes,” July 22, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/22/a_place_of_indescribable_loss_as
“What Does Hamas Really Want? Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy
on Ending the Crippling Blockade of Gaza,” July 22, 2014, http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/22/what_does_hamas_really_want_israeli
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