Notaðir voru óvenjuleg vopn gegn óbreyttum borgaranum

Hérna er viðtal við læknir frá Noregi, sem vinnur nú á sjúkrahúsið í Gaza:

Unconventional Weapons against The People of Gaza

Interview of Dr. Mads Gilbert
by Akram al-Sattari

 Doctor Mads Gilbert is a member of a Norwegian triage medical team present in the besieged Gaza Strip. The team has exposed that Israel has used depleted uranium weapons in its war on the impoverished territory which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. He described the conditions inside Gaza in an exclusive Press TV interview.

Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?

Dr. Mads Gilbert:The findings about the uranium I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy.

These weapons have an enormous power to explode.

The power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion, this pressure wave are cut in pieces.

This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons used by the Israelis.

On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been very little research on this but some research has been among other places in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.

Press TV: And what do you have to say about this?

Dr. Mads Gilbert: All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it is against humanity and I think it is against what it means to be a decent person. You don't treat other people like this. Even if you disagree with him... maybe even if you fight with them, you don't treat civilians, children and women like this.

And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses. They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community, the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza in this way.

Today, they were bombing in Gaza City; we received 150 wounded and more than 50 killed.

Press TV: Only at Shifa?!

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Yes, here in Shifa. I treated a ten-year-old boy. He had his whole chest filled with fragments from the bomb. On his lap was another person's leg that had been cut off. We resuscitated him and did everything we could do to save his life but he died between our hands.

This is such a terrible experience and behind the numbers that you report all the time, there are human beings, families, women, grandmothers, children. That is in fact the reality in this situation. Those who are paying the price for the Israeli bombardments now are the common people, the Palestinian people.

Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's cold they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed.

This must be stopped.

Press TV How many people did you see that are effected by this weapon?

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to do research, we have to save lives, but this question should be researched by the international community.

Barist við Gaza-borg í nótt

Striðsglæpir nú og þá

They know no limits now"
Eva Bartlett skrifir beint frá Gaza Strip, 3 January 2009

In the haze of dust and smoke from the latest F-16 strike, a family self-evacuates. The dispatcher at the Jabaliya Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) receives call after call from terrified residents fleeing their homes. It's a new year, a new Nakba, and an old scene; Israel is bombarding Gaza once again and the world is standing idly by, sitting on a fence very different from the electrified border fence encaging Gaza, or the separation wall dividing and ghettoizing the West Bank. The world sits on the fence, justifying Israel's massacre of a civilian population already dying from the siege.

We are four ambulances out tonight, versus two last night. The ambulances weave nimbly along blacked-out streets of a manufactured ghost town -- like the streets all over Gaza -- dodging fresh piles of rubble,

It's absolutely impossible, unbelievable, it's a massacre. "They know no limits now," the medics report. "They are going crazy.".....

Það eru sumir í landinu sem halda því fram að að það sé einhver Gýðingarhatur Palestínumanna sem hindra því að frið getur komið í á milli Ísraelar og Palestínumenn. Þau segja að Ísraelsmenn og Palestínumenn eru jafn sekir, jafn sjúkir í sálinni vegna fordóma sína gagnvart hvert öðru, þurfu báðar á sálarlækningu að halda, ættu að fyrirgefa hvert öðrum, og það mundu binda enda á öll vandamálin á svæðinu.
En vandamálið í Palestínu á ekkert skylt við fordóma.

Það er valdastefnan Israels sem málið snýst um. Valdastefnan segir að það á að taka eins mikið land og hægt er, og helst allt drykkjarvatn, allar uppsprettur, ána Jordan, alla tinda, öll landamæri hringinn í kringum alla Palestínu.

Ísraelsmenn reyna að koma í veg fyrir að Palestínumenn gætu lifað af í sjálfstæðu ríki, en vilja samt alls ekki gefa Palestínumönnum borgararrétt í sameiginlegu ríki Palestínu og Ísraels. Ísrael hefur fylgt þessu stefnu í 60 ár og ekki látið undan á meðan Palestínumenn voru niðurlægðir, barin, drepin og stundum, eins og nú í Gaza, sett í algjör einangru, með matarskorti og lokað af rafmagni, hreinu drykkjavatni og öðru sem nauðsinlegt er til að lifa venjulegu lífi.

PLO hefur viðurkennt Israel í Oslo á 78% af gamla Paletínulandinu, og jafnvel Hamas samtökin hafa í nokkur ár verið reiðubúin að semja um frið, ef Ísrael myndi draga sig til baka frá Vesturbakkanum og Austur-Jerúsalem. Komandi kynslóðir báðar þjóðar, svo segir Hamas, gætu síðan eftir nokkra áratuga friðsamlegs lífs hlið við hlið, ákvarðað í þjóðaratkvæðagreiðslu hvort Palestína ætti áfram að vera tvö ríki eða sameinast í eitt.

En Zíonistadraumurinn er Gyðingarríki án tillits til Palestínumanna, og næstum helming Ísraelsmanna dreymir, samkvæmt þjóðarspá, um Gyðingarríki í gjörvallri Palestínu, án nokkurra Palestínumanna.

Þegar ungir Israelsmenn fara í bæinn að skemmta sér, þá nota þeir orðatiltækið: "Förum út og drepum nokkra Araba." (Ein vinkona mín sem bjó í Ísrael með ísraelskum kærasta um nokkurt skeið sagði mér frá þessu).

Ég sjálf bjó í Palestínu bara í tæpa tvo mánuði og ég sá í raun daglega þjáningar Palestínumanna. Ég var á Vesturbakkanum, ekki í Gaza. Það var ekki á helsta árásatímanum, en samt fréttist stöðugt af Palestínumönnum sem skotnir voru til bana af ísraelskum hermönnum. Ein innrás hermanna í palestínska heimilið þar sem ég bjó í borginni, endaði í blóðbaði þrátt fyrir það að ekkert af heimilisfólkinu var vopnað. Hinir öldruðu foreldrar, 58 ára og 62 ára, voru drepin. (Á þessu kvöldi var fjölskydan að undirbúa brúðkaup eins sonar síns. Þau voru að skoða boðskortin sem nýkomin voru frá prentsmiðjunni.)

Ég sá folk barið til óbóta, án þess að hafa gert nokkuð af sér. Ég sá börn og unglinga barin, jafnvel stúlkur á leið í skóla. Ég sá unglinga verða handtekna og setta í fangelsi, þrátt fyrir það að ég vissi að þeir væru saklausir.

Ég sá hvernig israelska lögreglan heimtaði og nam peninga frá fjölksyldum þessara saklausa unglinga, svo þeir yrðu látnir lausir. Hermenn og leynilögreglan tóku börn með sér og hótar þeim pyntingar, ef þau gæfu ekki upplýsingar eða gerðu það sem hermenninir skipa fyrir.

Á stöðum þar sem engar útlendingar eða myndavélar eru, þar traðka hermenn jafnvel á ungum börnum með stígvélum sínum, þar sem í mörgum tilfellum hljótast beinbrot af.

Og vegna þess að ég sjálf er af Gyðingarættum, þá töluðu sumir Israelsmenn við mig og reyndu að fá mig á sitt band. Ég sjá rassisma Ísraelsmanna með eigin augum og heyrðu skoðanir þeirra með eigin eyru. Ég hef aldrei nokkur tíma á ævinni heyrt eða lesið jafn hrikalegar skoðanir, nema þegar ég las skoðanir nasista í þýskum sögubókum.

Þjóðir þessar, Israelar og Palestínumenn, eru ekki jafn sekir og jafn sjúkar í sál, eins og sumir í íslenskum flölmiðlum halda því fram. Það er munur.

En til þess að skilja hvað er í raun og veru að gerast, þá verður þú að skoða sögu síonismans og hvernig saga Palestínu og Ísraels hefur þróast á síðustu hundrað árum:


það stefna Israels að taka meira og meira land frá Palestínumönnum. Þetta er engin lygi, þetta er hægt að sanna.

En það er algjör hræsni af okkar hálfu að segja Palestínumönnum að þeir verði að fyrirgefa Ísraelsmönnum allar sína misgjörðir og rétta fram vinstri vangann einmitt á sama tíma og Israelsmen skjóta hægri vangann úr börnum þeirra í loftárásum.
Palestínumenn á Gaza eru innilokaðir á sínu svæði og geta hvergi farið eins og Ísraelsmenn úr litla bænum Sderot gætu gert það, né hafa Palestínumenn einhver loftvarnarbyrgi, eins og Israelsmenn eru alls staðar með.

Er reiði Palestínumanna vegna slíkra árása í dag bara byggð á "fordómum og sjúkleika í sálum þeirra" eða er hún kannski byggð á raunverulegri upplifun?


Norman Solomon, ameriskur rithöfundur, blaðamður og fræðimaður í stjornmálafræðum skrifir á síðunni Antiwar.com:

Israel's air strikes"have killed at least 270 people so far (talan er nú meira en 400), injured more than 1,000,(um 2500 núna) many of them seriously, and many remain buried under the rubble so the death toll will likely rise," Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out on Sunday, two days into Israel's attack. "This catastrophic impact was known and inevitable, and far outweighs any claim of self-defense or protection of Israeli civilians." She mentioned that "the one Israeli killed by a Palestinian rocket attack on Saturday after the Israeli assault began was the first such casualty in more than a year."

Even if you set aside the magnitude of Israel's violations of the Geneva conventions and the long terrible history of its methodical collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, consider the vastly disproportionate carnage in the conflict.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," Gandhi said.

What about a hundred eyes for an eye?

Og munið þið hvað gerðist mánuðina á undan?

Robert Berger frá VOA bureau í Jerusalem skrífir:

The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is weakening the already-fragile health care system as hospitals run out of essential medicines and supplies and power cuts disable equipment, says a medical aid worker in the territory. Since the Israeli blockade of Gaza was tightened beginning Nov. 5, food and fuel have been running out and earlier this week electricity was cut, reports relief organization Oxfam...

A crippling Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is creating food shortages.
Palestinian refugees wait to receive their monthly supplies of flour at a United Nations food aid distribution center, in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Wednesday, 12 Nov. 2008.
A U.N. flour warehouse in Gaza is empty a week after Israel halted shipments in response to Palestinian rocket attacks. A warehouse containing canned meat is also about to run out of supplies, affecting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk,
has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza

"a crime against humanity."

Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as

"a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention."

He has asked for

"the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,"

Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza:

"This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."

Heiðarleiki Falks hefur angrað Israel, og þegar hann ætlaði að heimsækja Gaza sem fulltrúi Sameinaðu þjóðanna nú í desember var honum ekki hleyft inn og hann var settur í 15 klukkutíma fangelsisvist áður en honum var visað úr landið.

En Professor Falk er eiginlega heppin að sleppa við smá fangelsisvist, maðurinn sem hafði samskonar embætti árið 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte frá Sviðþjóð, var myrtur vegna þess að hann sá þjáningar Palestínumanna í flóttamannabúðum, fékk samúð með þeim og reyndi að koma á samningum sem mundi stuðla að því að Palestínumenn gætu komist heim til sín.
Morðingar Bernadottes voru úr Stern-genginu, leiðtogi hópsins á þessum tíma var Yitzhak Shamir, sem varð forsætisráðherra Ísraels árið 1983.
Stern-gengið bar líka ábyrgð á mörg fjöldamorð í landinu eins og í Deir Yassin þar sem meira en 120 Palestínumenn, konur og börn voru myrt með köldu blóði, eftir að karlmennirnir meðal þeirra voru afvopnaðir þeim fáum vopnum sem þeir áttu:

Early in the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. It was several weeks before the end of the British Mandate. The village lay outside of the area that the United Nations recommended be included in a future Jewish State. Deir Yassin had a peaceful reputation and was even said by a Jewish newspaper to have driven out some Arab militants. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and one plan, kept secret until years afterwards, called for it to be destroyed and the residents evacuated to make way for a small airfield that would supply the beleaguered Jewish residents of Jerusalem.
By noon over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been systematically murdered. Four commandos died at the hands of resisting Palestinians using old Mausers and muskets. Twenty-five male villagers were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along the road between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. The remaining residents were driven to Arab East Jerusalem.

Saman með Irgun-genginu báru þeir fráStern-genginu líka ábyrgð á ótöl hryðjuverkum gagnvart breskum yfirvöldum í Palestínu og sprengiódæðinu á King David hótelinu, þar sem um 100 manns, Bretar, Palestínumenn og Gyðingar biðu bana. Leiðtogi Irguns á þessum tíma var Menachem Begin, sem varð forsætisráðherra Ísraels 1977.


Sumir halda því fram að einangrun Gaza og loftárásirnar núna séu bara Hamas og eldflaugum þeirrar að kenna.
Frjálslyndi palestínski fréttamaðurinn Khalid Amayreh, sem ekki er fylgjandi Hamas, skrifar um pað:

Hamas did meticulously observe a six-month ceasefire, despite the persistence of the Nazi-like blockade which very much resembled the Ghetto Warsaw siege in 1942-43. However, on November 4. and 5., Israel carried out a foray into Gaza, killing 6 people.
More to the point, Israel killed 49 Palestinians during the ceasefire. Not a single Israeli was killed.

Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, sem var einn af framboðendum fyrir forsetisembætti Palestinu og hefur alltaf verið talsmaður fyrir politisk baráttu gegn 'israelsk hernám án ofbeldis, skrifir:

1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the disengagement.

Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.

2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of it unilaterally.

Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack throughout the period of the cease-fire.

Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza. Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals, with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical care.

Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking regime change - whatever the cost.

Sumir haldar greinilega að það sem ég og aðrir segja um valdastefnu Israelsmanna gagnvart Palestínumönnum sé bara hugarburður eða öfgafullur hugsunarháttur hjá okkur.

En þetta er allt hægt að sanna á margvíslegan hátt, ekki bara með því að benda á aðgerðir ísraelskra stjórnvalda, heldur líka með beinum orðum marga ráðamanna Ísraels, leiðtoga síonistahreyfingarinnar og stundum líka almennra hermanna:

"With the Arabs we shall not achieve our aim of being an independent people in this country. The only solution is Eretz-Israel, at least the west part of Eretz-Israel, without Arabs... And there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries. Transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain..."
-wrote Joseph Weitz, (Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land)in his diary

"There is no Zionist settlement, and there is no Jewish State, without displacing Arabs and without confiscating lands and fencing them off."
-Yeshaayahu Ben-Porat, Yediot Aharonot, 14 July 1972.

"To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion."
-David Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel, The Philosophical Press, New York, 1954, p. 419.

"During the last 100 years our people have been in a process of building up the country and the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road."
-Moshe Dayan, Ma'ariv, 7 July 1968.

"Palestine is a territory whose chief geographical feature is this: that the river Jordan does not delineate its frontier but flows through its centre."
-Vladimir Jabotinsky, at the 16th Zionist Congress (1929) (quoted by Desmond Stewart in The Middle East: Temple of Janus, p.304).

"'What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"
- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979

"Take the American Declaration of Independence for instance. It contains no mention of the territorial limits. We are not obliged to state the limits of our State."
-Ben Gurion's diary, 14 May 1948 (quoted by Michael Bar Zohar in The Armed Prophet, p.133).

"Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And forever."
-Irgun proclamation against partition, quoted by Menachem Begin in The Revolt: Story of the Irgun, p.335.

"The Achilles heel of the Arab coalition is the Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can easily be overthrown. A Christian State ought to be set up there, with its southern frontier on the river Litani. We would sign a treaty of alliance with this State. Thus when we have broken the strength of the Arab Legion and bombed Amman, we could wipe out Transjordan; after that Syria would fall. And if Egypt still dared to make war on us, we would bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. We should thus end the war and would have but paid to Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea on behalf of our ancestors."
-Ben Gurion's Diary, 21 May 1948 (quoted by Michael Bar Zohar in The Armed Prophet, p.139).

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."
- Raphael Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, New York Times, April 14, 1983.

"[The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs."
- Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

Pyntingar og striðsglæpir:

"Torture of Arab prisoners is so widespread and systematic that it cannot be dismissed as 'rogue cops' exceeding orders. It appears to be sanctioned as deliberate policy."
-The Sunday Times, 19 June 1977.

"With my own eyes I have seen marks of torture on the faces and bodies of suspects and accused persons. I say it here and now, and challenge anyone to contradict it."
-Felicia Langer (Israeli lawyer) in a public address at the Conway Hall, London on 15 May 1974.

"In my opinion, the Israeli occupation regime in the conquered territories is not only not a liberal one; it is in fact one of the most cruel and repressive regimes in modern time."
-Dr. Israel Shahak, Middle East International Supplement), May 1975

Hérna eru nokkur atburði frá síðasta áratug sem israelski hermenn vitna sjálf um í viðtalið við ísraelskan sjálfræðing- Nofer Ishai-Karen. Ísraelski blaðamaður Dalia Karpel vitna í bókin Nofers í greininu:
"Soldiers describe their war-crimes."

"I went out on my first patrol ... Others on the patrol were just shooting like crazies ... I also started shooting like all the others ... It was ... look, I won't tell you that it wasn't cool, because suddenly for the first time you come and hold the weapon seriously, you're not training in some drill or in some dugout in the dunes, or I don't know what, or you have some commander who is looking over your shoulder in the firing range. Suddenly you are responsible for what you are doing. You take the gun. You shoot. You do what you want." ....

"A 3-year-old kid, he can't throw, he can't hurt you no matter what he does, but a kid of 19 can. With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog(a shirt) at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with anymore."....

"They took the Arabs, the commanding officers did, and put them on the bus between the back door and the last seat, put them only between the seats. On their knees. Then they told us: Within two minutes - and this is still just basic training - within two minutes everyone is on the bus. No one steps on the seats ... And everyone started to trample them [the Arabs] and step on them on the run ...
It was a really bad winter. Minus 4 degrees [Centigrade] and rain and hail ... They each went out in the middle of the night ... They weren't given time to dress. Some of them had clogs, short-sleeved shirts ... Everyone opened the windows deliberately. People poured water on them from the canteens, so they would freeze from the cold. And the whole way they were bombarded with blows ... and I mean the whole way.".....

"After two months in Rafah a [new] commanding officer arrived ... So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6 A.M., Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers. We all run with him. He grabbed the boy. Nufar, I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist. Broke his hand at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock ... The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing.".....

"The best thing is, that you´re not obliged to follow any rules. You feel like you are the law. You are the law. You decide. It´s as if the moment you leave Israel and pass through the Erez Checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God." .....

Sumir hugsar kannski að þessir stríðsglæpir voru framdir af venjulegum hermönnum og eru ekki hluti einhverjar ákveðinnar stefnu. En vitið þið hvað "kerfisbundið ofbeldi" þýðir?
Í kerfi eins og í hernum eða í lögreglu eða hjá fangelsisvörðum, þá fylgja undirmenn yfirmönnum sínum og væntingum þeirra, jafnvel þeim sem eru ekki skrifaðar beint. Ef þú sem yfirmaður gefur undirmönnum þínum ótakmarkað vald yfir varnarlausa fanga, þá leiðir það nær alltaf til misbeitingar valds, nema þú setur fangavörðum skýrar reglur um það, hvað má gera og hvað má alls ekki gera, og þú fylgir þessum reglum eftir með refsingum ef nauðsyn þykir.

Hersálfræðingar Israels vita það auðvitað bara allt of vel. Með því að setja engar reglur og refsa hermönnum ekki fyrir ofbeldisverk gagnvart Palestínumönnum, fylgir herinn ofbeldisstefnu, en hefur samt alltaf afsökun þegar eitthver voðaverk koma upp, að þau voru bara gerð af einstökum hermönnum meðan herinn sjálfur er saklaus.

Með tímanum leiðir þessi stefna til algjörs lögleysisins.
Chris Hedges, frægur blaðamaður og bókahöfundur sem hefur sérhæft sig í stjórnmálasögu Miðausturlanda hefur starfað fyrir nokkur fræg amerisk blöð og tímarit eins og Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News og New York Times þar sem hann var í 15 ár.
Í nýjustu bók sinni "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning", segir hann frá hræðilegum atburðum, sem hann upplifði sjálfur í Gaza á tíma Intifada, er Palestínumenn rísu upp gegn ísraelska hernámið árið 2000.

Hedges watched, ten- and eleven-year-old Palestinian children being lured to their neighborhood's perimeter fence by taunts from a loudspeaker on the Israeli side.
"Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!
The Israeli voice barked insults at the boys' mothers.
The boys responded by hurling their rocks at the jeep with the loudspeaker. The Israelis shot at them with M-16s fitted with silencers. Hedges found the victims in the hospital, children with their stomachs ripped out, and with gaping holes in their limbs.

'i "Harper's Magazine" (see The Nation, March 11, 2002), Hedges skrifaði um atburðin:

" Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered. Death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights in Sarajevo, but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

Til þess að koma á raunverulegum friði í Miðausturlöndum, verða bæði Gyðingar og vinir þeirra um allan heim að horfast í augu við raunveruleikann. Fyrir flest fólk af Gyðingarættum, eins og mamma mín til dæmis, og fyrir flesta Ísraelsmenn og vini þeirra, er það sálfræðilega mjög sárt. Ég veit það.

Það helsta sem þau geta gert í bili, er að segja að báðar þjóðir eru jafn sekar. Og til þess að þurfa ekki gera sér grein fyrir því hve valdalitlir og varnarlausir Palestínumenn eru í raun og veru, endurtaka vinir Ísraels fyrir sjalfa sig hinn endanlausa áróður Ísraelsmanna, nefnilega að hið stóra, "vonda" land Íran standi með Palestínumönnum og gefur þeim vopn. Skrítið er bara að þessar "írönsku" eldflaugar skuli ekki draga lengra en að fyrsta bænum handan við landamærin frá Gaza, Sderot, og hitta sárasjaldan í mark. Éf svo væri í raun að Íran hefur gefið Hamas þessi vopn, hefði ég nú haldið að hið 70 milljón manna olíuríki Íran ætti nú eitthvað betra í vopnabúri sínu, til að "lána" Palestínumönnum, eitthvað sem yfirhöfuð gætu draga örlítið lengra eða hitta betur.

Hlutleysi, að segja bæði aðilar eru sekir og þurfa að gefa eftir, er gott í mörgum tilfellum, en stundum, eins og hér, er hlutleysi það sama og meðhjálp í striðsglæpum og glæpum gegn mannkyni.

Þegar hvítir menn í Suður Afriku voru að pynta og drepa svarta íbúa landsins til þess að viðhalda aðskilnaðarstefnu sinni, þá var ekki sagt við blökkumenn að þeir yrðu fyrst að hætta uppreisninni og þá skulum við segja hvítu mönnunum að hætta sínum ofbeldisverkum.
Það var ekki sagt við franskar eða pólskar andspyrnuhreyfingar að fyrst verði þær að hætta uppreisninni og síðan myndu Þjóðverjar fara úr landi.
Það var þýski Kanzlarinn Willie Brandt sem kraup frammi fyrir minnismeki um fórnarlömb þýsku innrásarinnar og voðaverka í Póllandi og baðst svo fyrirgefningar fyrir hönd Þýskalands fyrir striðsglæpin og glæpið gegn mannkynið í heimstyrjöldinni síðari, það voru ekki andspyrnumenn sem þurftu að biðjast fyrirgefningar.

Til þess að koma á friði og sálarlækningu verða þeir sem valdameiri eru og hafa misnotað vald sitt til að traðka á þeim sem minnimáttar eru og pynta þá og drepa, sjálfir að ákveða að hætta þessu og gera sér grein fyrir því að hafa gert rangt.
Já, það verður að fyrirgefa þeim sem hafa brotið af sér áður, jafnvel þeim sem drápu ömmu og afa og börn. En fyrir fyrirgefningu kemur fyrst viðurkenning á syndanna, aðeins Kristur sjálfur gat fyrirgefið þeim sem voru að pynta hann meðan þeir voru enn að því. Við hin erum öll of mannleg fyrir slíka skilyrðislausa fyrirgefningu.

Til að útskíra hvernig í ósköpinum Israel hefur komist upp með öll þessu glæparfaraldi á mót nágranna sinna verða fjölmiðlanir horfa í eigin barm. Það eru þau sem endurtaka ísraelska áróðurin stundum úr hræðslu en oftast nær án þess að hugsa, "self-censorship" kallar frægi blaðamaður John Pilger það.
Ef vestrænu fjölmiðlanir halda áfram í sama spóra þá munu fjölmiðlamenn eitthvað vakna upp við þá vondan draum að engin mun lengur taka mark á þeim og fólkið mun mun sjá þau sem meðsekir í striðsglæpum ekki bara í Palestínu heldur um allan heim.

Hérna er viðtalið af Alan Hart við John Pilger um fjölmiðlar og meðferð þeirrar á Palestínumálinu.

1.hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7FvO7X7HMA&
2.hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B88XpXdBUEw&
3 hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNXXpZSKWEU&

Og hérna er velgerð heimildamyndin "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land" sem tala líka um hlutverk fjölmiðlar í striðsrekstri 'Israels:

1. hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCL6WdnuNp4
2. hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo2HW4T7wK4&
næstsíðasti hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9EVIHiz8s
síðasti hlutur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYM_M3hIiNI

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