[News] As Israel was killing civilians in Gaza, the hypocritical world stood by and watched

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeastmonitor.com
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220811-as-israel-was-killing-civilians-in-gaza-the-hypocritical-world-stood-by-and-watched/>
As Israel was killing civilians in Gaza, the hypocritical world stood by
and watched
Motasem A Dalloul - August 11, 2022
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[image: image.png]

Israel launched yet another military offensive against the Palestinians in
the besieged Gaza Strip last Friday. The initial target was an apartment in
a high-rise residential building in Gaza City. Israeli missiles killed an
Islamic Jihad commander along with several other civilians.

This unjustified Israeli attack on Gaza prompted Islamic Jihad and other
Palestinian factions to hit back. They fired rockets towards Israeli cities
and settlements near Gaza. Israel claimed that it wanted to deter the
Palestinian factions from firing rockets at Israeli targets.

A quick scan of Israeli media reveals that writers and military analysts
say that the Israeli occupation authorities spent a lot of time preparing
last weekend's offensive. The intention was to divide and weaken the
Palestinian resistance factions.

The Gaza Strip does not pose any strategic threat to Israel's security; it
is a very small coastal enclave that can be — and is — controlled and
choked very easily. This has been happening for sixteen years, with Israel
and Egypt imposing a strict land, air and sea blockade; their intelligence
agencies know everything going in or coming out.

It was no surprise, though, to see Israel pounding Gaza yet again in an
endeavour to destroy infrastructure and kill civilians. This has become the
norm. Innocent civilians are regarded as expendable in order to kill one or
two key people.

*READ: **Why is the abandonment of Palestine justified by using Iran as a
pretext?
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220810-why-is-the-abandonment-of-palestine-justified-by-using-iran-as-a-pretext/>*

What is largely missing from the debate focused on Israel's "right to
self-defence", is the fact that all forms of resistance to a military
occupation are legitimate under international law. "Self-defence" in such a
situation is not. UN Resolution 37/43 dated 3 December 1982, "reaffirms the
legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial
integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign
domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed
struggle."

The Israeli occupation authorities have given themselves the power to
declare anyone who resists their brutal occupation to be a "terrorist" who
can be chased down and killed extrajudicially; no arrest, no charge and no
trial. This is the law of the jungle, unworthy of the alleged "only
democracy in the Middle East". International laws and conventions agree
with this assessment, but nothing is done to make Israel accountable; it is
allowed to act with impunity.

The bombing of a multi-storey residential building in a refugee camp in the
southern Gaza city of Rafah on the second day of the offensive resulted in
the death of at least seven people, including an alleged Islamic Jihad
commander. The attack also destroyed dozens of other homes.

Even if we agree that an Islamic Jihad commander was a legitimate target —
and I don't; everyone deserves a fair trial —what were the civilians who
were killed or wounded guilty of? This was, of course, another example of
collective punishment by Israel, which is an "exceptionally serious war
crime".

Does anyone care? Obviously not. This didn't, after all, happen in Ukraine.
Where are the sanctions on Israel — for 70+ years of ethnic cleansing,
massacres and violations of human rights — of the kind that were slapped on
Russia within days of its invasion of Ukraine in February? The double
standards are obvious. As Israel was killing civilians in Gaza, the
hypocritical world just stood by and watched. And not for the first time.

"Every single escalation of violence in Gaza comes at the cost of ordinary
people," said the Norwegian Refugee Council's Middle East Regional Director
Carsten Hansen. "…Innocent children and families have been caught up in the
vicious circle of violence for as long as they can remember. Many in Gaza
are still recovering— both psychologically and physically — from last
year's eleven-day crisis."

However, the Biden administration in Washington, which has provided
military and humanitarian aid worth billions of dollars to Ukraine, does
not care about Gaza. Instead, it gives the apartheid
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/>
state of Israel at least $3 billion in military aid every year. US
President Joe Biden justified Israel's killing of civilians in Gaza by
claiming that it was in "self-defence" That's right, the "self-defence" lie
that would not stand up in an international court of law. Naturally, the US
Ambassador to Israel echoed Biden's remarks: "The United States firmly
believes that Israel has a right to protect itself."

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss did the same: "The United Kingdom
stands by Israel and its right to defend itself." She turned a blind eye to
the children being slaughtered in Gaza. "We condemn terrorists groups
firing at civilians. We call for a swift end to the violence." She did not
see the Israeli missiles targeting homes and civilian infrastructure,
including hospitals, and even cemeteries.

Europe has largely remained silent in the face of Palestinian blood being
spilt indiscriminately by Israel. It was as if there was nothing happening
in Gaza. Are Europeans so inured to seeing Palestinians being slaughtered
by Israel simply for rejecting the Zionist occupation of their land?

*READ: **Hamas' next move is critical, and Palestinian resistance faces
greatest test yet
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220809-hamas-next-move-is-critical-palestinian-resistance-faces-greatest-test-yet/>*

"The European Union follows with great concern the latest developments in
and around Gaza," said the bloc. "While Israel has the right to protect its
civilian population, everything must be done to prevent a broader conflict,
which would, first and foremost, affect the civilian populations on both
sides and result in further casualties and more suffering." Read between
the lines and the message is clear: Israel can do what it wants because we
will neither stop it nor punish it later. For the EU, the killing of 10 to
20 Palestinians a day was acceptable; it wasn't part of a "broader
conflict" which might — Europe's secular god forbid — see Israelis getting
killed and wounded.

"Not a word about the occupation," commented Akiva Eldar, the political
correspondent for *Haaretz*. "No trace of the Gaza Strip being the world's
largest prison, and not a blessed thing about Israel's decision to pull the
curtain on the political horizon."

Surely, we thought, the people of Ukraine would empathise with the
suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of an occupying power? Not at
all.

"As a Ukrainian, while our country is under brutal attack from a close
neighbour, I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public," tweeted the
Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel. He is feeling the brutal attacks of an
aggressor against his people, but voices support for the aggressor against
another people. What a hypocrite.

What about the Arab leaders? They profess "brotherhood" with the
Palestinians, but either kept quiet or issued shy condemnation of the
Israeli crimes. None of the "normalisation" regimes dared to sever their
ties with the occupation state. Nor did they pledge a penny for their new
best friend's victims. Only the Qatar Red Crescent Society has pledged
humanitarian aid.

The not so hidden consensus in the international community appears to be
that the Palestinian people must be eradicated in order to let Israel's
settler-colonial occupation take over all of historic Palestine: Greater
Israel is Zionism's objective and nothing must stand in its way. Those
states which do raise their voices in support of the Palestinians, but take
no action against the occupation state, are compounding their hypocrisy.
Shame on them.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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