Rogue State of Israel XXXIII : Licenced to Lie Cheat Kill?

O buraco é o prédio onde morava a família de Deif,
chefe das Brigadas al-Qassam do Hamas 

Os bombardeios israelenses de ontem mataram mais 21 palestinos, aumentando o número de mortos em Gaza para 2.035. A invasão terrestre prometida ainda não veio, pois Israel quer matar sem sofrer perdas. Matar do mar e do ar, a salvo. Como fazem os covardes. Só estes matam as famílias de seus inimigos quando não conseguem matá-los diretamente, como Israel acabou de fazer Widad (de 27 anos) e e Ali (sete meses), a mulher e o filhinho de Mohammed Deif - que acabou de completar 49 anos no dia 12 de agosto.
Deif entrou na resistência na juventude e foi aprendiz de Yahya Ayyash ( capítulo VII de Israel vs Palestina). Após o assassinato de Yahya (com 30 anos) em 1996, Deif assumiu seu lugar na fabricação artesanal de bombas para os atentados suicidas durante a Segunda Intifada. Acedeu à direção das al-Qassam em 2002 quando a IDF assassinou seu predecessor Salah Shehadeh (como desta vez, um F16 jogou uma bomba em sua casa matando 15 pessoas, incluindo sua mulher Shahade, sua filha, a família Matar inteira que morava na casa do lado e deixou 150 feridos, dentre eles, 50 graves - capítulo XXIX de Israel vs Palestina). Desde então, Deif sobreviveu a quatro tentativas de assassinato ileso, menos em 2006, quando foi ferido, mas sobreviveu. E a esta última também, acho.
Mas a campanha de execuções não parou nele. Durante a noite de quarta para hoje, a IDF matou mais 17 palestinos. Dentre eles seis crianças e três membros proeminentes do Hamas: Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Raed al-Attar and Mohamed Barthoum. Pelo jeito Binyamin Netanyahu resolveu dizimar a direção do Hamas com suas famílias ou dizimar seus familiares com a intenção absurda de intimidá-los. Só conseguem aumentar o ódio dos que ficam.
Porém, na História de resistência da Palestina, todo chefe tem um braço direito que o substitui com mais "eficiência" e determinação, e outro, e outro, e outro, sem parar. É esta a diferença entre uma guerra comum e um povo que resiste. O povo que resiste não baixa os braços e tem sempre um na fila que pega o bastão e continua a corrida atrás da vitória final.
E a verdade histórica sempre emerge. Demora, porque são os vencedores que a registram para a posteridade, como foi o caso, na Palestina, de David e Golias, de Sansão e Dalila, da Naqba, dos Acordos de Oslo, do genocídio da população autótona.
No início da Copa do Mundo, pouca gente sabia onde ficava Gaza, que a Palestina era ocupada, e que Israel era um monstro insasiável.
Comecei a contar a História do conflito Israel vs Palestina em dezembro de 2011. No começo, os leitores eram escassos, e eu conseguia contá-la de maneira desprendida. Com o desenrolar dos fatos, enredei-me nas emoções que esta aberração geopolítica me inspiram e minha linguagem foi passando de científica a partidária. Porque quis me dar o direito de sentir, de escolher e de exprimir minha opinião dando voz ao derrotado, como fazem os que escrevem a história dos vencedores. Pois embora estes "historiadores" pareçam imparciais, pintam os vencedores com cores chamativas e o vencido é desterrado a umas linhas cinzas irrelevantes e irrelevadas.
Pois bem, até o início de julho, poucas pessoas sabiam que dois anos após o Holocausto Israel já estava praticando uma limpeza étnica na Palestina, no que ficou conhecido como a Naqba, quando cerca de 1 milhão de palestinos foram mortos ou forçados ao exílio pelas organizações "para-militares" israelenses que os ingleses chamavam de terroristas.
Israel safou-se por cima de tudo o que empreendeu desde que se auto-proclamou Estado em 1948. Até julho deste ano. Até sua última tentativa de subjugar a resistência palestina aumentando a carga militar e o volume do genocídio, embora tenham previsto direitinho o momento, da Copa, quando o mundo estava distraído.
Contudo, em vez da passividade de 2008/09 e 2012, as consequências foram bem diferentes: houve um interesse súbito da mídia internacional na Palestina; houve um desafio à política de extrema-direita do governo atual; a opinião pública internacional descobriu que Israel não era o bonzinho que descrevia a grande mídia e está havendo um consenso global para terminar ocupação e opressão de uma vez por todas. Pois sua campanha de intimidação bem coreografada contra qualquer formador de opinião que ousasse criticar Israel acabou frustrada. O professor judeu Avi Shlaim escreveu: "Os cegos que apoiam Israel... usam a acusação de anti-semita para tentar e conseguir silenciar críticas legítimas contra as práticas de Israel. Para mim isto é chantagem." Pois é, de repente este rótulo pré-fabricado não cola mais.
Então, frustrado pelo fato de jornalistas formadores de opinião não aceitarem mais ouvir as mentiras de seus porta-vozes calados, como mostrou o âncora da Channel 4 inglesa Jon Snow, os comunicadores israelenses resolveram mudar de tática. A nova campanha é para demonizar o Hamas o comparando com o ISIS, dizendo que são farinha do mesmo saco.
Os israelenses resolveram comparar o icomparável. Resolveram comparar um partido de resistência que defende sua terra e seu povo com um partido extremista conquistador que destrói patrimônios da humanidade e seres humanos para construir um Estado de religião única mantida por um regime autoritário sanguinário. Pensando bem, os líderes do ISIS parecem mais com o governo israelense Israel do que de qualquer outro partido do mundo e as práticas de seus para-militares são mais próximas da IDF (que mata civis friamente "por vingança") do que do Hamas.
Pergunto-me se alguém vai acreditar neste novo conto macabro do grande enganador Mark Regev. Talvez a Casa Branca e o Pentágono, se não tiverem sido eles a darem a ideia desta comparação inverossímil.

Israel shelling on Wednesday killed 21 Palestinians during the attempt to kill the leader of AL-Qassam Brigades, raising the death toll in Gaza to 2.035, until yesterday evening.
Four times since he took over from his assassinated predecessor Salah Shehaed, in 2002, Mohammed Deif escaped from assassination attempts, though he was injured in the last one in 2006. His wife, Widad, and seve-month-old-sonAli died in the Israeli air strike, which Deif has most likely survivevd.
Barak Ben-Tsur, a former head of the Shin Bet security agency's research division, said:"I don't know Deif's situation now but I wouldn't gamble that he's completely safe".
And the assassination campaign didn't stop in Deif, during the night - because this is when the cowards strike to surprise people sleeping - at least 17 more Palestinians were killed. Inluding six children and three senior members of Hamas: Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Raed al-Attar and Mohamed Barthoum. 
To go on with the slaughtering, the Israeli security cabinet has approved the call-up of 10.000 reservists, adding that yesterday, adding upo to the 2,000 called yesterday. 
Historical truth always comes out. Not many people knew that within three years after the Holocaust, Israel - Jewish historian Ilan Pappe confirms - started committing ethnic cleansing in Palesltine. In that bloody historical period known as the Naqba, when around 1 million Palestinians were killed of pushed to exodus by Israeli military groups that the British called "terrorist".

Israel's latest attempt to subdue the Palestinian resistance by putting its systematic genocide on high gear has yiellded in some unintended consequences: international media sudden interest in Gaza and in Palestine; challenge to the blind toeing of the extreme right party line; and growing global consensus to end this occupation and this oppression one and for all. 

Frustrated by the choreographed intimidatory campaigns often waged against any critic of Israel who might possess a certain level of influence, Jewish professor Avi Shlaim once wrote: "The blind supporters of Israel... use the charge of anti-Semitism to try and silence legitimate criticism of Israeli practices. I regard this as moral Blackmail."

Frustrated by the fact that high profile journalists no longer accept o hear their lies quietly, as showed Channel 4's Jon Snow, Israeli communication centre decided to change tactics and begin another campaign to demonize Hamas by comparing it to ISIS. By comparing the uncomparable. By comparing a resistance party to a fanatic conqueror.

I wonder if anyone will believe the great deceiver Mark Regev's new black tales.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, home demolition as punishement

Enquanto isso, na Cisjordânia, demolição de casas como punição

Interessante a Corte Suprema Israelense aprovar, ilegalmente, a demolição das casas dos rapazes suspeitos de terem sequestrado e matado os três colonos achando que é justo e não fazer o mesmo com os colonos que queimaram o rapaz palestino vivo em seguida.
Os três rapazes palestinos são "terroristas" e os colonos israelenses, são o quê?

The Outlaw State of Israel 

Part I

"Israel has become an outlaw state. In his BOOK, The Law of Peoples, John Rawls defines an outlaw state as one that systematically violates the universal principles of human rights, and commits aggression against other nations. Israel is guilty of repeated such violations as well as several massive acts of aggression, making it reasonable and responsible to identify it as an outlaw state.

Israel's military aggressions against other countries

Israel was born in 1948. Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly is widely regarded as the most convincing legal basis for founding the State of Israel. At that time Palestinians were awarded 45 percent of historic Palestine, while 54 percent was allocated to Israel, and 1 percent was set aside as a special zone to be used for the internationalised city of Jerusalem.

After the 1948 War with the neighbouring Arab nations, Israel's territorial gains reduced the Palestinian share to only 22 percent. In the 1967 War, Israel occupied the remaining Palestinian territory, which had been administered since 1948 by Jordan and Egypt, and since that time has encroached on occupied Palestine in major unlawful ways, rendering impossible the project of a Palestinian state.

Additionally, Israel has launched a series of brutal aggressive attacks against Gaza (2008-09, 2012, 2014) violating international law, the UN Charter, and the laws of war.

Further aggravating Israel's reputation are numerous acts of aggression against several other sovereign states:

Military attacks on Iraq in June 1981 that destroyed Osirak nuclear reactor that was under construction to disrupt Iraq's nuclear programme and to perpetuate Israel's regional monopoly over nuclear weaponry.

Invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982, coupled with the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000. In September 1982 Israel was complicit in the Sabra and Shatila massacre carried out by Maronite Phalangist militia units in which between 1500 and 3000 Palestinian women, children, and disabled persons were murdered in cold blood.

Military attack on the PLO Headquarters in Hamman, Tunisia in October 1985, killing 60, which was condemned by the UN Security Council.

Invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006 that resulted in the 33 days warfare directed at Hezbollah, the destruction of residential sections in the southern Beirut, applying the "Dahiya Doctrine" - the rationalisation given for unlawful Israeli reliance on disproportionate military power used against the Palestinian people.

Attacks on October 2, 2007 on Syria destroyed its nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor region.

The attack in May 2010 in international waters on the Turkish passenger ship Mavi MARMARA that was part of the Freedom Flotilla bringing humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza in defiance of the international blockade, killing nine Turkish nonviolent peace activists.

Three unlawful military attacks on Syria in 2013 and 2014.

Repeated military attacks in Sudan in 2009, 2011, and 2012, supposedly to disrupt the supply of weapons to Hamas in Gaza, causing many deaths.

In addition, Israel has occupied Syria's Golan Heights since 1967, built unlawful settlements, and established a permanent presence. Israel has refused to withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as called for by unanimous Security Council Resolution 242.

Israel secretly and illegitimately acquired an arsenal of an estimated 300 nuclear warheads, becoming the only nuclear power in the Middle East, and the only country in the world that refuses to acknowledge its possession of nuclear weapons.

Systematic violations of human rights and the apartheid regime

Former US President Jimmy Carter declared in his BOOK Palestine: Peace not Apartheid that Israel's occupation regime in the West Bank possesses the systematic discriminatory features of an apartheid regime. As well, the Palestinian minority resident in Israel is subject to fifty discriminatory laws that restrict their individual and collective rights. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court treats apartheid as a crime against humanity.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been living without the protection of law or the possession of rights since 1967, being subject to military administration and the oppressive practices of the Palestinian Authority, while the unlawful settler population enjoys the full protection of Israel's rule of law.

As Gideon Levy, the progressive Israeli journalist writes, Israel is "only a democracy for its Jewish citizens who are quick to fall in line with the mainstream every time Israeli tanks roll across the border." Jewish citizens of Israel who dare oppose their country's aggressions are often attacked and threatened. Palestinian Israelis are treated worse, harshly restricted and subject to acute suspicion whenever a security issue arises.

Israel's war crimes against Palestinians

Not only does Security Council Resolution 465 speak twice of "Palestinian or Arab territories occupied since 1967", but also declares and affirms that the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories represent a violation of Fourth Geneva Convention. The defiant refusal to dismantle the settlements - unlawful under Article 49(6) - and the refusal to remove the separation wall as mandated by the International Court of Justice are grave violations of this convention, and as such amount to war crimes.

Israel removed its military forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip in its "disengagement" initiative in 2005, but in actuality kept effective control of Gaza, and remained bound by the obligations as an occupying power contained in international humanitarian law.

In effect, Israel transformed the conditions of life in Gaza from direct military administration to life imprisonment of the population in the largest open-air jail on earth. Israel retained its total control of Gaza's entrances and exits, of its airspace and offshore waters, disrupting life within the prison walls by lethal periodic violent incursions. Most Palestinian people living in Gaza have effectively been locked in ever since 1967, unconditionally since 2007. During this period, Israel has periodically launched massive military operations against Gaza; imposed and maintained an illegal blockade; committed frequent acts of cross-border violence; and committed numerous grave war crimes:

Israel attacked Gaza in 2008-2009, killing more than 1400 Palestinians, injuring 5300, creating 51,000 internal refugees, destroying 4000 homes, inflicting $4bn economic damage, and disallowing the delivery of materials needed for reconstruction efforts.

Israel's attacks on Gaza in 2012 killed 173 and injured 1,221, provoked by the Israeli targeted assassination of the Hamas military leader, Ahmed Jabari, as he was delivering a signed truce document.

Israel's 2014 aggression against Gaza launched on July 8 has so far killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, injured nearly 10,181, with 75-80 percent of the casualties being civilians. This massive Israeli military operation has caused more than 660,000 Gazans to be internally displaced, highlighting the denial of any right of Palestinians to leave the combat area throughout the military onslaught that has terrorised the entire population of Gaza. It is estimated that 459 Palestinian children were killed and as many as 3,000 injured.

In contrast, Israel's losses in this attack have led to 68 Israeli deaths, of whom 65 were soldiers. The casualty disparity and the ratio of military to civilian deaths are significant indicators of how to apportion moral responsibility of the carnage caused.

This is Part One of Richard Falk and Akbar Ganji's essay on Israel's international law violantions. The second part will be published on Thursday, August 21". 

Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He is also Former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

Akbar Ganji is one of Iran's leading political dissidents and has received over a dozen human rights awards for his efforts. Imprisoned in Iran until 2006, he is the author of The Road to Democracy in Iran, which lays out a strategy for a non-violent transition to democracy in Iran.

"Stop the violence, from Ferguson to Gaza"!, 
says 90-year-old Holocaust survivor arrested in St Louis
"Pare a violência, de Ferguson a Gaza"!
diz uma sobrevivente do Holocausto de 90 anos detida em St Louis nos EUA