Article by Jorge Cadima, member of the International Department
The atrocity in Gaza was impossible to conceal, even in the midst of the imperialism most controlled propaganda means: over 1300 casualties (almost one per a thousand inhabitants), in great majority imprisoned civilians in the gigantic concentration camp which Israel and the pseudo-" international community " turned Gaza into; white phosphorus bombings and other non-conventional weapons, in areas highly inhabited; attacks against UN refugee centres and medical personal on duty; the bombardment of UN help hoarding centres ( with white phosphorus ); the attack against a building where Israeli troops themselves had joined 110 civilians, causing the death of 30 , the attack on escaping civilians from the bombed areas. Whilst the European Union concealed the Israeli government’s lies, others did not silent their conscious. In the British Parliament, Gerald Kaufman, a Jew and issue from a Zionist family, an ex-member of Labour governments, declared:" Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass assassins, war criminals, and shame the Jewish people, whose Star of David is used, in Gaza, as a banner."( the speech can be seen in the YouTube ). The expression "holocaust "was used to describe the Gaza massacre. The first to use it was Matan Vilnai, Israeli vice-president of Defence, who, in February last, threatened: "the more the fire of Qassam intensifies, and its reach stretches out, the more the shoah will fall upon", in (The Guardian, 08.02.29).
A lot was said about Hamas and the "Qassam rockets". Causes and effects are confounded. The same thrown words and accusations over the Hamas today were thrown upon President Arafat and the PLO, in the past. The official Israeli government press release on the 11th September 2003, says: "These days events reiterate and prove that Yasser Arafat is an absolute obstacle to any reconciliation process between Israel and the Palestines. Israel will strive in order to remove this obstacle, in the way and in the moment it chooses". So that no doubts could remain, about the the significance of these words, the then vice –chief of the government, the current Prime-Minister, Ehud Olmert declared that, assassinating Arafat was " surely one of the options", ( in The Independent, 03.09.15 ). Fourteen months later, Arafat was dead. The French military hospital were he died, never informed of the causes of his death.
The Gaza slaughter, condensed many decades of History, in three weeks. An endless story of massacres and wars, from Deir Yassin to Gaza, passing through Sabra, Shatila or Qana, and that brings about the gradual occupation of more and more Palestine territory and the permanent imperialist influence in the region. The majority of Gaza inhabitants are refugees from previous occupation wars.
"On the Wednesday cold afternoon, of the 10th March 1948, a group of eleven men, Zionist veteran leaders together with young Jewish military officers, placed the final finishing touch on the ethnic clean up, in Palestine. (…) Once the decision taken, there were needed six months to finish the mission. At the end, more than half of the Palestine native population, around 800.000 people had been eradicated, 531 villages had been destroyed and eleven town quarters were emptied from their inhabitants". These words author is historian (a Jew and Israeli) Ilan Pappe, in the book "The Palestine ethnic cleansing "(One world Publications, 2006).
The Zionist State, " a USA nuclear tentacle "in the Middle East, following the UN General Assembly President’s words, always was one of the main threats to the world’s peace. The Palestine people it’s the greatest (but not the only) victim. With the absence of justice towards the Palestinian people, resistance will always exist. And this people’s resistance (heroic, given the proportion of means) is certainly a motive of hope and confidence. The imperialist military violence is incapable of defeating a people’s determination.
