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The Israeli Occupation
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Is Israel fighting a war on terror just like America?
Since the tragic events of September 11, Israel has tried to link its aggression against Palestinians with America’s war on terror. They claim they are fighting the same enemy.
According to the Washington Post, “The problem with equating Israel’s campaign against terrorism with that of the United States, as Mr. (Ariel) Sharon (former Israeli Prime Minister) and some of his American supporters do, is that it overlooks this contest for territory and sovereignty underlying the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed…the Palestinian national cause and its goals are recognized as legitimate by the Bush administration and the United Nations, and they were tacitly accepted by Israel when it signed the Oslo Accords of 1993. Mr. Sharon and most of the rest of his government, however, have never accepted Oslo; on the contrary, they have devoted most of their lives to the dream of permanently establishing Israel’s control over most, if not all, of the territories it occupied during the 1967 Six Day War. Few outside of Israel support that plan…(The Washington Post, April 24, 2002)
“Dismantling the infrastructure of terror?”
Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, Israel has consistently targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. Of the more than 1,700 Palestinians killed by Israel from September 2000 through July 2002, more than 85 percent have been civilians. Nearly 20,000 civilians have been injured. Israel has completely destroyed more than 1,800 homes, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless. The deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure has devastated the Palestinian economy and Palestinian civic life.
A senior United Nations official estimated that Israel’s military offensive in the West Bank – during the month of April 2002 alone – caused between $300 and $400 million damage to Palestinian property and reconstruction would take at least a year. Eyewitness accounts of the destruction revealed disturbing patterns at Palestinian civil institutions, private media outlets and numerous nongovernmental organizations:
• Computers, Xerox machines, phone systems and other technical equipment were destroyed or stolen.
• Files and records – land registration papers, school records, birth registries, etc., which have no intelligence value - were destroyed or stolen.
• Personal property was destroyed, premises looted and vandalized.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah alone, this type of destruction and theft took place from: the YMCA; al-Nahada Women’ Society for the Hearing Impaired; the Union of Medical Relief Committees; Health Development Information Policy Unit; human rights organizations such as Al-Haq, Mattin Group and the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners; six private TV and radio stations; the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics; Ramallah Municipality Building; the Palestinian Legislative Council; and the Ministries of Higher Education, Civil Affairs, Education and Finance.
These institutions are clearly not part of a so-called “infrastructure of terror.” Rather, they form the fabric of Palestinian civil society and civilian government structures. Mass destruction of Palestine’s civil infrastructure is an Israeli attempt to forestall the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state.
Israel claims to make every effort to prevent civilian casualties
The numbers alone betray this claim. More than 85 percent of the more than 1,700 Palestinians killed were civilians. That is more than 1,445 Palestinian civilians killed by a highly skilled, well-equipped professional army that claims to make every effort to reduce civilian casualties. That is the equivalent of 101,150 American civilians killed – nearly 34 times the number killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. In November 2000 alone, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed 40 Palestinian children – more than one child per day for the entire month. That is the equivalent of 2,800 American children killed in one month. Israel’s invasion of Palestinian territory in April 2002 left more than 30 Palestinian children dead. (www.whowillsavethechildren.org).
As of October 21, 2005 3,308 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces during the last Intifada, including 665 children under the age of 18. At least 193 Palestinians were extra-judicially executed by Israel. Also 41 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians during the same time frame, according to B’Tselem. About 980 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, including 118 of them under the age of 18.
Israel denies blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinian civilians
According to Israel’s daily newspaper, Haaretz, about 200 humanitarian aid workers have been denied entry to Israel since April 2002, with about 50 others expelled.
• “Arrests, deportations, visa and travel restrictions, checkpoints harassment, threats, injuries and deaths are among the impediments that humanitarian group say they’re facing at the hands of Israeli immigration and military authorities as they struggle to deliver food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” (Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2002)
• This is what some aid groups have to say about Israel’s record on humanitarian assistance for Palestinians: (Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2002)
• “Stop targeting our ambulances and stop killing our staff.” Richard Cook, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the West Bank.
• “The Israeli military doesn’t want humanitarian workers in these areas because the army’s doing a lot of things that violate international law and don’t want it reported…They always give reasons, like the area’s booby-trapped, blah, blah, blah, so they can’t let ambulances in to help wounded people. But, that’s just an excuse to close things off to world scrutiny.” Suzie Mordechay, a member of the Jerusalem-based Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
• “When Israeli spokesman say they’re not impeding humanitarian aid, that’s a plain, flat out lie. This policy comes right from the top…We’re witnesses to a lot that’s going on in the West Bank…And I think all these restrictions are a sneaky way to punish the Palestinians without having it show up on CNN.” Thomas New, Jerusalem-based director of American for Near East Refugee Aid and a dean of the aid community.
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