Author: Marcella Aburdene, Sammy Suboh, Ayesha Kahn
Dear Editor,
In response to the letter justifying Israeli attacks on Palestine in self-defense, we are shocked to see such an extravagant bias proposed here in the Oxy Weekly.
Aside from the core issues-refugees, Jerusalem, and borders-the major themes reflected in the U.N. resolutions against Israel over the years are its unlawful attacks on its neighbors, violations of human rights of Palestinians which includes deportations, demolitions of homes and other collective punishments; its confiscation of Palestinian land; its establishment of illegal settlements; and its refusal to abide by the U.N. Charter and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. (Donald Neff). Israel has been warned by the UN through 68 resolutions, none of them properly recognized while Palestine has had none. Statistics show the appalling tyranny that Israel manages to continue, hence poverty in Palestine has dramatically worsened since 2000; access to jobs, schools, and medical care is routinely restricted by hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks. According to Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org ), the use of torture was documented in Israel in 2004 and 2005. Sammy’s father was a victim of the Israeli Prison Torture System which included periodic beatings at the whims of Israeli soldiers and forced starvation. It is needless to mention the horrifying Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982, or the April 30, 2002 Jenin massacre which Israel prevented the UN from investigating, or maybe it is the countless homes that are bulldozed everyday to make more land for Israeli settlements that can be characterized as self-defense by Israel as Yarslow and Rosen’s letter claims?
It seems that Israel is hardly working to promote peace with a segregation structure modeled after the Jim Crowe Laws. Let me explain: Israelis have private roads which are reserved solely for their use although they can use Palestinian roads as well. Palestinians are forced to carry special green cards to identify themselves and if are caught without their ID card are subject to Israeli prison. Palestinians are not allowed to use Israeli Airports but are cannot have their own airports either; forcing Palestinians to have to cross borders to be able to use the airports of other countries. Israelis and US citizens have special facilities and buildings when crossing the border, while Palestinians have separate, run-down border crossing facilities and grueling search processions, often subjected to humiliating means by Israeli search stations. All Israelis reserve the right to enter any Palestinian Territory while a Palestinian who is caught in any Israeli Territory can be imprisoned. Israelis move freely throughout their country while Palestinians must apply for Permits to travel to different cities. I (Sammy) went through this horrific experience countless times and most of my experiences were characterized by the humiliating nature of the Israeli official reviewing the permit, depending on how I approached the officer; as a second-class citizen showing no signs of pride or arrogance. I think all of these examples constitute substantiated claims of “heinous acts” and “atrocities”, that Yarslow and Rosen failed to mention in their critique of Israel as a ‘peace-seeking’ nation.
In response to the inhumane attacks of Israel on Lebanon: In its conduct of hostilities, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly violated the laws of war by failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians. The IDF claims that the high proportion of civilian deaths in the war was due to Hezbollah hiding its rockets and fighters in villages and towns, but IDF attacks responsible for a majority of the civilian deaths took place at times when there was no evidence that Hezbollah fighters or weapons were even in the vicinity. While the IDF in certain cases gave advance warnings for civilians to evacuate areas likely to be attacked, such warnings do not relieve a warring party of its obligation to target only combatants. In southern Lebanon, many people remained even after warnings because of age, infirmity, responsibility for livestock and crops, inability to afford exorbitant taxi fares charged for evacuation, or fear of becoming another roadside casualty of IDF bombing. As a result, the IDF’s indiscriminate bombardment had devastating consequences for civilians. By justifying the deaths of innocent civilians through a warning system supposedly giving ample time for relocation, Yarslow and Rosen simplify their argument, as we can look to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina to know that only the most affluent and financially able can relocate so easily.
In addition Israel’s extensive use of cluster munitions continues to be a pressing concern. The UN estimated that Israel fired cluster munitions containing 2.6 to 4 million sub munitions into Lebanon, leaving behind as many as one million hazardous duds that, at this writing, have resulted in more than 20 deaths and 100 injuries. According to the UN, Israel blanketed much of southern Lebanon with 90 percent of those sub munitions in the last three days before the cease-fire. Additionally, out of nearly 4,000 Palestinians killed during the Second Palestinian Uprising – in the last 5 years – the overwhelming majority have been civilians, many of whom are children. Such figures are also mirrored in much of the damage inflicted by Israel’s military machine against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories; the great majority of the wounded along with the destroyed infrastructure, the confiscated land, the razed orchards, the bulldozed homes, etc, have been overwhelmingly civilian. (Ramzy Baroud)
Israel remains the largest recipient of US aid, receiving $2.28 billion in military aid and $280 million in financial aid. As one of the few countries that has nuclear weapon capabilities and with the fifth strongest army in the world how does a poverty stricken population of forced second classed citizenship Palestinians prove threatening? Palestine has no army, except for the Kuwat 17, soldiers who are used to protect Palestinian government officials from Palestinians. Without the backing of a world power like the U.S. and enormous amounts of monetary aid, Palestinians are forced to protect themselves and their freedom by any means necessary.
In response to the Arab countries attacking Israel after its Occupation of Palestine: Using common sense, how else are bordering countries expected to respond when a neighboring country is being occupied and its citizens cold-bloodedly killed and overwhelmingly displaced? Hmm…let us give everyone a second to think that over, ironically the world has been waiting for over sixty years for an answer.
Also in response to the fact that Israel doesn’t use Palestinians as Human shields: Yarslow and Rosen wrote that, “To our knowledge, there has never been an instance of an Israeli soldier putting a child’s life before his or her own.” Let us give you a real life experience of this exact instance occurring as one of Sammy’s classmates walked home from school last May; two undercover Israeli agents entered Ramallah disguised to arrest a Palestinian. When a civilian saw the gun one of the agents was concealing, he immediately confronted him. The two Israeli agents immediately started shooting their way out of the city, on their way out grabbed the classmate, put a gun to his head, and threatened to shoot. The agent let the classmate go when eventually Israeli soldiers moved in to “rescue” them. This may be a situation characterized by the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’, but let us assure you, human shields have definitely been used in the recent Israeli struggle.
We hope this letter relieves some of the ‘unsubstantiated’ concerns regarding the article by Patrick Rice. The Palestinian issue is one that should not be silenced. A past Hebrew kingdom established in 1000 B.C. is by no means a justification for occupying an entire country, killing a few hundred thousand Palestinians and displacing 3
million more. Peace is a common goal and we have faith that a religious homeland can be shared by more than one religion, but Israel has no right to establish a country based on a colonizing and ruthless regime structure.
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