Courtesy US and its policies! The war crimes committed on these innocents demand world attention, writes Ubaid Mushtaq.

The Israel’s war on the Palestinian people reached new heights of ferocity and depths of inhumanity one year ago. Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead” last year, and played havoc with 1.5 million Palestinian people living in the Gaza Strip. With the help of tanks and heavy artillery fire with full air cover from gunship helicopters, more than thousand innocent people lost their lives, including young children, women and old. Besides bombing the residential areas and schools, Israeli forces also struck the headquarters of the UN Relief Works Agency and humanitarian convoys, attempting to deliver much-needed supplies to the people of Gaza.
 Israel demonstrated to the world that it not only has the utter disregard for humanity but has the strength to discard any resolution or accord. According to International law the Jewish settlements in Palestine are illegal. But, still Israel ignores all international laws, verdicts of the International Court and occupies the land. In the past many decades, thousands and thousands of Innocent Palestinian have been slaughtered by Israeli forces.
 According to a UN fact-finding rights mission, Israeli forces committed war crimes against the humanity during their assault on the Gaza Strip last year. The four-member probe committee prepared a 575-page report and concluded that actions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by the Israeli defence forces. But Israel, not only refused to cooperate in the investigation, but also rejected the report as baseless. Israel has also shown utter disregard to the many UN resolutions before this. But its contempt for innocent life and for international law is perhaps matched only by the U.S. willingness to support Israel’s crimes. Perhaps without U.S. support, none of this could go on. US not only turned a blind eye to all this but also covered the last year’s “Operation Cast Lead” and are supporting Israel both financially, militarily and diplomatically. The reason for Israel genocide on Palestine and clear violation of numerous UN resolutions, and accords can directly be linked with backdoor policies of Uncle Sam.
 Israel clearly has the backing of the sole superpower, the US and some European Nations. US, which lectures the world not to think in terms of racism, ethnicity and religion, and can influence a peaceful settlement, has openly sided with Israel, and the brutalities committed by the Jewish state against the struggling people of Palestine .By taking undue advantage of the ongoing US-led NATO wars in some countries of Asia, Israel has resumed the illegal settlement constructions in West Bank.
The US has been pro-Israel since the founding of Israel in 1947. The headquarters of international Zionism moved to the US from Britain after world war 2nd and US views Israel as the only state in the Middle East with democratic values and a strong military power to protect its interests. American Jews have a pervasive influence on the US political system and in national media and after 9/11; Israel saw the benefits of linking its local struggle with Palestine to the US global war on terror. Though current President Mr. Obama supported the conflict resolution during early days in office, but now he is trying to find a way out of the Israel-Palestine predicament.  He can’t afford to upset many Zionist Puppets in the US political system because it will lead to political meltdown. On July 31, 2006, former President George W Bush commented that the crisis between Israel and Palestine is a part of a larger struggle between forces of freedom and terror in the Middle East which shows American pro-Israel opinion.
 Another aspect that could account for Americans support for Israel is the inevitable Christian culture underlying the US and its inherent tie with Judaism. Christian Zionism sees the modern state of Israel as the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial and religious support. The issue of Palestine is not new and the world knows that people there are struggling for independence for the past five decades as many world bodies, including the UNO, have endorsed their right for freedom urging Israel to give a timeframe for the establishment of an independent state of Palestine. But ever since, with the outbreak of the first intifada Hamas and Gaza become the metaphor throughout world. Ever since Hamas toppled the Palestinian Authority (PA) in June 2007, the Israelis perturbed by militant nature of the organisation and have been planning to dismantle the whole Palestine by the wide ranging measures consisted of mobilising the international community to accept Hamas as a terrorist organisation, isolating Hamas internationally and regionally, instituting a complete economic blockade of Gaza, and collating intelligence related to Hamas’s security and military infrastructure.
 If the Washington continues to support Israel in its illegal and inhuman endeavours, and if international community fails to give Palestinians an integrated state according to UN resolutions and other accords, peace in the Middle East can never be restored. The situation in the region would be more uncertain than was ever before during the last two decades. The Israel-Palestine conflict has a long history and its resolution demands patience, determination and political will. The need is to tailor some arrangement through peaceful means to settle the issue. What is needed from Arab world and other Muslim countries is a fierce denunciation of Israeli war crimes.

(Ubaid Mushtaq is pursuing BBA at IUST, Awantipora. Feedback at ubaidmushtaq.blogspot.com)

Lastupdate on : Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
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