Jan 15 2009
Israel is Becoming what They Hate
The Israeli government is turning into the very thing that they are supposedly fighting against. They are not just targeting civilians inside the Gaza strip in this war of aggression, they are also targeting the UN and reporters and even warehouses of food aid. They prevented foreign journalists from entering Gaza, and now they are seemingly trying to finish off the ones who are there! (The United States military did the same thing at the start of the Iraq war, killing foreign journalists and even seeming to target them.) When will someone stop the Israeli terrorism? It doesn’t matter if someone is using a suicide bomb or a high-tech plane dropping bombs, — killing people and terrorizing them with threat of harm or death in order to manipulate them politically is terrorism, and that’s what Israel is currently doing. In this case, it’s to completely control an entire 1.5 million people in the teriory of the Gaza strip. These are clearly people who will not be controlled. And ironically, it’s the media that is failing to point out that Hamas was democratically elected and should have been negotiated with, not attacked.
“Israeli military asked to explain how Gaza media building came to be hit by explosion
15 January 2009– Reporters Without Borders calls on the Israeli military to investigate and explain exactly how a 16-storey building in Gaza City that houses several news organisations including Reuters came to be hit by an explosion this morning.
An Abu Dhabi TV journalist and a Reuters cameraman were injured in the blast that shook the Al-Shurouq Tower. It was not immediately known whether the explosion was the result of a missile or a shell fired by a tank.
Reuters said an Israeli army spokesman contacted the news agency’s Jerusalem bureau shortly before the explosion to verify the location of its Gaza bureau. Reuters had informed the Israeli army of the exact location at the start of the war and was assured by the Israelis on several occasions that it would not be a target.
Reporters Without Borders has written to the Israeli army high command asking it to shed light on the circumstances of today’s incident. The press freedom organisation points out that, under international humanitarian law, news media must be given the same protection as civilians.
On Thursday Israel also shelled a food aid warehouse and a hospital. These acts are barbaric and indefensible. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni will visit Washington on Friday. Officially, she will be here to talk about the weapons accord they are close to deciding upon. It’s described as “an American-Israeli outlined agreement intended to deal with weapons smuggling”. Weapons smuggling does not just mean rockets, which they make themselves, but guns and ammunition. This accord will probably result in all weapons going into the Gaza Strip becoming illegal and it is designed to end Gazans from arming themselves. This may be the goal, but think about that for a moment: would you give up the 2nd amendment to the Constitution just because an aggressive, neighboring country wanted you to? Probably quite the opposite. Are any free people on earth really prevented from having any and all weapons? This is not democracy Israel is after, it is complete control of Gaza. They want to prevent Hamas from re-arming, which means preventing the people of Gaza from arming. This sounds so lovely, but it’s not. It would leave them even more defenseless than they currently are.
For that reason, this accord is probably going to fail, like every other strong-armed tactic Israel seems to want to force on Gaza citizens. I am not pro-gun, but completely unarmed people are not free people when the disarming is forced upon them by an aggressive, violent neighbor. Even most right-wingers in the U.S. would probably agree with that.
Meanwhile, Israel is making “progress” by killing officials of a foreign state, which makes these killings political assassinations, which is against international law. “War criminals” is probably not the label that Israel is going for.
Someone has to force this ceasefire by cutting Israel completely off if they will not stop by themselves. They can’t be rewarded for continuing this incredible violence against a nearly completely defenseless people. The world needs to condemn this action now and
act.
