Have we lost our soul?
Sabra, Shatila and Jenin are not the only reminders of mass murder against the Palestinian population. Such atrocities continue unabated and unchecked even today
very day, Palestinian civilians are being murdered in cold blood by the ruthless and heavily armed Israeli forces operating in occupied Palestine. Coupled with the viciousness of the armed Israeli settlers who have illegally encroached on Palestinian lands, the situation is beyond dire. It is a holocaust of some proportions as ethnic cleansing is in full swing under the patronage of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will undoubtedly one day be held for charges as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity.
Along with the thousands of illegal colonies, Netanyahu is calculatedly following the game plan set by his mentor Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister who once said in a recorded interview many years back: “I don’t know something called International Principles. I vow that I’ll burn every Palestinian child [that] will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child are more dangerous than a man, because the Palestinian child’s existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I’ve killed 750 Palestinians in Rafah in 1956.”
Israeli brutality has reached its peak in recent years with the uncensored daily murders of Palestinian civilians. Crimes against women and children have reached unprecedented levels. In a span of three days last week, Israeli Occupation Forces shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl because she “wouldn’t stop”. They then tried to cover up the documented video clip by falsely claiming that she was attempting an attack, when in reality she was on her way to her friend’s house.
The next day, Israeli occupation forces beat and then kidnapped a Palestinian girl near the illegal Israeli-Jewish colony of Itmar, south of the West Bank city of Nablus. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli occupation forces called the girl from a distance of about 50 metres and asked her to raise her hands and sit down. The girl obeyed and did all that she was ordered to do by the heavily armed and intimidating Israelis. They then approached the girl, beat her, blindfolded her and took her to an unknown place. In justifying their actions, the Israeli media reported that the Israeli army sources claimed that the girl was kidnapped because she had a knife with her. As has been their recent modus operandi, the Israeli forces did not provide any proof that the girl was indeed carrying a knife.
Two Palestinian brothers, unarmed and on their way home, were accosted by Israeli forces and shot down. Mousa Khadour was killed, while his brother Raghad was seriously injured. Their other sibling Majid had been killed by the Israelis two months earlier.
Iyad Hamid was another unfortunate victim of Israeli terrorism. He was gunned down by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Silwad. In the face of overwhelming evidence, the army was forced to admit that the victim had not, in fact, been a terrorist and was not carrying a weapon. Witnesses reported that he had lost his way, panicked when he saw the soldiers and tried to run to safety, whereupon he was shot in the back. This was corroborated by medics who examined his wounds on the spot.
What makes the case of Hamid tragically significant is that he had a mental disability. He was a simple-minded father who was on his way home from the store to deliver candy to his children, who themselves had special needs, before, as a witness stated, he was murdered and “the candies he bought for his children were mixed with his blood”.
Acts of calculated violence
Israeli forces have executed four Palestinians in less than 24 hours, including one with Jordanian citizenship. Among the victims was a 15 year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammad Rugby, who was the third victim executed in a terror swoop. The following day, an Israeli colonist ran over and killed a six-year-old Palestinian girl as she stood in front of her home.
Sabra, Shatila and Jenin are not the only reminders of mass murder against the Palestinian population. Such atrocities continue unabated and unchecked even today with sinister intentions.
These acts of calculated violence have not escaped the attention of those who have not been swayed by the propaganda of the Israeli government. A German diplomat was incensed when he confronted me: “Have the Arabs lost their soul? Don’t they see what is going on in Gaza and the rest of Palestine today?
Whatever the Israelis claim, it is ethnic cleansing of a people at its grossest. And yet, hardly a protest from the Arab governments! What are they waiting for — until such time when there will be no more Palestinians left? You know, the Nazis were using similar tactics: Terror, intimidation and finally murder. Today, the Israelis expect the world to atone for those sins of long ago, while they keep committing similar ones.”
Indeed, what are we waiting for?
Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi sociopolitical commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com@talmaeena.