nuclear-news

Palestine getting bombed by Israel

“It is very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective punishment.

The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all sides: End the occupation.

In Gaza, It’s the Occupation, Stupid,http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/in_gaza_its_the_occupationg_stupid_20121121/?  Nov 21, 2012 By Amy Goodman “The Palestinian people want to be free of the occupation,” award-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy summed up this week. It is that simple. This latest Israeli military assault on the people of Gaza is not an isolated event, but part of a 45-year occupation of the sliver of land wedged between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea, where 1.6 million people live under a brutal Israeli blockade that denies them most of the basic necessities of life.

Without the unwavering bipartisan support of the United States for the Israeli military, the occupation of Palestine could not exist.

At the time of this writing, the overall Palestinian death toll of the
seven-day assault, dubbed Operation Pillar of Cloud by the Israel
Defense Forces, is more than 116, more than half of them civilians,
including 27 children and 11 women. Hamas has fired hundreds of
rockets from Gaza into Israel, which, to date, have killed three
Israeli civilians.

President Barack Obama said on Sunday, “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. So, we are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians.”

“No one questions that right,” responds Richard Falk, the United
Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian
territories, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton
University and the author of more than 50 books on war, human rights
and international law. ….. Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines and chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative told me, “It is very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective punishment. We cannot support punishing an entire population because of the policies and attacks of Hamas. It’s illegal.”

The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all
sides: End the occupation. Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines and chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative told me, “It is
very hard to think about Israel calling what it is doing defending
itself when it is occupying Palestinian territory. It’s collective
punishment. We cannot support punishing an entire population because
of the policies and attacks of Hamas. It’s illegal.”

The answer is simple, and increases the chances of security on all sides: End the occupation.

November 22, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, weapons and war