How
Can We Allow This to Go On?
The
Massacre at Beit Hanoun
by
KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
(November
22, 2006)
Ha'aretz
correspondent Gideon Levy
described the situation in the northern Gaza
town of Beit Hanoun
in a searing article on Sunday. He proposed, half seriously, that the
Israeli
colonies removed last year as part of Israel's
so-called "disengagement" from Gaza
should be returned because they would serve "as the last human shield
for
a million and a half residents who now comprise one of the most
helpless populations
in the world. Incarcerated, without any assistance, they are liable to
starve
to death. Exposed, without any protection, they fall prey to the Israel
Defense
Force's operations of vengeance."
How can we Americans ignore this? How can we bear it? How can we bear
to
continue paying for Israel's
atrocities? How can we possibly allow this inhumanity to be perpetrated
in our
name without crying out in horror, without bringing down our own
government
that sits by doling out the money and the weapons to keep this horror
going,
without severing altogether any ties with Israel's Nazi government?
"Burying
its 350 dead since the summer," Levy goes on,
Gaza
threatens to become Chechnya.
There are thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people
in Gaza, unable to receive
any treatment. Those on respirators are liable to die due to the
frequent power
outages since Israel bombed the power
plant. Tens of thousand of children suffer from existential anxiety,
while
their parents are unable to provide help. They are witnesses to sights
that
even Gaza's
old-timers have
never seen before."
The
horrors are unspeakable; I'm not making this up. Nor is Levy.
Anyone who
does not believe
this can travel to Beit Hanoun, an hour from Tel Aviv. The trauma is
only
intensifying there, in a town that lost nearly 80 of its sons and
daughters
within a week [in early November].
The shadows of human beings roam the ruins.
Last week, I met people there who are terrified, depressed,
injured,
humiliated, bereaved and bewildered. What can one say to them? That
they should
stop firing
Qassams? But the vast majority of them are not involved in this at
all. That they should return Gilad Shalit?
What do they have to do with him?
They only know the IDF will return and they know what this will mean
for
them:
more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction
in monstrous
proportions, without
them being guilty of a thing. In Israel's dark
southern backyard, a large-scale humanitarian tragedy is unfolding.
Israel
and the
world, including the Arab states, are covering their eyes and the last
resort,
as absurd as it sounds,
might be to long for the settlements. The situation is
that desperate."
How
can we possibly allow this to go on, blithely ignoring it, blithely
affirming Israel's "right to defend itself," ignoring the absence of
any actual threat to Israel, blithely assuming that it is right and
proper to
murder, starve, imprison, deny medical treatment, deny water to an
entire
people simply because they are not Jews and are resisting Israel's
domination?
"Brutal and dizzy ideas compete against each other," Levy continues,
the
defense minister
suggests liquidations and the agriculture minister proposes tougher
action; one
advocates
'an eye for an eye,' the second wants to 'erase Beit Hanoun' and the
third 'to pulverize Beit Lahiya.' And no one
pauses for a moment to think about
what they are saying. What exactly does it mean to 'erase Beit Hanoun'?
What
does this chilling combination of words mean? A town of 30,000 people,
most of
them children, whose
measure of grief and suffering has long reached breaking
point, unemployed and hungry, without a present and
without a future, with no
protection against Israel's violent military responses, which have lost
all
human proportionality.
Proportionality is also
needed when examining the extent of suffering in the neighboring town,
Sderot
[the Israeli town
frequently hit by Palestinian Qassam rockets]. It should be
stated honestly: Sderot's suffering, as heart-rending and
difficult as it is,
amounts to nothing when compared to the suffering of its neighbor.
Sderot is
now mourning one fatality,
while Beit Hanoun is mourning nearly 80 dead. . . .
Did the futile killing of the people in Beit Hanoun contribute anything
to the
security of Sderot's residents? The events of the past days clearly
demonstrate
that the answer is no. . . .
Soon Gaza
will look like Darfur, but while the world is giving some sort of
assistance to
Darfur, it still dares to play tough
with Gaza.
Instead of boycotting the one who is abusing the residents of Gaza, the world
is boycotting the victim,
blocking
assistance that it so desperately needs. Tens of thousands of workers
who are not receiving their meager wages because
of the boycott are the world's
gift to Gaza, while Israel
is not only killing them,
but also stealing their money, locking them
in from all sides and not allowing
them any chance to extricate themselves."
How
can we allow this to go on? C-SPAN is asking this week for
one-minute video-taped statements, which it will begin airing on
Thanksgiving,
answering the question "what does being an American mean to you?" I
have no video camera and no intention of submitting a tape, but the
invitation
got me thinking. Does being an American mean that I must sit back and
quietly
allow my government to starve the entire Palestinian people, in the
name of some
kind of dedication to a flag and a bill of rights that applies only to
white
people? Does it mean that I must approve, or even merely accept, the
subhuman
behavior of my government's closest ally, Israel?
Or
does being an American mean that I must do something -- at least
speak out, scream out -- to stop the bleeding inflicted on innocents by
America
and Israel? And does not being an American mean that I must challenge
my fellow
Americans to speak out as well? Here is the challenge: any Jew anywhere
who
allows Israel to
commit
these acts and pursue these policies in the name of all Jews -- for Israel does claim to act in the name of
Jews
everywhere -- without speaking out against Israel,
without screaming protests,
must be ashamed. Any American who allows the United States to support Israel
-- to support it militarily
with infusions of arms in the billions of dollars every year and to
sustain it
morally and psychologically -- without loud protest should be ashamed.
The time
has come to stand up and be counted as Americans truly interested in
justice
and human rights and humanity.
Can
we not match Gideon Levy's courage in speaking the truth? Palestine is the
conscience of us all.
________________
Kathleen
Christison is a former CIA
political analyst and has worked on Middle East
issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of
Palestine
and The Wound of
Dispossession.