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January
17, 2002
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
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Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
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The
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January
17, 2002
Bulldozing Rafah
A Crime Against
the Innocent
By Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz
The punitive action executed by Israel at the
weekend in the Gaza Strip, and in particular the mass demolition
of homes in Rafah on Thursday morning, constitute a war crime.
There is no other way to describe and define the collective punishment
of hundreds of innocent civilians who have been left utterly
destitute.
Under the cover of the media blackout
in Israel--it is very difficult to get to the southern Gaza Strip--bulldozers
of the Israel Defense Forces turned "homes into a wasteland,"
as M., a Rafah resident, said by phone. If there was a time when
at least part of Israeli public opinion was in an uproar over
the demolition of the home of a terrorist's family, and there
was a public debate over the justice of the act, now Israel is
demolishing the homes of hundreds of residents who don't even
have a family connection to terrorism--and hardly anyone says
a word in protest.
Can we, the Israelis, even begin to imagine
what it feels like to have bulldozers suddenly appear in the
middle of the night and plow under everything a family has, as
they and their children watch? Did the decision makers take into
account the hatred they are sowing in the hearts of the children
who witnessed the destruction of their homes? And what will become
of these wretched people now, people who even before their homes
were razed were doomed to a sordid life in one of the poorest
of the refugee camps? Where are they going to spend the bitterly
cold nights?
And what was their sin? True, Rafah is
a bastion of the Hamas organization, a place where the Palestinian
Authority wields little influence; but does that justify the
decision to launch war against every person in the city?
According to UNWRA, the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near
East, the IDF leveled 54 homes in Rafah, leaving 510 people without
a roof over their head; according to the Palestinian Center for
Human Rights, the number left homeless is 700. In the past year,
before Thursday's action, Israel had already demolished about
200 homes in Rafah. Even if the version put out by the IDF Spokesman
is correct--at first he claimed that "a few houses"
were demolished, and then conceded that "some of the houses
were connected," so that a few more homes than originally
stated were razed--this was a cruel and unjustified operation.
The demolition of the houses in Rafah,
the most extensive action of its kind so far, came in reaction
to the killing of four Israeli soldiers in the Africa outpost
near Kerem Shalom and the capture of the Karine A weapons ship--but
there is absolutely no connection between the victims of the
destruction and those two operations.
Even if we believe the IDF's contention
that the Palestinians used the houses as cover for opening fire
on the IDF, and that their courtyards may even have been used
to dig tunnels into Egypt through which weapons were smuggled,
that is no justification for their demolition.
Destroying the homes of civilians is
precisely the type of action that an enlightened state does not
do, under any circumstances. A country that opposes terrorism
against civilians cannot demolish homes of innocent civilians
and then claim that what it did is not an act of terrorism.
The impression is that the Rafah action
was another brutal manifestation of the Israeli need to "react"
immediately, to inflict punishment--really, to exact revenge--even
if the reaction is neither morally justified nor politically
wise. In this context, the participation in the operation, according
to reports, of the Bedouin unit that lost four of its members
in the attack on Africa outpost last week, was particularly tasteless.
Israel is now treating the Gaza Strip
as its own territory--destroying the airport (and letting it
be rebuilt), impounding dozens of fishing boats that serve as
a rare source of livelihood in the area, and demolishing homes
wholesale. Those who bear responsibility for these acts are not
only the "extremist" cabinet ministers, but also the
"moderate" ministers of the Labor Party, notably, of
course, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres. They too will one day have to pay for being part
of this government and for the part they played in operations
such as the one in Rafah.
Israel will have to explain the difference
between the violence it is perpetrating and the violence perpetrated
by the other side--and, horrifically, it is hard to believe that
the Palestinians will succeed in preventing mass terrorist acts
in this state of affairs. The next suicide bomber may well emerge
from the ruins of the homes in Rafah.
The officers and soldiers who take part
in contemptible operations of this kind will no longer be able
to wash their hands of guilt and claim they are only following
orders. What do they tell their families on the day on which
they demolished dozens of tin huts, and what will they tell their
children in the future?
In a meeting sponsored by the Gush Shalom
organization--which calls on soldiers to refuse to serve in the
occupied territories--last week in Tel Aviv, Colonel (res.) Yigal
Shochat, a former combat pilot, called on Air
Force pilots to refuse to obey orders
to bomb civilians and liquidate wanted individuals, as such actions
constitute war crimes. As far as is known, not one pilot has
refused to obey an order to demolish the homes of civilians,
an action that can be defined as flagrantly illegal.
"These are disgusting days,"
the novelist David Grossman wrote a week ago, referring to the
hoopla surrounding the capture of the weapons ship. The IDF's
punitive action in reaction to that affair only lends credence
to his despairing description.
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