MB Civic

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070606J.shtml

Watching Gaza: “The Genovese Syndrome”

By James J. Zogby
t r u t h o u t | Perspective July 6, 2006

Today I thought of Kitty Genovese.

Some of you won’t remember her, but many in my generation
will recall the horror and shame they felt after hearing
the story of how she was raped and stabbed to death on a
New York City street in 1964. What shocked the nation was
the fact that 37 witnesses heard Kitty’s cries but did
nothing to help. Years later, social scientists, studying
this disturbing passivity, termed it the “Genovese
Syndrome.”

That’s how I feel about what is happening in Gaza today.
Israel is getting away with murder and the world is letting
it happen.

I can hear my critics bellow, “But what about Gilad Shalit
(the Israeli soldier captured and held since June 25th)?”
“What about Hamas and Islamic Jihad?” “What about the
Qassam missiles?”

My response is simple: the kidnapping of Shalit was wrong
and I have repeatedly condemned the evil and stupid tactics
used by those groups who target innocent Israeli civilians.
Having said that, I must add two observations: there is no
moral or political justification for the collective
punishment which Israel has imposed on Gaza’s entire
population; and Gaza’s humanitarian crisis began long
before the June 25th capture of Shalit.

Reports issued before May of this year describe Gaza’s
situation in dire terms. In one of the most densely
populated areas on earth, two-thirds of Gaza’s population
live below the poverty level. There are acute shortages of
food, fuel and water. Malnutrition and disease are rampant
among the young and, for the most part, only basic medical
services are available.

This crisis in Gaza predates Hamas’s victory in 2006. For
the first twenty-five years of Israel’s occupation
(1967-1993) Gaza was a place of misery. As Sarah Roy
brilliantly describes in her book, The Gaza Strip: The
Political Economy of Re- development, Israel ruthlessly
suppressed Gaza’s people, while denying them economic
growth opportunities. During this time, no infrastructure
(sewers, paved roads, etc.) was built and the population
was reduced to, in the words of one Israeli Minister,
“hewers of wood, and bearers of water,” i.e., demeaning day
labor employment in Israel.

Gaza’s only hope after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993
was that its economy and infrastructure could be developed
and opened up to the outside world. While many in the West
blamed Palestinian Authority (PA) mismanagement, the facts
point in a different direction. It was the persistence of
the occupation from 1994-2005 that resulted in Gaza’s
continued stagnation. Despite “peace on paper,” Israel
retained an iron grip on Gaza. Settlements remained, as did
the physical division of Gaza, north from south and from
the rest of Palestinian lands and the outside world. Being
denied access and egress meant difficulty in importing and
exporting and, therefore, no economic development.

When Israel unilaterally redeployed from Gaza in 2005, the
situation deteriorated even further. While Israel was able
to project its removal of 7000 settlers as a “painful
sacrifice for peace,” by refusing to coordinate their
departure with the PA or even to honor the agreement they
negotiated with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (that
should have guaranteed movement in and out of Gaza), Israel
left behind disarray and an angry and impoverished
population. By tightening their external controls on the
tiny strip, Israel, in effect, created one of the world’s
largest prison camps. Inside Gaza, Palestinians were
“free,” troubled only by their own poverty and armed gangs.
Like prisoners, they could have occasional visitors and
receive gifts – but, for the most part, they remained cut
off from the outside world.

The economy, already crippled, worsened. With Israel
refusing to open Gaza’s borders to goods, small Palestinian
factories that had once sub- contracted with larger Israeli
firms were forced to close. And this summer, tens of
millions of dollars of Palestinian produce rotted at the
check points because Israel refused to allow them to be
exported.

With the election of Hamas in January 2006, Gaza’s
situation became worse still. Having been reduced to
dependency on international donors for most of its
operating budget, the Hamas-led PA now lost even that. Tens
of thousands of civil servants (the largest group of
salaried workers in the area) now receive no income.
Hospitals provide only basic services, with critically-ill
patients or those requiring emergency care are left
untreated, unless in a moment of largesse, Israel decides
to grant them admission.

Recognizing the need to resolve, at least, the crisis
created by Israel’s and the West’s refusal to deal with the
Hamas government, Palestinian leaders from across the
political spectrum launched a number of initiatives in May
and June. These were efforts to create a new national
consensus that, it was hoped, could lead to a new non-Hamas
government that might allow aid to be restored.

It was at this point that violence flared up again.
Israel’s repeated assassinations of militants, done with
callous disregard for nearby civilians, resulted in the
death of dozens of innocents (many of them children). These
attacks were met by daily Qassam rocket attacks on an
Israeli city just beyond Gaza’s borders. And then came the
deadly June 25th attack on an Israeli military post and the
capture of Shalit.

Israel’s response has been an overwhelming, though
measured, display of force. Stunned by negative reactions
to their killing of Palestinian civilians in earlier
attacks, Israel has mainly focused its strikes on
Palestinian installations: the power plant, bridges,
ministries, a university, and various offices. But it has
been the state of siege, resulting in the complete
suffocation of Gaza, that has taken the biggest toll. The
pre- existing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has now been
magnified, with hospitals and social service agencies
reporting new casualties resulting from alarming shortages
of food, fuel and medicine.

Shielded from criticism by a compliant US administration
and press, this siege is now in its second week. Gaza is
suffering – and like Kitty Genovese’s 37 witnesses, the
rest of us watch in silence with varying degrees of
shameful paralysis. The administration has not seen fit to
publicly challenge the impact of Israel’s siege on
civilians, and the press has given only scant coverage to
the humanitarian crisis.

Some ask, what is going on? There are no good answers and
certainly no justification for this massive act of
collective punishment. The response is disproportionate and
cruel, even if one believes that it is merely an effort by
the Olmert government to free its soldier, an excuse that
even the Israeli press no longer believes. What is
occurring in Gaza today is nothing short of a crime against
humanity – unless, that is, you believe that the suffering
of one Israeli soldier outweighs the suffering being
imposed on 1.5 million innocent Palestinian men women and
children.

Worse still, if Israel’s intention here, as some Israeli
commentators suggest, is to bring down the Hamas
government, then their behavior is tantamount to an act of
terrorism – that is, the use of violence against civilians
without regard to their welfare in order to force a
political end.

No good will come of this. This is not the first time that
violence perpetrated by a reckless group has brought about
a disproportionate response that has had tragic
consequences.

Two truisms come to mind: Palestinian violence cannot end
the occupation and Israeli violence cannot squash the
Palestinian resistance to that occupation. Only sanity and
justice can bring peace and security but, alas, sanity and
justice like jobs, food, and medicine are increasingly rare
commodities in Gaza.

Meanwhile, like poor Kitty’s 37, we watch.

[Dr. James Zogby is the president of the Arab American
Institute. His column appears weekly in t r u t h o u t.
For comments or information, contact jzogby@aaiusa.org or
visit www.aaiusa.org.]

***

UFPJ Condemns Israeli Attacks on Gaza

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

United for Peace and Justice Condemns Israeli Attacks on Gaza, Calls for
an End to U.S. [and Australian] Support of the Israeli Occupation

Ten months ago Israeli military forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip, part
of the Palestinian lands long occupied by Israel. On Tuesday, June 27th,
the Israeli military launched an all-out assault on the people of Gaza,
and there seems to be no end in sight.

The destruction of vital bridges and power stations, which led to the cut
off of electricity and water for well over 1 million people, is nothing
short of collective punishment imposed on a civilian population. Israel
has also taken nearly 100 elected officials and leaders of the Hamas party
as prisoners in the last few days.

Israels massive military assault on Gaza is clear evidence that Israel
remains the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, despite its unilateral
withdrawal of settlements last year. Israel has been seeking to bring down
the Palestinian government by bringing pressure to bear on the civilian
Palestinian population, and is using the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier
as a pretext to do that. (More background information below.)

United for Peace and Justice condemns this brutal attack and calls for an
end to U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories,
including the Gaza Strip.

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE CALLS FOR:

1) An immediate end to the assault on Gaza by the Israeli military forces.

2) Cut off of U.S. financial and military aid to Israel that makes it
possible for such assaults to be carried out, as well as U.S. support for
the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

3) Immediate shipments by the US [and Australian] government of
humanitarian aid (especially food and medicines) for the people of Gaza.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION TODAY:

1) Call Prime Minister Howard (02 6277 7700) and the Foreign Minister
Downer (02 6277 7500) to demand that the Australia take immediate action.

2) Send a letter to your local paper and speak out against the latest
assaults by the Israeli government on the people of Gaza.

3) You can help get much-needed medical supplies to Gaza — click here for
more information and to make a donation.

BACKGROUND

During the month of June the Israeli military forces carried out several
deadly attacks in Gaza. On June 9th, 8 Palestinians were killed and 32
injured when a beach was shelled (see report from Human Rights Watch for
more information on this incident); on June 13th a missile attack on a
highway in Gaza killed 11 people and wounded another 30; and on June 20th
another missile attack from Israeli forces killed 3 children and wounded
15 more people.

In retaliation, Palestinian militants raided Israeli military positions
near Gaza on June 25th, during which 2 soldiers were killed and Israeli
Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured. Israel then threatened an attack if he was
not freed and began deploying tanks along the border. Their attack began
after Israel rejected Shalit’s captors’ demand for the release of all
Palestinian women and Palestinians younger than eighteen in Israeli
prisons. (There are some 9,800 Palestinians being held: 335 of them are
children and several dozen are women.)

Just before midnight on June 27th a large scale military assault on Gaza
was launched by Israel. Fighter planes hit three bridges along the main
north-south highway in Gaza. Another strike hit Gaza’s main power plant
and knocked out the electricity in densely populated Gaza City. This power
plant provided 42% of the power to Gaza’s 1.3 million residents, and now
Gaza is completely dependent on Israel for power. It could take as long as
a year to get the plant operational again. Israels deliberate targeting of
civilian infrastructure is a violation of its obligations under the Geneva
Conventions and a war crime. Israels use of U.S. taxpayer-supplied weapons
to target civilian infrastructure is also a violation of the U.S. Arms
Export Control Act; UFPJ calls upon the White House and Congress to
investigate these violations of U.S. law and take appropriate action to
shut off future weapons transfers to Israel as a result.

At about 2:30 in the morning the Israeli military forces started to move
into Gaza and take control of areas east of the city of Rafah. A little
after 5am fighter plans flew low over Gaza, causing intentional sonic
booms which reportedly shattered windows. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert said their goal was “not to mete out punishment but rather to apply
pressure so that the abducted soldier will be freed. We want to create a
new equation — freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the
pressure on the Palestinians.” Such deliberate collective punishment of a
civilian population is also a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a
war crime.

According to the June 29th edition of the NY Times, the Israeli forces
have expanded their assault: “In the West Bank city of Ramallah this
morning, Israeli forces detained 20 lawmakers and 8 ministers in the
24-member cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer and Labor
Minister Mohammed Barghouti, security officials said. Today, an Israeli
warplane fired a missile in Gaza City that an Israeli spokeswoman said hit
a soccer field near the pro-Hamas Islamic University. Reuters reported
that the missile hit inside the university … The Israelis also detained
about 20 Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament as they made arrests
in Ramallah, Jenin, East Jerusalem and elsewhere.” And the shelling and
sonic booming has continued over these past few days.

The Times went on to say, “On Wednesday, the crisis seemed to be tipping
toward escalation as Israeli tanks hunkered down inside southern Gaza at
the airport after warplanes had knocked out half of Gaza’s electricity and
pounded sonic booms over houses. Also on Wednesday, Israel battered
northern Gazan towns with artillery and sent warplanes over the house of
the Syrian president [in northwest Syria], who is influential with the
Palestinian leader believed to have ordered the kidnapping.”

According to reports in the Syrian press, the 4 Israeli fighter planes
were forced out of the airspace by Syria’s military. As bad as the
situation is, things could get even worse if Israel does not stop its
assaults. But the Israeli government is taking an extremely hard line:
Prime Minister Olmert, as quoted in the NY Times, said, “We won’t hesitate
to carry out extreme action to bring Gilad back to his family.”

All of this comes in the midst of a severe economic, humanitarian crisis
throughout Gaza and the West Bank. In January of this year international
aid to the Palestinians was cut off after the Hamas party won the
elections, leading to extreme shortages of food and medicine, as well as
other supplies and necessities. Last week, the Senate passed its version
of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which proposes additional economic
and diplomatic sanctions against the Palestinian people for exercising
their right to vote. The Senate bill, which was approved by unanimous
consent, comes on the heels of the House passing its version of the bill
last month. UFPJ has signed a statement to Congress, organized by the U.S.
Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, calling on it not to impose
sanctions on the Palestinian people for voting.

—
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern,  former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration