Fodder

Hamas, compared to the Israeli military, are, without question, little more than fodder for the Israeli governments continued oppression of the Palestinian peoples.

I am for Peace on both sides. I do not listen to the media, I listen to the numbers and they rarely lie. It is a sad situation for both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. I pray for Peace. I pray that the Palestinians can reign in Hamas and put a stop to their rocket attacks and I pray that the Israeli people can influence their government to end their far superior bombing and allow Palestine to live freely. The years of Israel's occupation of Palestine is well documented- sanctions, cutting off water and food supplies, bulldozing homes and occupying land with impunity.

---- " ** 131 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,661 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.

** 1,134 Israelis and at least 7,428 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000.

** 8,600 Israelis and 59,737 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000.

** During Fiscal Year 2013, the U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.5 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians.

** Israel has been targeted by at least 77 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by 1.

** 0 Israelis are possibly being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 6,000 Palestinians are currently imprisoned by Israel.

** 0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and at least 28,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967.

** The Israeli unemployment rate is 5.8%, while the Palestinian unemployment in the West Bank is 22.5% and 27.9% in Gaza.

** Israel currently has 262 Jewish-only settlements and ‘outposts’ built on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians do not have any settlements on Israeli land.

** Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live in an odd and oppressive limbo. They have no nation, no citizenship, and no ultimate power over their own lives.

Since 1967, when Israel conquered these areas (the final 22 percent of mandatory Palestine), Palestinians have been living under Israeli military occupation. While in some parts Israel has allowed a Palestinian “autonomous” entity to take on such municipal functions as education, health care, infrastructure and policing, Israel retains overall power.

According to international law, an occupying force is responsible for the protection of the civilian population living under its control. Israel, however, ignores this requirement, routinely committing violations of the Geneva Conventions, a set of principles instituted after World War II to ensure that civilians would “never again” suffer as they had under Nazi occupation. Israel is one of the leading violators of these conventions today.

Israeli forces regularly confiscate private land; imprison individuals without process – including children – and physically abuse them under incarceration; demolish family homes; bulldoze orchards and crops; place entire towns under curfew; destroy shops and businesses; shoot, maim, and kill civilians – and Palestinians are without power to stop any of it.

When a child is arrested, for example – often by a group of armed soldiers in the middle of the night – parents can do nothing. Knowing that their son is most likely being beaten by soldiers on the way to the station, stripped and humiliated in prison, quite likely physically abused in multiple additional ways, and destined to be held – perhaps in isolation – for days, week, or months (all before a trial has even taken place), parents are without the ability to protect their child. Quite often, in fact, they cannot even visit him.

Finally, when the military trial under which their son is to be sentenced – often to years (sometimes decades) in prison – all they can do is hire a lawyer whose efforts, at best, will reduce the ultimate sentence by a few months. Rarely, if ever, can even the most skilled lawyer do more than afford the child a friendly face in court and be an outside witness to the injustice of the proceedings. Meanwhile, the presence of such a lawyer provides Israel cover for its “judicial system.”

Perhaps most significant – and rarely understood by people in the outside world – is the fact that Palestinians live, basically, in a prison in which Israel holds the keys.

They cannot leave Gaza or the West Bank unless Israeli guards allow them to. If they have been allowed out, they cannot return to their homes and families unless Israeli guards permit it.

Frequently, in both cases, Israel refuses such permission.

Academics invited to attend conferences abroad, high school students given US State Department scholarships to study in the United States, mothers wishing to visit daughters abroad, American citizens returning to their families, humanitarians bringing wheelchairs – the list goes on almost without limit – have all been denied permission by Israel to leave or enter their own land. "----

© 2014 Mark Richard Prime

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/