AIC Condemns Israeli Massacre in Gaza, Calls on International Community to Act Immediately
Written by The Alternative Information Center (AIC)
http://alternativenews.dyndns.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=608&Itemid=1
Israel’s early morning massacre of 19 Palestinian civilians on 8 November, including eight children and four women, is the latest outrage in the current all-out and continuing war against the Palestinian people in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The AIC echoes the call of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who declared in a statement that “we urge and call the [UN] Security Council to convene immediately to stop the massacres committed against our people and to uphold their responsibility to stop these massacres.”
Israel’s undeclared war against the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza is not, as Israel ingeniously claims, a response to the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. The military attacks are additional proof that Israel does indeed continue to occupy the Gaza Strip despite the evacuation of settlers from the area last year, and are part of Israel’s long-term political strategy to systematically apply lethal political and economic pressure on Palestinian society. By sowing death and destruction in Gaza, Israel aims to destroy the human and material possibilities for a viable future for Palestinians in the area. Further, whenever the democratically elected Palestinian government approaches agreement and consensus among its citizenry, Israel acts with brute force to foster internal contradictions and perpetual strife within Palestinian society.
Moreover, the Israeli government launches military attacks against the Gaza Strip in an effort to stabilize its own political foundations—foundations shaken by accusations of corruption, and the results of Israel’s war against Lebanon and the Lebanese people this past summer. These, coupled with the recent addition to the government of fascist Member of Knesset Avigdor Lieberman (a move supported by the Labor Party) demonstrate, yet again, that Israel believes it has the right to act according to its own rules to the exclusion of international norms of peace and justice.
The AIC stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza in these terrible days and supports their internationally recognized right to resist the ongoing Israeli occupation and struggle for their very right of existence.
As a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization, the AIC calls on the democratic forces working for peace and justice within Israel to demand an immediate end to Israel’s military attacks on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This is also the time to push even harder for the commencement of a true peace process, in which conditions will be created for justice, peace and a joint future for the Palestinian and Israeli people. Just as the American people utilized this week’s national elections in the United States to punish the Bush administration for its ongoing occupation of Iraq, Israelis must demand accountability and a change from their political establishment.
The international community has hitherto failed to prevent Israel’s ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people. The AIC calls on the international community to employ the vast political and economic resources at its disposal—including the deployment of boycott, sanctions and divestment—in order to halt Israel’s brutal attacks against the Palestinian people of the Occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. It must further hold Israel accountable for these grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Israel is threatening the Palestinian people’s very right to exist, and the international community has a moral, legal and political obligation to respond immediately and appropriately.