Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes”, MWC News, 15 February 2009.
Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes
The horrendous mortality and morbidity statistics revealed by the paper “The Wounds of Gaza” (see: http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/608 ) just published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet are truly shocking – 1,350 killed (60% children) and 5,450 severely wounded (40% children) in reprisals for zero (0) Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets in the preceding year. This demands International Criminal Court and intra-national prosecutions (e.g. in major Israeli military R & R destination countries Australia, the US, the UK and India) and Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Israel by all decent Australians and indeed all decent people around the world.
The Gaza Strip is a self-governing Apartheid Israeli Concentration Camp ruled by the Hamas Government which won 76 out of 132 seats in the Occupied Palestinian Parliamentary elections held under Israeli guns in 2006 (Israel-backed Fatah won 43 seats) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas ). The Israelis responded by arresting as many Hamas MPs as they could find, the remainder fleeing to Gaza. In the current Israeli Gaza Massacre, the Israelis are evidently bent on “finishing the job” (they have already destroyed the Gaza Parliament House). The war criminal, pro-Zionist Western backers of Apartheid Israel followed suit by declaring the democratically elected Hamas MPs to be “terrorists” and only dealing with the minority, Occupier Apartheid Israel-backed Fatah.
Under the loathed, Nazi-style, racist Apartheid régime in South Africa its Bantustans were policed by police and the worst atrocity was the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in which South African police killed 69 African protesters (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre ) – “The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and over 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children“.
Gaza - what the Catholic Church via Vatican justice and peace minister Cardinal Renato Martino and leading US conservative Pat Buchanan both call an Israeli-guarded Gaza Concentration Camp (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24888817-15084,00.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em8tREX9L8o ) - remains under blockade and under dire threat of further Israeli atrocities, this latest atrocity involving 1,350 Palestinians killed in asserted reprisals for zero (0) Israeli deaths from Gaza rockets in the preceding year and 28 Israeli deaths from Gaza missiles in the preceding 8.25 years, this latter statistic yielding an “annual homicide rate” in “persons killed per million of population” of 0.5 (Israelis killed by Gaza missiles) – as compared to 0.5 (rapist husbands killed by raped wives), 1.0 (violent husbands killed by battered wives), 15 (Israelis by Israelis), 56 (Americans), 100 (Americans by guns), 164 (Palestinians killed violently by Israelis), 200 (African-Americans), 473 (citizens of Detroit, Michigan, USA) and 902 per million per year (annual Palestinian non-violent deaths through war criminal, Geneva Convention-violating Israeli-imposed deprivation) (see Dr Gideon Polya, “Palestinian-Israeli Death Ratios . Nazi-style Israeli Gaza War Crimes”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/27795/42/ ).
However the numerically vastly greater Apartheid Israel atrocity lies in the avoidable deaths (excess deaths) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory due to Occupier refusal to supply life-sustaining food, medicine and medical services to its conquered subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”, as unequivocally demanded by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ).
3,000 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian infants die every year (about 80% avoidably), this corresponding to 3,000/ 0.7 = 4,286 total avoidable deaths annually (see “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ), and 4,286 x 8.25 = 35,360 non-violent Occupied Palestinian deaths since September 2000, in addition to the 6,200 violent Occupied Palestinian deaths at the hands of Apartheid Israelis in this period.
In the period 1967-2009 in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, post-invasion non-violent excess deaths totalled 0.3 million; post-invasion violent deaths at the hands of Israelis totalled about 10,000; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalled about 0.2 million; there are over 7 million Palestinian refugees (4.3 million registered with the UN) - a Palestinian Holocaust and a Palestinian Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Here are some shocking statistics from this report published in one of the World's top medical journals, The Lancet (see: http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/608 ), quote: "The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008.
Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years....
Death toll
As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.
Severe injuries
The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients." End quote.
While in the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre the Apartheid South African police used handguns, the weapons used by Apartheid Israelis on its Gaza Concentration Camp in 2008-2009 included phosphorus bombs (inflicts horrendous burns), heavy bombs including depleted uranium and DIME bombs (limb-slicing dense inert material explosives), fuel air explosives (bunker busters and implosion bombs), silent bombs (a new particle weapon?) and “conventional” automatic handguns (that were also used in documented executions of Gaza civilians ordered out of their homes by Apartheid Israeli troops).
These atrocities demand (1) direct UN military intervention armed with already-passed UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions; (2) intra-national and inter-national Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Israel, its Zionist or pro-Zionist backers in the US, Canada, the UK, the EU and Australia and indeed against all the countries backing Apartheid Israel; and (3) arrest and trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) of all complicit Apartheid Israeli politicians, officials and military wherever they can be apprehended throughout the world.
One of the best-known Jewish scholars in the world today, Professor Jared Diamond, in his best-selling book “Collapse (Prologue, p10, Penguin edition) enunciated the “moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people” – an injunction grossly violated by Apartheid Israel and its racist, genocidal US Alliance backers.
Further, “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “bear witness” are the fundamental, moral messages from the Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the World War 2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead) and the World War 2 Eastern Theatre Holocaust (35 million Chinese dead under Japanese occupation and 6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British in the man-made 1943-1945 Bengal Famine - for details of the latter “forgotten” Bengali Holocaust see the BBC broadcast in which I participated together with 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, Harvard University, medical historian Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya, Wellcome Institute, University College London, and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; see also “Media lying over Churchill’s crimes. British-Indian Holocaust”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26713/42/ ).
These fundamental moral injunctions from the Jewish Holocaust and the World War 2 Holocaust in general of “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone” and “bear witness” are also being grossly violated by the racist Zionists (RZs) running Apartheid Israel and their racist, genocidal US Alliance backers..
If the World unjustly continues to accept that after 40 years of Apartheid Israeli Occupation it is “right” for 4 million Occupied Palestinians (50% children, 75% women and children) to continue to be subject to highly abusive, race-based mass imprisonment without charge or trial then it should at least urgently insist that they should be Occupied immediately by a Civilized Country e.g. by a peace-keeping force from a Civilized Country such as Costa Rica (no army), Switzerland (neutral country) or Fiji (distinguished record of participation in peace-keeping) with International and US Guarantees of territorial integrity and total airport level security for Nazi-style, racist Zionist (RZ)-run Apartheid Israel.