Dr Gideon Polya is an Australian biochemist, academic, writer, artist and human rights and environment advocate (see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).
Dr Gideon Polya on the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (6 March 2008): “The situation has been recently described as described as a Palestinian Holocaust by Palestinian scholar Dr Elias Akleh, exiled from his homeland and now living in the US (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/akleh040308.htm ). It has been frequently described by others as a Palestinian Genocide, a term that is amply justified in relation to the definitions of the UN Genocide Convention as outlined below.
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states:
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”.
Using the latest available UN Agency data we can systematically analyze these UN Genocide Convention points thus:
“Intent to destroy in whole or in part" - sustained (and frequently asserted) intent over about 150 years of the Zionist colonial project; 0.75 million Palestinian refugees in 1948; currently 7 million Palestinian refugees, and 4.2 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN in the Middle East; over 40 years of illegal Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million; post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; 2,400 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) infants die avoidably EACH YEAR in the OPT "Prison" due to Apartheid Israeli war crimes.
a) Killing - about 50,000 Palestinians killed since 1948; post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million; post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; 2,400 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) infants die avoidably EACH YEAR in the OPT "Prison" due to Israeli ignoring of the Geneva Convention; 254 OPT Palestinians killed by the Israeli military in the LAST 2 MONTHS OF 2008 ALONE, 301 killed thus last year (latest UNRWA data; see above).
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm - see (a) and the shocking UNICEF reports of the appalling conditions psychologically scarring OPT children: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/oPt.html .
(c) Conditions to cause destruction in whole or in part - see (a) and (b); Professor Noam Chomsky describes the OPT as a highly abusive "Prison"; others use the valid term "Concentration Camp" and make parallels with the Warsaw Ghetto; one has to turn to US-guarded Vietnamese hamlets and the Nazi era atrocities to see routine, horrendously violent and deadly military policing of civilian concentration camps.
(d) Measures intended to prevent births - see (a), (b), and (c) above; dozens of pregnant women dying at road blocks; other killing of pregnant Palestinian women; huge infant mortality in the OPT with the Occupier in gross violation of the Geneva Convention.
(e) Forcible transferring of children – irreversible transferring by killing of children - 0.2 million post-invasion infant deaths; 27 OPT children violently killed in the LAST WEEK ALONE; mass imprisonment of 2 million OPT children; hundreds of Palestinian children in abusive Israeli high-security prisons in Israel; forcible separation of families by racist Israeli Apartheid Laws, marriage laws and immigration laws.
As indicated above we have to turn to the Nazi crimes of WW2 and post-war US war crimes in its post-1950 Asian Wars for baseline comparisons for horrendous maltreatment and mass murder of conquered Indigenous civilians.” [1].
Dr Gideon Polya on racist Zionism and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (29 September 2009): “7. 1.5 million Arab Israelis live as second class citizens subject to Nazi-style race laws demanding Apartheid-style, race-based ID and affecting property rights, employment, and marriage.
8. 4 million Indigenous Palestinians live under an illegal, brutal, genocidal, 42 year duration Occupation that has been formally condemned by both General Assembly and UN Security Council Resolutions.
9. 2 .5 million West Bank Occupied Palestinians live in Zionist-encircled “Bantustans” in a territory being illegally whittled away by military camps, military check points, race-based settlements and Jews-only highways and roads.
10. 1.5 million Occupied Palestinians live in what the Catholic Church has described as the Gaza Concentration Camp which is policed not by Israeli police but by Israeli air force, army and naval shelling, bombing and shooting.
11. In 1880 there were 500,000 Indigenous Arab Palestinians and 25,000 Jews (50% immigrants) in the Holy Land – today there are 5.5 million Indigenous Palestinians in the Holy Land and some 5.5 million Palestinian refugees elsewhere and excluded from their Homeland, which is occupied by 5.5 million Jewish Israelis backed by the US, UK, Canada, the EU and racist Australia.
12. In the 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections conducted under Occupier guns, Hamas won 76 seats out of 132 but these Hamas MPs are now overwhelmingly either dead, imprisoned or hiding in the Gaza Concentration Camp and regarded as “terrorists” by the “democratic Nazi” US, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia.
13. UN data reveal that each year Israel is responsible for 3,600 Occupied Palestinian under-5 year old avoidable deaths, 5,700 Occupied Palestinian non-violent avoidable deaths and about 800 violent Occupied Palestinian deaths.
14. The Palestinian Genocide continues despite numerous UN General Assembly and UN Security Council Resolutions, notably UN Security Council Resolution 252 prohibiting land and property seizure, notably in Jerusalem…
22. As of mid-2009, in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories post-invasion non-violent excess deaths total 0.3 million, 1.0 million and 3.2 million, respectively; post-invasion violent deaths total about 11,000, 1.3 million and up to 4 million, respectively; post-invasion violent plus non-violent excess deaths total 0.3 million, 2.3 million and 3-7 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.3 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively (plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees in NW Pakistan). This constitutes a Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention; and egregious war crimes due in part to Occupier war criminal non-supply of life-sustaining food and medical requisites demanded unequivocally by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War – thus the Gaza Concentration Camp has been under US-backed Israeli blockade for 2 years and according to WHO the “total annual per capita medical expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan is US$124 and US$29, respectively, as compared to US$6,714 for the US.” [2].
Gideon Polya, “We are all Palestinian” (February 2008): “3,000 under-5 Occupied Palestinians die each year. Comparisons with other countries will reveal that about 2,400 of these infant deaths are avoidable, that Zionist-run Apartheid is deliberately, remorselessly (albeit passively) murdering 2,400 Occupied Palestinian infants each year through deliberate, intentional and war criminal
NON-provision of life-sustaining requisites unequivocally demanded of Occupiers by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War).
However the bigger picture derives from UN Population Division and UNHCR data that reveal that post-invasion Occupied Palestinian excess deaths total 0.3 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million and that there are about 7 million Palestinian refugees (see “Zionism, Occupation & Palestinian Genocide” on MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17194/42/ . This constitutes a Palestinian Holocaust and a Palestinian Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention.
However behind these awful statistics lie horrendously abusive conditions that are also reported by UNICEF. Half of the Occupied Palestinians are children who are being denied proper food, nutrition, medicine, medical aid, sanitation, physical and psychological security, education and basic human rights by the proto-Nazi Zionists running the Occupied Palestinian Territory Concentration camp.
My family’s story
Many years ago racist invaders occupied my family’s country, my people were subject to brutality, dispossession, torture and killing - several hundred thousand of my people died out of a population of the order of a million. Our homes and lands were taken so that, even if permitted to return, refugees would have nothing to return to. Several years ago the European Union approved our dispossession.
My family was Palestinian, you say?
No. In 1944 the German Nazis invaded Hungary, 0.2 million out of 0.7 million Jewish Hungarians were killed [Professor Gilbert has recently estimated 0.4 million were killed] and many of the survivors fled immediately after 1945 or during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. In 2004 Hungary entered the EU with the EU approval of the permanent dispossession of Jewish Hungarian victims of Nazism and thence Communism. Our lands and homes have been simply given to others. Indeed a relative reported visiting one such property in the heart of Budapest – it was converted into 4 apartments decorated with paintings and photographs of our family members for the amusement of total strangers.
Comparison of the Palestinian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust in Hungary is appropriate. The Jewish Holocaust occurring in Hungary in 1944 -1945 killed 0.2 million out of a total Jewish Hungarian population of 0.7 million (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London).
Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London). The survivors who fled as refugees remain permanently dispossessed with EU, UK and US approval.
The Palestinian Genocide involved invasion, occupation, disempowerment, dispossession, violence, ethnic cleansing and (within the Holy Land) post-1967 excess deaths totalling 0.3 million out of an average 1967-2008 Occupied Palestinian territory population of 1.8 million. The survivors who fled as refugees remain permanently dispossessed with EU, US, UK and US-lackey Australian approval.
Whereas the Jewish Holocaust involved rapid, anti-Jewish anti-Semitic , race-based extermination for Nazi and Nazi collaborator benefit and gratification, the Palestinian Genocide has involved slow, anti-Arab anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing for Zionist lebensraum.” [3]
Gideon Polya on Israeli state terrorism (2009): “Israelis killed by Palestinians (1967-2009) = 987 (1967-Sep 2000) + 1,182 (Sep 2000-Jan 2009) = 2,169 (1967-Jan 2009).
Israeli non-violent excess deaths (1967-Jan 2009) = 0.
Palestinians violently killed by Israelis (1967-2009) = 5,636 (Sep 2000-Jan 2009) + POSSIBLY about 5,000 (1967-Sep 2000) = 10, 636.
Palestinian non-violent excess deaths from food and medical deprivation by Israelis (post-1967) = about 300,000.
Palestinian violent and non-violent excess deaths (post-1967) = 300,000 + 10,636 = 310,636.
DEATH RATIO of Palestinians violently killed by Israelis/Israelis killed by Palestinians = 10,636/2,169 = 4.9.
DEATH RATIO of Palestinian violent and non-violent excess deaths from Israelis/Israelis killed by Palestinians = 310,636/2,169 = 143…
The post-1967 under-5 infant deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territory total 0.2 million (80% avoidable and due to war criminal Occupier non-provision of life-sustaining requisites unequivocally demanded of Occupiers by Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Comparative UNICEF data indicate that 2,400 under-5 year old infants die avoidably each year (3,000 in total each year) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, this corresponding to about 4,300 total avoidable deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territory annually. The current devastation of the Gaza Concentration Camp part of Occupied Palestinian Territory (1.5 million people in Gaza out of the Occupied Palestinian Territory total population of 4 million , 50% children, 75% women and children) suggests that this will rise hugely in the future on the basis of Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan comparisons.
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. 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”.
The ostensible excuse for Apartheid Israel’s current Gaza Massacre is “Gaza rocket terror”. However “terror” is directly proportional to “proportion of people killed” and the ACTUAL number of Israelis killed by Gaza rockets and mortars since the start of the Second Intifada 8.25 years ago is TWENTY EIGHT (28), this corresponding to a 21st century “annual homicide rate” in units of persons killed per million per year of 0.5 (Israelis killed by Gaza missiles) – as compared to 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).
The above REALITIES show that Apartheid Israel and racist, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, pro-Zionist Mainstream media and politicians in the Western Murdochracies are simply and blatantly LYING about “Hamas terror” and “Gaza rocket terror”. Clearly, indiscriminate firing of missiles is WRONG and should STOP – indeed the greatest danger from such acts has been from the horrendous, disproportionate, war criminal attacks by the Israelis on Gaza, one of the most the densely populated urban areas of the Planet.
Rational analysis indicates that the “annual death rate” of Israelis from Gaza missiles is about ONE THOUSAND (1,000) times LOWER than the “annual homicide rate” in Detroit, Michigan, USA – it would be crazy, racist and utterly EVIL to suggest that African-Americans should be listed as “terrorists” and African-American suburbs sealed off as Concentration Camps, shelled by the US Navy and Army and bombed with high explosive bombs and rockets, cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs by the US Air Force.” [4].
Gideon Polya on Gaza Massacre, Palestinian Holocaust and Palestinian Genocide (February 2009): “The horrendous mortality and morbidity statistics revealed by the paper "The Wounds of Gaza", 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…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.” [5].
Gideon Polya (anti-racist Jewish Hungarian-origin Australian scientist, writer, artist and humanitarian) (2017): “Netanyahu is the PM of nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, serial invader, serial war criminal, women-abusing, children-abusing, democracy-by-genocide, ethnic cleansing, pathologically mendacious, neo-Nazi, anti-Arab anti-Semitic and indeed anti-Jewish anti-Semitic, race-based kleptocracy Apartheid Israel. Netanyahu has been invited to visit pro-Zionist, US-lackey, climate criminal Australia, the world’s leading supporter of Apartheid Israel after the US, and will address the Australian Federal Parliament in February 2017…
Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that :“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”. Apartheid Israel is guilty of violating all these elements of the UN Genocide Convention: (1) since 1936 there have been 2 million Palestinian deaths from Zionist violence (0.1 million) or Zionist-imposed deprivation (1.9 million ); (2) there are 7 million Palestinian refugees and all of the 12 million Palestinians are excluded from all or part of Palestine; (3) of 12 million Palestinians (half of them children), 6 million are forbidden to even step foot in their own country on pain of death, 4.7 million are highly abusively and violently held hostage with zero human rights under Israeli guns in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million) or in ever-dwindling West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (2.7 million), and 1.7 million live as Third Class citizens as Israeli Palestinians under Nazi-style Apartheid Israeli race laws; (4) 90% of Palestine has now been ethnically cleansed of Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants (this making a 2-State Solution impossible); (5) the huge disparity in annual GDP per capita between Occupied Palestinians ($2,800) and Israel-proper ($38,000) is reflected in huge differential avoidable mortality of over 4,000 avoidable deaths per year for Occupied Palestinians versus zero (0) for Israelis; (6) through imposed deprivation, each year Apartheid Israel passively murders about 2,700 under-5 year old Palestinian infants and passively murders about 4,200 Occupied Palestinians in general; (7) Apartheid Israel violently kills an average of about 500 Occupied Palestinians each year (3,900 Gaza Palestinian violently killed in 2008-2014 in response to 32 Israeli deaths from home-made Gaza rockets since 2004); and (8) Occupied Palestinians are deprived of essentially all human rights by Apartheid Israel, of which the most fundamental is the right to live unmolested in their own country…
Decent people around the world urge and apply comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and all its racist supporters” [6].
[1]. Gideon Polya, “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide. Israel-US & Nazi death ratios compared”, MWC News, 6 March 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20745/42/ .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist Israel racism exposed in 50 steps”, MWC News, 29 September 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/33457/42/ .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “We are all Palestinian. Apartheid Israel’s Gaza Concentration Camp & Palestinian Genocide”, MWC News, 1 February 2008: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19915/42/ .
[4]. Gideon Polya, “Palestinian-Israeli death ratios. Nazi style Israel Gaza war crimes”, MWC News, 10 January 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/27795/42/ .
[5]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Gaza Massacre. “The Lancet” reveals horrendous Israeli war crimes”, MWC News, 15 February 2009: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/28566/42/ .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Australia welcomes genocidal racist and serial war criminal Netanyahu”, Countercurrents, 10 February 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/10/australia-welcomes-genocidal-racist-and-serial-war-criminal-netanyahu/ .
Dr Gideon Polya (11 June 2019):
“Tales Of A City By The Sea” by Gaza-born, Palestinian Australian playwright and poet, Samah Sabawi, is a simple but powerful play about the realities of life and love in the Gaza Concentration Camp that is ruled with an iron fist by nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. However fundamentally the play is about those who have choices and those who do not. This excellent and moving play describes part of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust in microcosm.
The land of Palestine has now been 90% ethnically cleansed, rendering a “2-state solution” dead and making imperative a unitary, secular and democratic state in Palestine. While Indigenous Palestinians represent 50% of Apartheid Israeli subjects, nearly three quarters have zero human rights and cannot vote for the government ruling them – egregious Apartheid that is declared by the UN to be a crime against Humanity. While only 4,000 Zionists were killed by Palestinians in the period 1920-2019, since the British invasion of the Middle East in 1914 about 2.2 million Palestinians have died from violence, 0.1 million, or from imposed deprivation, 2.1 million.
The 100-year Palestinian Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust is of the same order of magnitude as the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed by violence or imposed deprivation) or the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British with Australian complicity). All decent people must urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its genocidally racist supporters, just as such boycotts and sanctions were successfully applied by the world to end the racist obscenity of Apartheid in South Africa (see Gideon Polya, “Review: “Tales Of A City By The Sea” by Samah Sabawi – Palestinian Genocide & Palestinian Holocaust In Microcosm”, Countercurrents, 10 June 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/review-tales-of-a-city-by-the-sea-by-samah-sabawi-palestinian-genocide-palestinian-holocaust-in-microcosm )."
Dr Gideon Polya (2019): “I have estimated that 2.2 million Palestinian have died from violence, 0.1 million, or from imposed deprivation, 2.1 million, since the British invasion of the Ottoman Empire in 1914 in WW1. The details are set out below in a 2019 update on the ongoing Palestinian Genocide… The total number of violent and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Palestinian Genocide (2.2 million) is of same order of magnitude as the number of victims of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed by violence or imposed deprivation)” (Gideon Polya, “Palestinian Genocide has killed 2.2 million”, Veterans Today, 10 June 2019: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/06/10/new-evidence/ ).
Dr Gideon Polya (2019): “The total number of violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Palestinian Genocide (2.2 million) is of same order of magnitude as the number of victims of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed by violence or imposed deprivation) [31-33], and of the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust (the WW2 Indian Holocaust or WW2 Bengal Famine in which the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to deaths in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Orissa for strategic reasons) [34-41], but is an order of magnitude lower than the number of victims of the “forgotten” WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35 million Chinese killed under the Japanese, 1937-1945) [42] or of the largely Western-ignored WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed by the Nazis in WW2) [24]. “Holocaust” refers to a huge number of deaths whereas “genocide” is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” [43]. Thus on a comparative basis the Palestinian Genocide merits the term Palestinian Holocaust. Numerous victims and descendants of victims of the WW2 Jewish Genocide (WW2 Jewish Holocaust, Shoa) together with Western supporters of Zionism have been involved in supporting an ongoing Palestinian Genocide and Palestinian Holocaust. However for the best part of a century anti-racist Jews have been variously rejecting genocidal Zionism, criticizing the appalling crimes of Apartheid Israel, and declaring “Not in our name”” (Gideon Polya, “Review: “Tales Of A City By The Sea” by Samah Sabawi – Palestinian Genocide & Palestinian Holocaust In Microcosm”, Countercurrents, 10 June 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/review-tales-of-a-city-by-the-sea-by-samah-sabawi-palestinian-genocide-palestinian-holocaust-in-microcosm ).