Voice of Revolution

Palestinians in the West Bank town of Nablus and the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria demonstrate against the Israeli aggression in Gaza

Oppose Assault on Gaza

No To U.S.-Israeli War Crimes! End All U.S. Support for Israel! End the Occupation Now!

The U.S. bears full responsibility for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being carried out against the Palestinian people. Genocide is taking place in Gaza, again, with the brutal bombing by Israel of the civilian population, civilian infrastructure and blockade of food, water and medicine. While it is Israel that is doing the bombing, these crimes are taking place with the full backing and support of the U.S.

The brutal escalation of attacks on Palestine follows the meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with President Bush on May 23. Shortly after this visit, Israel began yet another systematic campaign against the Palestinians, including killing a family picnicking on the beach, and many other women and children. At the same time, the U.S. pressured and blackmailed governments worldwide to block funds and resources for Palestine and to insist that countries not recognize the elected Palestinian government, headed by Hamas. The combined aim was to bring about "regime change" and bring the Palestinians to their knees. The effort failed. Then at the end of June Israel launched its full military assault. None of this could occur without the black mail and political cover by the U.S. and without military, financial and political backing of the U.S.

In the face of this genocide, with its wanton killing of civilians, the U.S. is justifying the crimes, saying Israel is simply exercising its "right to self-defense" - in occupied territory, against a people with no planes, no helicopters, no tanks. The U.S. says, "Both sides must show restraint." The content of this has been made clear. The US and Israel can openly carry out genocide and war crimes, detain elected Palestinian officials, bomb hospitals, schools and a power station. The Palestinians are not to defend themselves in their own lands, but must "show restraint," "beginning with the return of the Israeli soldier."

The U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization condemns the U.S. backing of Israel and holds the U.S. government fully responsible for all the crimes now occurring against the Palestinians. It is the U.S. that makes these crimes possible and it is the U.S. that can end them. USMLO joins many organizations in the U.S. and peoples worldwide in demanding that the U.S. stop all military, economic and political support for Israel. We demand that the U.S. act to bring about an end to the occupation of Palestine now, beginning with insisting that Israel out of Gaza and return to the 1967 borders. It is the occupation that is the source of violence. It is the U.S. backing of Israel that allows these crimes to continue. It is the ending of both that will give rise to peace and security for all the peoples of the region.

We also condemn the disinformation of the government, repeated by the monopoly media, that the problem is the Palestinians. The problem is the occupation and U.S. backing of it. The problem is U.S. and Israeli impunity, in the name of "self-defense." The U.S. invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq took place in the name of "self-defense." Now, with Israel carrying out open genocide and other crimes against humanity, Bush supports these crimes by saying Israel is only exercising its "right to self-defense." While the Palestinians are in their own lands, resisting an illegal occupation, without bombers or tanks, it is they who supposedly must "show restraint." This disinformation, like that about Iraq, is designed to justify widespread impunity and brutality by the U.S. and their client-state, Israel.

While the Palestinians do not have tanks and bombers and bulldozers, they do have the unstoppable weapons of a just cause and a people united to defend this cause and all their rights. They have the broad support of the peoples worldwide, who are demanding an end to the occupation and an end to U.S. and Israeli crimes. USMLO calls on the American working class and people to step up the struggle to end all U.S. support of Israel, to hold the U.S. responsible for the crimes against the Palestinians and to demand an end to the occupation now. It is the U.S. organized and sponsored violence and crimes that are the problem.

No to U.S. & Israeli Crimes Against Humanity!
End All U.S. Backing of Israel!
End the Occupation Now!

[TOP]

Criminal U.S.-Backed Israeli Assault on Gaza

The U.S. is fully backing a massive Israeli assault on the Palestinian people, directed at bombing civilians and civilian infrastructure, like water and power facilities. President George W. Bush emphasized the complete backing of the U.S. when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited the White House on May 23. Bush again spoke to "the deep and abiding ties between Israel and the United States." He said he and Olmert discussed their visions for "peace and security" in the region and that he supported Olmert's "bold ideas." He added that the U.S. is "strongly committed" to a "secure Israel." While not spoken of openly, there is little doubt that the on-going military attack on Palestine was among the "bold ideas" Bush gave the green light to. It is the U.S. that supplies the planes, helicopters, bombs, funding and political cover that makes such attacks by Israel possible. For this reason, the U.S. bears prime responsibility for these crimes.

Since the US-Israel criminal military assault against Gaza began, June 28, the occupation forces have bombed water pipelines and the principal electricity station, leaving the majority of the population without electricity. Up until July 2 when Israel temporarily re-opened its main cargo crossing into Gaza, no shipments of food, fuel and medical supplies were allowed in. Several bridges connecting the north and south of the Gaza Strip have been bombed while portions of Palestinian territory have been reoccupied.

In a flagrant and criminal attack on the Palestine government, the Interior Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office were bombed while high-ranking figures from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank have been detained, including cabinet ministers, Members of Parliament and a number of elected mayors. Parts of northern Gaza have now been reoccupied using armored vehicles, including the sites of three former Israeli settlements. Israel also violated Syrian airspace by provocatively flying over the summer home of President Bashar Al-Assad while he was in residence.

The U.S-Israeli assault, called "Operation Summer Rains," involves some 5,000 soldiers, hundreds of tanks and other military hardware including low-flying F-16 fighter jets that are purposely causing sonic booms to terrorize the population. Israel used the capture of an Israeli soldier, at a military installation, on June 25, by the Palestinian resistance, as an excuse to launch this brutal attack. However, it is clear that the capture of the soldier is a pretext for an attack that has been in the works for weeks, if not months, as evidenced by the rapid mobilization of occupation troops instead of using diplomatic means to resolve the issue. Israel has also called for foreign citizens and journalists to leave Gaza as it plans to intensify the assault.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned the attack as a war crime and called on the United Nations and all its institutions to immediately intervene and put an end to the Israeli atrocities. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the invasion is a crime against humanity and collective punishment against the Palestinian people.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the assault was a planned attempt to undermine the Palestinian presidency and government. "Israel already succeeded in demolishing Gaza's economy by enforcing a siege against the territory following its withdrawal. Now it appears to be following that up by destroying its civil infrastructure and political institutions. It is the responsibility of all civilized peoples and governments to demand an immediate end to this Israeli assault on the basic rights of the Palestinian people," he said.

Arab and Islamic nations renewed efforts at the United Nations (UN) for a Security Council resolution demanding that Israel immediately pull out of Gaza and release all Palestinian officials it has kidnapped.

Ambassadors from the 57 countries making up the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) met in New York to adopt a statement condemning Israel's military assault in Gaza and its arrest and detention of Palestinian officials. It called on the UN Security Council to "act promptly" to pressure Israel to "cease its aggression" against Palestinian civilians and seek emergency aid for Gaza.

Arab and Islamic groups at the UN have approved a draft resolution proposed by the delegations of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia. It was presented to the Secretary of the UN Human Rights Council to make it an official document to be submitted to the Council's extraordinary meeting to study Israeli violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories. The draft called for stopping the Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip as well as halting the continued Israeli violations against Palestinians, and condemning the Israeli arrests of Palestinian officials and ministers.

The 57-member Human Rights Council passed a resolution with a vote of 29-11 with 5 abstentions. The resolution opposed Israel's military operations and expressed "deep concern" over the arbitrary arrest of Palestinian officials. The Human Rights Council is also sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza. The U.S., which is not a member of the Council, denounced the resolution as being "unbalanced" and "one-sided" against Israel. The U.S., silent on the brutal killings of Palestinians and broad targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, claims what is needed is for "both sides" to work for a lasting peace. According to the U.S., peace can only "begin with the return of the Israeli soldier."

Demonstrations in the U.S. and worldwide have opposed the attacks. Iranian officials denounced the assault and criticized the big powers for claiming to support democracy but rejecting the democratically elected Palestinian government. The Yemeni government denounced the attack as "terrorist aggression." Jordan, Malaysia, Venezuela and Cuba also denounced the assault. Brazilian media reported that the Israeli ambassador was summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Relations to inform her of the Brazilian government's "extreme concern."

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to issue statements aimed at disinforming public opinion. As occurred with the UN Human Rights Council resolution, the U.S. continues to emphasize that "both sides" should show restraint, and that the main crime is capture of the Israeli soldier-a soldier captured by Palestinians, exercising their right to oppose occupation, a right sanctioned by international law and the United Nations.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said: "Israel has the right to defend itself and the lives of its citizens. In any actions the government of Israel may undertake, the United States urges that it ensures that innocent civilians are not harmed, and also that it avoid the unnecessary destruction of property and infrastructure. All parties ought to take every measure to restore the security situation in Gaza."

Such statements cover up that the very aim of the U.S. backed and funded crimes is to destroy the infrastructure in Gaza, undermine and paralyze the Palestinian government and collectively punish the Palestinian people for not giving up their resistance and defending their right to self-determination and to live with dignity. The genocidal U.S.-Israeli policy to dispossess and eliminate the Palestinian people is to be ignored and justified, under the guise that it is the Palestinians who must "show restraint."

Again and again Israel is allowed to act with impunity -- arrogantly flouting international law and countless United Nations resolutions. It can do so only because of the economic, military and political support of the U.S. It is the U.S. that is the major source of these crimes and it is the U.S. and Israel that must be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[TOP]

US & Israel Create Humanitarian Crisis

- Marjorie Cohn -

The daily horrors emerging from Iraq have caused a majority of people in the United States to oppose Bush's war there. Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis Israel has created in the occupied territories hovers below the radar for most Americans.

Israel has used the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of a third by Palestinians as an excuse to invade Gaza with overwhelming military force and demolish its infrastructure. What Israel and its benefactor - the United States - really want is to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government.

During the preceding weeks, Israel instigated events that resulted in the capture of the Israeli soldier. The Israeli military had killed more than 30 civilians, including three children and a pregnant woman.

In the week since the Israeli soldier was captured, Israel's US-supplied artillery has pounded the northern Gaza Strip. Its aircraft struck bridges on the main roads. And its helicopters knocked out Gaza's main power plant, leaving half of Gaza's 1.5 million people and its two main hospitals without electricity and running water. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have warned of a humanitarian crisis.

Israeli troops and tanks rolled into the southern Gaza Strip, in the biggest raid since Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Israel has kidnapped 64 Palestinian governmental ministers and politicians. It bombed the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the astounding statement, "I am deeply sorry for the residents of Gaza, but the lives, security and well-being of the residents of [Jewish] Sderot is even more important to me." The Associated Press quoted Olmert as saying, "I want no one to sleep at night in Gaza. I want them to know what it feels like."

The crisis caused by the Israeli government has upset many Israeli citizens.

Hundreds of Israelis protested outside Olmert's home, denouncing the government as war criminals and demanding an end to the Gaza invasion. "We call for our government to stop targeting Palestinian civilians - the targeting of civilians is a war crime - and start negotiating with the elected Palestinian leaders, not to arrest them," said Yishai Menuhin, a spokesman for the peace group Yesh Gvul.

Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz commentator Gideon Levy also criticized the Israeli actions. He wrote, "A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization."

Israel's brutal retaliation against Palestinian civilians constitutes collective punishment. Attacks on a civilian population as a form of collective punishment violate article 50 of the Hague Regulations, which provides: "No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."

The Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits collective punishment. Article 33 says: "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed." The Convention requires all states party to it to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of the war crime of "causing extensive destruction ... not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." Amnesty International called the deliberate attacks by Israeli forces against civilian property and infrastructure war crimes.

Collective punishment is likewise forbidden by Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. As four US Supreme Court justices agreed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last week, Article 75 is "indisputably part of the customary international law."

Before Israel's invasion of Gaza last week, Hamas was beginning to retreat from its position that Israel has no right to exist. But Financial Times quoted Efraim Halevy, Israel's most widely respected security expert, as saying, "Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist. Israel exists and Hamas's recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact."

The state of Israel is in no danger of perishing. Israel is the fourth largest military power in the world. Its "enemy" - the Palestinian people - have no tanks, no airplanes, no heavy artillery.

The United States' loyal and consistent support for Israel's policies - to the tune of more than $3 billion in aid per year - has enabled the Israeli government to conduct a war of terror against the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat once told an American journalist, "I'll tell you what this war taught us. It taught us that the real enemy is the United States. It is against you that we must fight. Not because your bombs killed our people but because you have closed your eyes to what is moral and just."

If the US really wished to act on its human rights rhetoric, it should apply political and economic pressure that Israel could not resist. Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, military hardware sold by the United States can only be used for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. Israel has used F-16 fighter jets, Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, 15mm howitzers, M-16 automatic rifles, M50 machine guns and many other weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States. Retired US Army General James J. David, in a letter to Colin Powell in January, 2002, wrote: "If you're going to deny the Palestinians weapons to defend themselves, then you must stop all military and economic aid to Israel."

The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the United States from rendering assistance to the government of any country " which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights."

The United States should halt Israel's aggression against the Palestinians by suspending all economic and military aid to Israel until Israel's military forces have been withdrawn from the occupied Palestinian territories.

But Israel is the US client-state in the Middle East and Bush is just the latest US president to continue that symbiotic relationship.

Hamas has responded to the recent Israeli aggression with threats of retaliation. This probably means the resumption of the suicide bombings that Hamas halted more than a year ago. A statement signed by Hamas spokesman Abu Obeidi said, "We reiterate that the continued aggression and terrorist acts of the tyrannical occupation against the Palestinian people, amid the silence of the international community, will plunge the region in a sea of blood."

A 2002 New York Times editorial said, "The growing harshness of Israeli military practices in the West Bank and Gaza is creating thousands of potential suicide bombers and Israel haters as well as coarsening a generation of young Israeli soldiers."

United for Peace and Justice has called for an immediate end to the assault on Gaza by the Israeli military forces; the cutting off of US financial and military aid to Israel as well as US support for the Israel occupation of the Palestinian territories; and immediate shipments by the US government of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

It is time for the American people to demand that the US government stop its support for Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the American Association of Jurists.

[TOP]

Gaza Strip: The Politics of Water and Electricity

- Laray Polk -

The Gaza Strip, Qita Ghazzah, is a geographical region with a landmass of approximately 146 square miles. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world with approximately 9, 000 inhabitants per square mile. In 1948, there were roughly 80,000 native Gazans. By the end of the year, Gaza had received an influx of 200,000 permanent refugees, a number that has increased with every successive year. Refugee camps comprise the most heavily populated regions of Gaza Strip. U.N.R.W.A. estimates that Jabalia, the northern most camp, has 103, 646 inhabitants. Rafah, the southern most camp, has an estimated population of 90, 638 inhabitants.

The people of the Gaza Strip have been dependent on basic items of sustenance from the outside for many decades. 80 percent of material aid -- medical supplies, food, and clothing, has been provided by the U.N. and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Over the last year, the Israeli and U.S. governments have made it increasingly more difficult for NGOs to provide the delivery of such basic supplies. 35% of the people of Gaza fall in the malnutrition category with numbers rapidly rising among children. In 2003, Jean Ziegler, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right of Access to Food, reported that 50% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza exist on one meal a day.

The Gaza Strip is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the western border but has no desalinization plants. There is one aquifer that is heavily polluted. Water arrives in Gaza via the Kinneret-Negev Conduit that runs parallel to the eastern border.

The recent destruction of the main power plant in Gaza, along with three bridges, signals humanitarian devastation for the total population of the Gaza Strip. The power plant made it possible to pump water. The bridges made it possible to deliver water by tankers as well as other meager supplies necessary for supporting daily life. The lack of electricity stops the flow of water and it ceases the necessary current for medical machinery such as incubators, dialysis machines, and oxygen.

It is not clear how this most recent program of collective punishment will result in political gain. It is clear, however, that the strategic targeting of the main power plant and bridges by Israeli forces has placed the collective population of the Gaza Strip in immediate peril.

Laray Polk is an artist, activist and member of the Dallas chapter of Women in Black. Email to: laraypolk@earthlink.net., published in commondreams.org

[TOP]

And Israel Shall Be Safe Again

- Ramzy Baroud, July 5, 2006 -

The June 25 Palestinian fighters' raid on an Israeli military post near the Gaza-Egypt border has sent Israel "scrambling to defend itself," the voice of a BBC news reporter declared on the evening news.

The report was followed by an unchallenging interview with a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, then another with an Israeli daily newspaper reporter in Washington. No Palestinian voice was heard for days. The two Israelis communicated the same, tired, albeit ominous discourse that seems to understand, thus convey any event based on the misguided assumption that only Israeli lives matter.

There was hardly any international news source in English -- including those originating from Middle Eastern Arab countries -- that accepted the Palestinian predawn attack on the Israeli military base as a clear act of retaliation and a dignified one at that. After all, Israel has murdered scores of Palestinian civilians in the last few weeks, while Palestinians have refrained from following the same course, instead targeting the same Israeli soldiers who have inflicted untold hurt on the residents of Gaza.

Could it be possible that Middle East arms of major news media have mistakenly overlooked what has been happening in the Gaza Strip since the supposed Israeli withdrawal in September 2005?

It all started with extremely loud sonic booms, mock bombardments and Israeli fighter jets flying low over the overpopulated and impoverished Gaza Strip. Palestinians called on the international community to interfere to stop Israeli provocations. Their calls, as usual, fell on deaf ears

With such scare tactics, Israel wished to convey to Palestinians a loud and clear message: there is nothing for you to celebrate; we're still the masters of your destiny, and unlike the South Lebanon 2000 withdrawal, we are leaving Gaza triumphantly, and possibly just temporarily.

Soon, Israel's mock attacks became more genuine, while the international community continued to turn a blind eye to what would soon become another routine in 'liberated' Gaza. As far the media was concerned, there was hardly much to report, since Hamas, along with other Palestinian factions refused to respond to the provocations with violent retaliation, confining themselves to a unilateral ceasefire they'd reached with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo earlier.

Fed up the with the Palestinian response -- or lack thereof -- Israeli officials coupled their scare tactics with menacing, specific threats, with a bottom line that no Palestinian was immune from Israeli targeted assassinations. Indeed, they lived up to their words.

In an interesting turn of events, Hamas won the parliamentary elections in January 2006 in an astounding display of transparency and democratic process. John Hughes of the Christian Science Monitor echoed the mainstream media line that something went horribly wrong in the Middle East and that the "Hamas victory is a setback" to whatever imaginary peace process Hughes knows of.

Comforted by the unconditional support of the U.S. government, Israel's violent intimidation and scare tactics became much more abound. This time however, the Israeli war on the Palestinians became an extension of an international one, led by the United States along with the ever-compliant United Nations and European Union. While Western donors held back their aid to the point of creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the Occupied Territories, the U.S. led a campaign of political coercion -- in a rare display of unity between Democrats and Republicans and all of "Israel's friends" in the media.

Western media quickly coined various mantras to justify why ordinary Palestinians must suffer for choosing a parliament in a democratic election: because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and renounces violence, among other pretexts that seem to fit so well in Israel's political agenda. Top Israeli government advisor Dov Weissglas, optimistic as he had always been, wished to see the humor in starving Palestinians. The economic siege "is like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but they won't starve to death."

Apparently Israel was enjoying the show: getting the world to punish an occupied nation while completely losing sight of Israel's colonial expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the most fitting manifestation of the proverbial dream come true. Of course, Israel can never be content with such limited roles. It was time to turn up the heat one more notch; the sporadic violence was about to be upgraded to intense violence, reaching Palestinian civilians of all ages. In the matter of seven weeks, ending on June 21 with the killing of a pregnant woman, her unborn child and her brother and injuring 14 of the same family -- Israel had killed 90 Palestinians, the great majority of whom were civilians. They included the killing of seven members of the same family while picnicking at a beach near the small Gaza town of Beit Lahia on June 9.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz justified the wanton killing of civilians, along with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as an unintended mistake, vowing to continue to fight 'terrorists' who fire homemade rockets against the neighboring Israeli town of Sderot. In the same period in which 90 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more maimed and wounded, Israeli army radio reported one injury resulting from rocket fire. No other source has confirmed the lone injury claim.

However, Western media, including the BBC, is incessantly determined to equate blowing up Palestinian families with Israeli allegations of Palestinian rocket attacks: it's a tit for tat, or so it seems. It's equally valid, according to ignorant media dictates, to starve a nation because its government refuses to recognize its military occupier.

The U.S. administration defended the June 9 murder of a Gaza family as an Israeli right to defend itself. BBC International refused to see the Palestinian attack on an Israeli military installation on June 25, as a Palestinian right to self-defense. To the contrary, it was Israel who once again went "scrambling to defend itself." It's unclear how many Palestinians must die before Israel delivers a convincing "blow" to its unruly neighbors, and before life goes back to the way it was intended to be: Palestinians being starved, humiliated and slaughtered at the hands of Israel in their dissolute Gaza ghettos. Only then, shall Israel be safe once more.

[TOP]