‘For What Cause, Did I Die?’
By Nazia Nazar
14 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org
A poor Palestinian, his four-months-pregnant wife, and his two nephews, Nidal, 4, and two-year-old Mohammed, were unaware of the miseries which befell them last week. The children were joyfully playing when an airstrike by the Israeli army hit this house. In a jiffy, the house turned into the graveyard while the youngest child’s head was found in the garden according to an eyewitness.
This is just one story of death and destruction caused by the Israeli forces which are using all the modern and sophisticated weapon technology against the unarmed Palestinian civilians. The stories of 178 departed souls and more than 1,000 injured Palestinians are still unheard. They were suddenly attacked by the Israeli forces when they were busy in their routine affairs. Some Palestinians never woke up from their night’s sleep. Many others were attacked when they were dining with their families. A group of boys was targeted when it was enjoying a football world-cup match. Mostly children were playing when their body parts shattered into pieces by the airstrikes. The disabled people also faced the same destiny when the Israeli army hit a rehabilitation centre in Gaza last week. Same happened with the hospitals which have been razed to the ground. The Israeli forces have nothing to say in regret but to boastfully claim that they had given a warning call to the families to vacate the houses before airstrikes. Yes, they had given a call but only a few minutes before launching an airstrike. In such a short span of time, one can just feel the horror of death but it is hard to rescue, especially when you have to pick up all of your kids from a big building.
This warning call “drama” by the Israeli forces is just a mockery and a stupid lame excuse. In fact, it is just made to get the sympathies of the western media, which always take lead in promoting Israelis’ justification for killings.
The Israeli forces claim that they are fighting the Hamas’ militants. Is it true? In an article published in Wall Street Journal on January 24, 2009, Andrew Higgins quoted Avner Cohen – a retired Israeli official – who revealed that Hamas "is Israel's creation.” He argued that Hamas’ Islamists were supported by Israel to counter the influence of the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the same way as the Islamists were supported by the US to fight communism in 1970s, which ultimately gave birth to Al-Qaeda.
Notwithstanding, the entire issue is not Israel versus Hamas conflict but Israeli aggression against the Palestinian civilians. The entire Palestinian history is written with blood of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli forces in more than 50 massacres. According to B'Tselem, an Israeli NGO, around 7000 Palestinians have been killed since the year 2000. The most tragic part of this episode is that out of those casualties, 1500 were children.
Last week, 35 children lost their lives as the result of direct Israeli aggression. In recent past in 2008, 353 children were killed and 860 injured by the Israeli forces in Operation Cast Lead. Many experts reveal that the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by the Israeli army has increased the risk of cancer, birth defects and other deadly diseases among the Palestinians living in those areas.
Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem is not reluctant in proclaiming that the Israeli army has officially embarked upon the policy of harming the innocent people. The situation is best described by a veteran analyst and writer Noam Chomsky who says, “Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.” In 2002, The Nobel Prize of Literature Jose Saramago also compared Israel's actions in the West Bank to the Nazi's actions during the World War II.
However, the question is: who would save the Palestinians from the Israeli aggression? It’s no wonder that the United Nations and the big powers are indolent about the tragedy. After all, their role in the whole conflict has been questionable since the very beginning. Everyone knows the role Great Britain played to facilitate the Israeli state at the cost of Palestinian legitimate rights. On the other hand, the UNO poorly and unjustly handled the issue by proposing more land to the Jews who constituted only one-third of total population largely due to the immigration and artificial settlements. On the contrary, the Arabs were proposed less land despite the fact that they constituted more than two-third of the population with natural population increase. The right of the self-determination was also denied to the Palestinians by the UN. Now, the Palestinians have nothing in their hands; they are strangers in their own land. It bears witness to the UN’s biased attitude towards the Palestinians from the very beginning.
What could be expected more from this unjust and biased organization to create peace in the region? On the other hand, the United States has its own interests in supporting Israel. The US taxpayers must be aware of the fact that the US is providing Israel a military aid of at least $8.5 million per day, which is being used to persecute the innocent Palestinian civilians. Notwithstanding, the indolent attitude of the Muslim leaders is no less shameful and condemnable, as they have developed a habit to stab in the back. In this scenario, it’s not strange if you watch the western media highlighting the tragedy as a conflict between Hamas and the Israeli forces ignoring the civilian casualties. However, there arises a simple question: who the Israeli army is really fighting against? Do you call those children as terrorists who have been mercilessly killed by the Israeli forces? Are the rehabilitation centers the place for terrorists’ activities? Do the hospitals serve terrorists’ agenda? Killing children and disabled and blowing hospitals as well as houses is not a war but an open genocide by any definition.
Alas, the Palestinian women, children and elderly are alone in their sufferings. The poor children are being deprived of their right to live, grow and enjoy a bright future. More than 35 children have been killed in a week. They don’t know which crime they are punished for? They were unaware of the politics going on between Hamas and the Israeli army. Those little souls never thought that the UN and the big powers would never come to rescue them. Their shattered body parts are still waiting to be collected and buried in a grave, as the funerals are also attacked in this land. Alas, we couldn’t give them a peaceful life; let’s give them a peaceful burial.
“In the darkest of dark nights
The sky lit up with the lights
Comfort none to the one that cries
In infant innocence, it just dies:
I needed love, not your pride
I gave just love, took no side
You did me cripple, gave me fear
Chilling death far ‘n near
So great your cause, so great your aim
My smothered chuckle did not ye shame
Twinkle, twinkle many a star
Spreading death near ‘n far
Up above the world so high
Like a curse in the sky
Your baby or theirs, I cry?!
Or the child of life was I
May I then ask O sky?
For what cause, did I die?”
(A poem dedicated to the Palestinian children by Asif Iftikhar)
Nazia Nazar is pursuing her studies in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research in Finland. The writer can be reached at [email protected]
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