Acting for Gaza

Act For Gaza

by Mazin Qumsiyeh - Popular Resistance

Child lost his eyesight after Israeli shelling. The father was killed a week later!

A rocket fell near us Tuesday in Beit Sahour. From the way it broke-up, we think it was one of the "iron dome" missiles that missed its mark (this happens to some 70-80% of missiles that are supposed to intercept Palestinian home-made rockets from Gaza).

The owner of the house said of the significant damage: "we are with Gaza and continue to be". Wars bring out the worse in people and the best in people. Israeli devastation of Gaza is facing against heroism of resilience and resistance of Palestinians and an awakening of conscience of millions.

Every hour we hear stories and listen to dignified resilient voices from Gaza in the face of incredible devastation. Medics who continue to operate even as their colleagues and relatives are killed. Remaining family members who lost everything but promise to rebuild and fight back until freedom. Municipal workers trying to avert a catastrophe and keep bombed sewage and water lines open and separate. Neighbors helping each other. Resistance fighters coming back from the front lines to help dig for civilian corpses buried under the rubble. A child consoling her little brother after all their family has been wiped out. People taking care of each other and giving all of us lessons in how we can keep our humanity.

Messages from Gaza say to us "we survive, we are fine, how about you? How are you?" Gaza has become like the pH meter in my lab, a good barometer of change in the medium. How are we, the medium of humanity doing and where are we heading?

Palestinian Civil society organizations and public figures are calling on the world to demand the opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/urgent-call-action-tell-egypt-end-gaza-siege-refuse-complicity-israeli-genocide

Israel has developed a doctrine of slowly increasing attacks on civilians to give them a chance to supposedly stop the resistance (an impossible task). The three stages used in the past four weeks included: first stage) used in the first week of the shelling of Gaza included Israeli forces giving warning to some of the people to leave their houses before they flattened them with shells (a form of ethnic cleansing never-the-less).

Second stage) clearing neighborhoods with a blanket statement in media to evacuate whole neighborhoods, then flattening them (also ethnic cleansing), third stage) no warning just blanket and random shelling increasing civilian deaths. Overlapping stage two and three was also the shelling of hospitals and schools and the power station (targeting infrastructure, mostly without notice given).

Having exhausted these three stages which obviously were well planned, Israeli leaders announced victory and moved on. The only gain was to bank account of those who profit from wars (companies like Elbit Systems). This helps sales of weapons (depleting stocks which have to be bought back and the US taxpayers pay for these). People die but some people get to be even more rich.

On the bright side (if there is any), this adventure accelerated the inevitable decline of the racist genocidal state of Israel. The resistance is strengthened because people saw that Israel could not advance one or two kilometers into Gaza without casualties of its soldiers who are paranoid about being captured or killed (even killed by Israeli forces to prevent them from being captured. Many committed suicide or injured themselves to leave the battle field.

In 1967, Israeli armies advanced and conquered hundreds of kilometers without any opposition from supposed "Arab armies". The land conquered per hour was literally the time it took infantry to walk across the landscape (no opposition). Israel, Jordan and Egypt did not fight or even plan to fight. And they had supplies and open borders. Here a concentration camp (the enclave of Gaza) giving Israel a real fight and Israeli mighty army is bloodied and confused and wining about tunnels (well yes, the Vietcong also used tunnels because everything above ground was instantly scorched by imperial US forces).

So many lies were uncovered that many observers have started to believe Hamas and other resistance groups more than they believe anything that the Western Mainstream Media and Netanyahu and his puppets have to say. Mr. Netanyahu came in front of the Israeli public and lied yet again. Israel acknowledged some 50 soldiers killed but most Israelis know the number is at least three times as high. Many Israeli families acknowledge money is being given to them to refrain from mentioning the killing of their children at the borders of Gaza.

One Israeli leak suggested some 130-150 Israeli soldiers killed (closer to a number released by Hamas resistance). But the ceasefire declared by the UN (the only one declared by the UN and agreed to by the two parties) was broken by Israeli forces after they encountered some resistance fighters in their advance to Rafah and two Israeli soldiers were killed and the area was bombed burying a third soldier with the resistance fighters on spot.

The Israeli government version of this was a fabrication (soldiers were attacked, one was kidnapped etc). Hamas's version of what might have happened was more believable (they lost contact with soldiers defending the field East of Rafah and they presume them dead). Belatedly the Israeli version changed and they were forced to accept a version closer to what the Palestinians said. But this is of little consolation to Palestinians including children massacred with the excuse that Hamas broke the cease fire. Now there is talk in Cairo to give Israel what it could not achieve by military means: impunity from crimes, pacification of the natives while maintaining colonization and injustice.

But people are moving. The above call and other like it are followed by actions. There is widening boycotts of everything Israeli and people are mobilizing aid convoys to Gaza (three trucks from my own town of Beit Sahour will leave in the next two days and this is just one of hundreds of such efforts).

Yet this is still not enough. 400,000 Palestinians are now dislocated and for nearly half of them, their homes have been destroyed. Billions of dollars are needed to rebuild. Every bit helps though and actions speak louder than words. As we help Gaza Palestinians on a humanitarian level, we must also ensure accountability and to prevent more Israeli crimes. To do that we need BDS, we need ICC, we need coordination and joint action.

Names of Palestinians murdered by the colonial fascist Israeli forces (they are not numbers or even names, they are people with their stories and their rights violated and robbed of their lives by a war machine empowered by human silence) http://www.imemc.org/article/68429

I have many friends/colleagues in Gaza and all where affected by the ongoing horrors, more than half of them had family members killed (see for example story of family members of our colleague Dr Mona El Farra below), and one was killed herself with two of her children.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israeli-airstrike-massacres-family-prominent-physician-and-author
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=4850389ae3e2d55804103e6af&id=af0bd6741f

Being calmly rational about dead children feels like a very particular form of madness. Whatever else journalistic objectivity is, it surely cannot be the elimination of human emotion http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/aug/01/journalists-objective-writing-dead-children

Israeli Vets Speak Out: What Really Goes On In Gaza Starvation, shooting at kids, casual violence—former IDF soldiers reveal the abuses by the Israeli military in Gaza http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/israel-soldiers-testimony-idf-gaza

Photographer is killed as he videotapes attacks on ambulances
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz_5ViLlpno  here is the same incident from another photographer who survived this war crime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-d5crde4vg

A very excellent example of an article putting the context out that is ignored by Zionist dominated western media. We should all learn to write like that and to focus our energy on media.
http://www.countytimes.com/articles/2014/08/01/opinion/doc53dbc6116ecf5776330433.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Who profits from the war on Gaza
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12175

Over 100 Middle East Studies Scholars and Librarians Call for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18811/over-100-middle-east-scholars-and-librarians-call-

Boycott Israel: here is research on 60 companies to boycott/picket etc.
http://www.interfaithpeaceinitiative.com/profiting.pdf

Dr. Mads Gilbert makes a moving speech upon his return to Norway from Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOk_KaaXc9E

Norman Finkelstein" The word is out, Israel is a lunatic state
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/the-word-is-out-israel-is-a-lunatic-state/