Israel is Immune From Criticism
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

The state of Israel has descended ? plummeted ? to one of the lowest
levels of conscious barbarity that is currently evident in this
horrible world.

Any nation that has behaved towards a subject people, as Israel has to
Palestinians, is worthy only of utter contempt. On Sunday January 4 I
heard a rabbi on the BBC's morning religious program saying that he
supported Israel's air strikes on Gaza. A man of God actually endorsed
the killing of hundreds of people. To say that I was ? and am ? aghast
at the sentiment expressed is to put it very mildly. This religious
leader, a person supposed to spread and preach tolerance, patience,
charity and peace, was supporting war crimes of immense gravity. His
approval of the killing of Arabs was blood-chilling.

And this rabbi was British. Here we have a British citizen supporting
hatred and bigotry on a BBC religious program. But of course he isn't
really British. He is an Israeli religious propagandist of British
citizenship whose main allegiance is to Israel. There are thousands
like him in the UK and the US. They unconditionally promote Tel Aviv's
plans and policy and wield amazing influence over politicians and
businesses. Killing Palestinians is Israeli policy, and these people
spare no effort to justify it.

Here's a resident of Gaza talking to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz
about the horrors experienced by Palestinians (and congratulations to
Haaretz for having the courage to print it): "I keep the children away
from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to
play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and
from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone
works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My
wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's
cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at
home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the
Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you
normal?"

No, they're not, is the short answer, and the ruthlessness is
epitomised by the evil Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who is
using the Gaza war to establish her credentials as a reliably hard-
nosed barbarian. She declares "there is no humanitarian crisis in the
[Gaza] Strip and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

It was reported on January 5 that Israeli troops are using white
phosphorus (WP) artillery shells in Gaza, supposedly to create smoke
screens to conceal their advance.

American troops used WP ? fondly known as Willy Pete ? in their
destruction of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, and the US tried to lie its
way out of the war crime, but junior officers unintentionally blew the
lies apart by writing in the magazine Field Artillery that "WP proved
to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening
missions . . . and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological
weapon against insurgents in trench lines and spider holes . . . We
fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents using WP to flush
them out and high explosive shells (HE) to take them out." In fact WP
is an effective killer, and anyone who inhales particles will suffer a
particularly hideous and painful death. As recorded by The Independent
newspaper in Britain "In the aftermath of the battle [at Fallujah], the
State Department's Counter Misinformation Office issued a statement
saying that WP was only "used very sparingly in Fallujah, for
illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy
positions at night [which isn't the propose of a smoke-shell], not at
enemy fighters." When The Independent confronted the State Department
with the first-hand accounts of soldiers who participated, an official
accepted the mistake and undertook to correct its website." Big deal.
Lie, lie and lie again, until you're found out and it's impossible to
deny the facts. And the Israelis seem to be taking the example, as
usual, and are stoutly denying what has been seen by independent
witnesses.

Article two, Protocol III of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons states: "It is prohibited in all circumstances to
make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian
objects, the object of attack by incendiary weapons." But Israel is
only following the US example. "Shake and bake" is such an attractive
military option that it would be a shame to spoil their fun, especially
when it has rabbinical approval.

Here is part of what is laid out in Protocol 1, Additional to the
Geneva Conventions, 1977 . . . General Protection Against Effects of
Hostilities: "Among others, the following types of attacks are to be
considered as indiscriminate: An attack which may be expected to cause
incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to
civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in
relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

Israel, supported energetically by Washington (and using US-supplied
aircraft, bombs and rockets), has caused "incidental loss of life" and
general civilian casualties on an enormous scale. The Israeli military
and the Israeli people knew full well that their genocidal attack on
Gaza would kill civilians. The use of white phosphorous in built-up
areas is worthy of the Nazis at their most brutal. Stalin and Mao would
nod approvingly. It wasn't considered important that there would be
countless civilian deaths. Nobody cares, and least of all American
politicians. The next secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, refuses to
comment on the atrocities. The incoming vice-president has been silent.
President-elect Obama? As Reuters reported : "Obama . . . has not
commented on the Middle East crisis since Israel launched attacks on
Gaza nine days ago. His advisers insist that only President George W
Bush can speak for America until then." But it was noted that "The
president-elect has commented on the global economic crisis and his
plans to try to pull the US economy out of recession."

Of course he has. And were it not for the power of Israel in America he
would no doubt comment adversely on the slaughter in Gaza, because he
is a decent man.

But Mr Obama dare not criticize Israel, even for its use of chemical
shells. Nor can any American who wishes to enter or remain engaged in
politics. The kiss of political death in the United States of America
is to censure Israel. It can't be done.

And that is why apartheid is permitted in Israel; it's why the mass-
punishment blockade was enforced months before the attack went in; and
it's why the near-genocide in Gaza is allowed to continue.

Does anyone remember the hearing on the so-called Israeli-Palestine
peace process in the US House of Representatives in February 2007? Of
course not. It was a farce. And why was it such a revolting and hideous
charade? ? Because it was a three card trick.

The main witness, of the three cards who were called, was one Martin
Indyk, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee which is the richest and most powerful lobby group in the
country (two of whose members are currently under a mysteriously
delayed investigation for spying for Israel). From there, inevitably,
he went to be US ambassador in Tel Aviv. (And, incidentally, whose book
on the Middle East was the subject of a glowing review in last week's
Economist.) Another witness was David Makovsky of the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy (founded by Indyk; it's all very chummy
in pro-Israel sewers), which is funded extensively by American
interests that support Zionism. (Among other connections, it is closely
associated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv
University.) And was the third witness a counter-balance to two
energetic supporters of Zion? Could he or she present a rather less
biased view of the Middle East? Perhaps a person who would make the
point that Israel has contemptuously ignored UN Security Council
resolutions concerning illegal occupation of Palestinian lands?

Not a bit. The third member was a comic quasi-intellectual character
called Daniel Pipes who once declared that Muslim immigrants to the US
were "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly
maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene." (Germanic? ? How quaint.)
Pipes founded the Middle East Forum (MEF) which encourages university
students in America to report lecturers and professors who they
consider to be anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian. (In Hitler's Germany
there were awards given to young people who identified and reported
those they thought to be pro-Jewish; I know a very elderly German lady
who did this when she was 15. She is now terribly ashamed at the
memory, because she actually informed on her own father. How times
change. Or don't, of course.)

In 2006 Pipes was given the 'Guardian of Zion' award, an annual prize
to a prominent supporter of Israel, by the Rennert Center for Jerusalem
Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

With a galaxy of partisan propagandists like Indyk, Makovsky and Pipes
being the only people selected to give evidence on Israel-Palestine to
the nation's legislators in Washington, there was no chance whatever
that the Congressional Sub-Committee would be presented with a balanced
view of the Israel-Palestine problem. The deck was stacked, and the
legislators listened. They had no choice, because of the power of the
Israel lobby. They've been shaken and baked.

There is little doubt that the bias towards Israel will continue in the
legislature and administration of the United States of America, no
matter what Obama might really think, and no matter how many
Palestinian children the Zionists have slaughtered. The Israelis are
behaving like genocidal filth, but those who stay silent about their
atrocities are not far behind in the gutter stakes.

Brian Cloughley's book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror,
has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and will be published
in the US in May by Skyhorse (New York).

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