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Call
it déjà vu but Israeli television reports are branding Mahmoud Abbas as
irrelevant in a move identical to their position toward the late
Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. And though Hamas has largely honored
the truce established last year, not only has Israel broken that truce
over 24,000 times resulting in nearly 200 Palestinians deaths, Shin Bet
has rejected an extended truce with Hamas.
IMEMC & Agencies reports that 31
Palestinians have been killed since Hamas won the majority vote in the
Palestinian elections on January 25th. These deaths are part of a
retaliatory strategy as outlined by Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. According
to Mofaz, the Palestinian people have made their government part of the
"Axis of Evil" along with
Syria and
Iran. As a result, “punitive
measures” will be taken by Israeli forces against all the Palestinian
people, he stated.
Making good
on the threat, on Monday, February 20, Israeli Occupation Forces opened
fire and threw gas grenades at high school girls in the
West Bank city of
Nablus. According to the WAFA news
agency, Israeli soldiers broke into the high school in the Til village
south of
Nablus city, and along with extensive
shooting, “fired a number of gas grenades towards the school, causing a
state of panic and suffocation among students and teachers.”
According to the UN Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Israeli forces
occupied two schools it runs in the Balata Refugee camp. “The Israelis
continued to occupy the boys’ school after leaving the girls’ school
today.” Agency officials also stated that “Israeli forces continue to
block a health clinic, which prevents patients or staff from leaving the
building.” And in a pre-dawn raid Israeli soldiers swept into Balata
refugee camp and
Nablus city, arrested six citizens and
“fired into the chest of Usama Al-Banna,” an unarmed resident of the
Balata refugee camp. Foreign born United Nations Relief Work Agency (UNRWA)
employees were ordered to leave the Balata refugee camp during the Israeli
attack.
In other action, Israeli soldiers wounded
children and arrested citizens in the
West Bank cities of
Hebron,
Nablus, Jenin and
Bethlehem. The attacks and arrests were
justified according to the Israelis because the individuals were
“resisting the occupation.” In
Hebron, Israeli soldiers broke into the
towns of ad-Dhaheriya, Beit Ummar and Sa'ir, south and north of the city
and stormed a number of houses, shooting and tear gassing residents. As a
result, five children were wounded and hospitalized. In Jenin, a large
contingent of Israeli soldiers stormed into Qabatya town, south of the
city, ravaged the contents of homes and conducted a house-to-house search
campaign, arresting several residents. In
Bethlehem, armored vehicles and jeeps
stormed the Al-Nahaleen area and Al-Eza refugee camps firing on residents
and homes as they searched houses and arrested residents, leading them to
undisclosed locations security forces stated.
In the Gaza Strip Israeli artillery fired
several missiles near the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanuon, north of
the Gaza Strip, however no injuries were reported. Meanwhile scores of
house demolitions continued in the
West Bank “under the pretext of missing permits --
a common tool used to expel Palestinians -- ensuring the theft of lands
for construction of settlements or military zones,” WAFA reported.
Along with non-stop military assaults on
the Palestinian people, Zionist Israel’s success in waging economic
warfare on the indigenous people of Palestine may prove to be even more
deadly as they seek to put the starving on a diet, as some Israeli
officials joked, or as the New York Times reported, have devised a
plan to starve Hamas out of power.
Israel not only refuses to
relinquish the 100s of millions of dollars in tax revenues it generates
from the Palestinians on their behalf, but has threatened to block aid
money from countries, such as
Sweden and the Arab Alliance,
from reaching Palestinian banks. These dollars are vitally needed for
Palestinian survival.
“Palestinian importers are required to pay
the Israeli authorities the value-added tax of 17%, as well as whatever
custom taxes are due on goods that come in on their way to the West Bank
or Gaza. These transactions (along with direct Palestinian transactions
with Israeli firms and merchants) last year yielded revenues of $711
million,” Amira Hass reported for Haaretz. “According to the
Oslo accords (and by any standards of
common sense and basic justice), the revenues should serve the people who
ultimately buy the goods. These tax receipts are not donations of goodwill
from
Israel; they are not charity.
This is not like, say, Dutch foreign aid money, which is given freely by
the Dutch people and can be withheld if the Dutch choose to stop giving
it. These are tax revenues that are due to the people in the territories
where the goods are headed, and the Israelis have no right to hold them
up.”
Meanwhile the
United States and European
Union plan to withhold all financial assistance to the Hamas led
government. After the U.S. Congress voted to withhold $400 million a year
of aid money from the Palestinian Authority, President Bush demanded that
$50 million that had already been given be returned. Within days the
Palestinian Authority returned the $50 million which further deepened
their financial plight. But
Israel’s control of border
crossings may create even greater hardship. “The closure of these
crossings will paralyze the economy,”
Palestine’s Minister of Economy Mazen
Sinnoqrot stated.
Last
year the BBC and other media around the world reported that in
Darfur refugees were being systematically
starved, black Africans were deliberately being driven off the land and
they were being subjected to a "reign of terror" in the region, according
to the UN Commissioner for Human Rights. “Militias prevented food
deliveries and stopped anyone leaving,” the report said. One aid worker in
Kailek described what happened there as the "politics of starvation."
If
Israel gets its way, how long
will it be before
Palestine is in a similar situation --
especially if, once again,
Israel unleashes a reign of
terror through unrelenting military assault? For nearly six decades
Palestinians have been systematically ethnically cleaned -- driven off
their land, and Israel has all too often prevented food deliveries as well
as access to medicines and water (as documented by hundreds of UN
Resolutions against Israel). However, the complete economic deprivation
that
Israel insists on, in this
writer’s opinion, is far beyond a slap in the face at democracy by
refusing to acknowledge a Hamas-led government, but an attempt to commit
genocide against the Palestinian people.
Now that the die is cast,
the world watches and waits.
Palestine is nearly surrounded by the
apartheid, racist wall and is held hostage from within by hundreds of
checkpoint and roadblocks and military outposts, the illegal Israeli
settlements and Israeli-only roads. There is no escape from the hunger and
assault that may ensue -- except through the door marked: Upholding Human
Rights. If
Israel proceeds as planned, it
will not only destroy
Palestine but itself.
Genevieve Cora Fraser
is a playwright, director, poet, historian and journalist. She can be
reached at: gcfraser2@netzero.com.
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