This week has seen a slaughter of the Palestinian people in Gaza that must have caused even the staunchest supporters of Israel to pause. Israel has, thus far, committed the following atrocities, most of which are war crimes:
- Attack of relief vessel Dignity (carrying Cynthia McKinney among others) in international waters.
- Attack of Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque during evening prayers, killing 13 people, including six children.
- Murder of 40+ civilians who were taking shelter in UN schools across Gaza.
- Forcing of Palestinians civilians into a home with no food or running water and then shelling that home killing over 30 people.
According to the UN, as of Friday (9 January) the Palestinians have suffered over 4100 casualties, with 800 dead and 3100 wounded. Israel has suffered about 132 casualties, with 13 dead and 119 wounded. Of the Israeli dead, three civilians and one soldier have been killed by rocket fire, five soldiers have perished in combat, and four have been killed by friendly fire. Of the Palestinian dead, 257 have been children and 56 were women. 21 relief workers have also been killed. Hamas claims that only 10 of its soldiers have been killed. Assuming that this is an underestimate, and that 10x that number have been killed, that means about 200-300 male Palestinian civilians have also perished.
These numbers are shocking. Israel has killed 600-700 innocent civilians in a couple of weaks, and injured thousands of others. In return, Israel's civilian population has remained fairly immune from the fighting.
Yet, Israel's defenders continue to claim that they are morally justified in continuing the slaughter. Even when they clearly break international law, and commit atrocities that can logically be called terrorism, Israel's supporters claim that they are only taking these measures because of the illegal actions of Hamas. That, in short, if Hamas would "stop declaring that Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth" and "renounce terrorism against Israel", then their civilians would stop dying.
This argument disgusts me, as it should disgust any American. It is almost a carbon-copy of the argument made by Ward Churchill in the days after September 11, 2001, in his essay, Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Churchill started his essay by explaining the illegal activities of the U.S. Army during the first Gulf War, which resulted in the deaths of about 500,000 Iraqi children.
1991 US "surgical" bombing of [ Iraq's ] water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.
... it should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of international law, as well as every conceivable standard of "civilized" behavior -- the death toll has been steadily ratcheted up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers.
All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000 kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25 percent of their age group. ... In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.
He's right. Our military broke international law when we bombed water and sewage treatment plants and the result of those actions was the death of hundreds of thousands of people. Just as Hamas broke international law and "every conceivable standard of civilized behavior" when it launched rockets into Israel. But Churchill subsequently went further, arguing:
As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire, the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly.
In follow-up interviews he clarified his position, stating:
I am not a "defender" of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."
In other words, if a government (say ... Hamas) commits attacks on other countries that result in "death and destruction" (like ... rocket attacks) then the country that they attack (Israel?) has the right to "return" some of that destruction. I have no doubt that many of Israel's staunchest defenders would agree with the quote from RFK.
Churchill was excoriated in the press for his remarks, and rightly so. In fact, this blog has several posts in the archives show the righteous anger directed toward Churchill. That so many of those same posters have now adopted his logic to defend Israel's actions is disappointing, to say the least.