Stuart Littlewood asks British, European Union and US leaders what sort of Christmas is in store for the children of Gaza while the criminals who inflict on them unspeakable hardship and torment, and who deny them their human rights, have their snouts in the Yuletide trough and enjoy a warm bed?
Who is holding the governments of Britain, the EU and the US to account this Christmas for aiding and abetting the deliberate starving of 1.5 million in Gaza?
Hardly anybody. Most of those in a position to do so are Friends of Israel.
What of our foreign secretary, David Miliband, our very Christian prime minister, Gordon Brown, and our even more pious peace envoy Tony Blair – have they done anything at all to insist that Israel’s blockade is ended?
The “Zionist Tendency” in Whitehall still goes unchallenged.
Please tell us, Messrs Brown, Miliband and Blair: isn’t the Fourth Geneva Convention supposed to protect civilians under military occupation – no violence to life or person, no cruelty, no torture, no taking of hostages, no outrages upon personal dignity, no collective punishment, no sentencing or executions unless ordered by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees demanded by civilized peoples – all that sort of thing?
And doesn’t Article 33 say that no protected person may be punished for an offence he or she did not personally commit? Aren’t collective penalties, intimidation and terrorism prohibited? Likewise reprisals against protected persons and their property?
Am I right in thinking that collective punishment is actually a war crime? In World War II the Nazis practised collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages, towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that took place there. Isn't this what the Israelis and their Western collaborators are doing to Gaza?
The Israeli regime doesn’t seem to have heard of the Geneva Conventions – although it has been instructed to observe them in various UN resolutions – nor even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps it needs educating.
We have seen the remnants of Palestine become so fractured and shredded by the occupation that they cannot possibly be drawn together to form a cohesive, viable, independent state. Why world leaders cling to the idea of a two-state solution is therefore a mystery – unless they plan to make the Palestinian state a permanently impoverished dumping ground for dispossessed Arabs, which will remain forever crippled, subservient, totally under Israeli control and unable to prosper.
Unfortunately Gaza, with its freely elected government of resistance, is an obstacle to the plan for total Israeli domination and needs to be crushed.
The way to bring the Gazan population to its knees is to blast them with high-tech weaponry, wreck their infrastructure, trash their economy, threaten re-invasion, impose a starvation siege and stunt the growth of their kiddies. It’s a price worth paying, as one-time US secretary of State Madeleine Albright might have remarked, to eliminate those Hamas guys, huh?
By the way, when did Hamas do us any harm?
Prime Minister Brown’s thoughts right now are with the Jewish community, wishing them a happy Chanuka from Number10.gov.uk and recalling how he celebrated with them Israel’s 60th birthday, the flip-side of which is the 60th remembrance of El-Nakba, the Catastrophe in which nearly a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and lands by Israeli terrorists.
Of course Brown has no festive greeting for the Gazans. And no word of cheer, either, for the Christian communities in Gaza and the West Bank who are endlessly persecuted by his Israeli friends.
If our thoughts are not with the children of Gaza – Muslim and Christian alike – at this season of goodwill, they ought to be. I’m told that many people packed into the ravaged Strip are having to scavenge through rubbish tips for food to survive. What sort of Christmas is in store for their little ones while the criminals who inflict on them such unspeakable hardship and torment, and who deny them their human rights, have their snouts in the Yuletide trough and enjoy a warm bed?
Decent men would not let this happen. I say to friends in the West Bank and Gaza: "We have not forgotten you, but we despair of our worthless leaders."
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
