IANS Statement on the Gaza Crisis in Occupied Palestine

“Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total... because it may well involve the whole world.”
(Jean-Paul Sartre)

As Indigenous people fully conscious of our own respective colonial circumstances and those of other similarly repressed and oppressed peoples, we, the undersigned, maintain that the latest saturation bombing and subsequent ground invasion of a Palestinian refugee concentration camp is not just and that the continued IDF occupation extends this grave injustice. The defenceless people of The Gaza, a refugee district of Occupied Palestine, have been mercilessly attacked by the State of Israel under the auspices of national “self-defence.” This is clearly a false pretence, as it is now known that the Israeli intelligence and military services secretly planned this attack more than six months ago as part of “Operation Cast Lead”,[1] a covert programme of anti-Palestinian propaganda, premeditated sabotage of the Hamas government during the U.S.-sponsored June 2007 truce agreement and extensive ethnic terrorism directed against the refugee Arab Palestinian population of The Gaza. It is also now common knowledge that the Israeli Defence Forces have begun using cluster bombs, denatured uranium and the horrible chemical weapon, white phosphorus, a compound that burns human beings on contact.[2]

With this, Palestinian reporters are being targeted and international reporters barred at the Gaza border by the IDF, humanitarian aid is prevented from reaching the injured and dying and Norwegian medics have told Iran’s Press TV some of the victims wounded since the IDF began its bombardment of The Gaza on December 27 carry traces of depleted uranium within their bodies.[3]

These actions constitute nothing less than war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since The Nakba of 1948, the Palestinian people have been subjected to enforced dislocation, ethnic discrimination, randomised racist settler violence and indiscriminate aggression by the Israeli Defence Forces, conditions intended to bring upon them emotional suffering and a reduction in their number. Under established international law, these actions and the recent bombing and invasion of The Gaza by the part of the State of Israel undoubtedly amount to the moral and legal crime of genocide. Relevant transgressions of the established charter of the United Nations include and in particular the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (General Assembly resolution 260 A (III), 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III), 1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (General Assembly Resolution 2200 (XXI), 1966), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (General Assembly Resolution 2200 (XXI), 1966) and the rights to liberation of international Indigenous-internal colonies, (General Assembly Resolution 1541(XV), 1966).

In addition, in recognition of the Nuremberg Principles established in 1944, the State of Israel, (as well as the United States) is also responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and the ongoing genocide of indigenous Arab Palestinians since 1948. The injustice of these goals has been compounded by the vicious execution of the Israeli Defence Forces war plan of widespread destruction and terror characterized by an appalling disregard for human life and property. As concerned members of the Fourth World and as Indigenist news journalists, we believe it is the moral responsibility of the United Nations, as the representative body of the world community, actively and without delay move to end this war. The violence unleashed by the Israeli invasion of The Gaza has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Arab Palestinians and has left thousands of other civilians critically wounded.

We the undersigned implore the world community to act according to the charter of the United Nations and without delay end this genocide against the Palestinian people! We demand that President-Elect Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress officially condemn the actions of the State of Israel and immediately establish a suspension of military and financial aid to the Israeli government to limit their ability to expand this atrocity of human rights against the Palestinian people any further.

Signed,

Rev. Sequoyah Kofi-Ade bin-Tomas / Occupied North America: http://angryindian.blogspot.com/

Ojibway Migisi Bineshii / Occupied North America: http://ojibwaymigisibineshii.blogspot.com

Sina Brown Davis / Kulin Nations, Occupied Aboriginal Australia: http://uriohau.blogspot.com/

Brenda Norrell / Occupied North America: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Ridwan Laher / Republic of South Africa: http://ridwanlaher.blogspot.com/

Notes:

[1] The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda, Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Monday, Jan 5, 2008

[2] White phosphorus (WP) is a flare- and smoke-producing incendiary weapon,[1] or smoke-screening agent, made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus. White phosphorus bombs and shells are incendiary devices, but can also be used as an offensive anti-personnel flame compound capable of causing serious burns or death.

[3] Press TV – “Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims’ - Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:16:21 GMT

Onward!