[Peace-discuss] Draft flyer for July 20 demo - comments welcomed

Sat Jul 19 18:49:16 EDT 2014

AWARE ~ The Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana ~ 20 July 2014

ISRAEL’S MURDERS IN GAZA - OBAMA’S RESPONSIBILITY,  AND OURS

After two weeks of airstrikes the Israeli army (IDF) has invaded Gaza, the 140-square mile territory - with 1.8 million people - that it surrounds and controls. (Hamas is the party that won a free election in the territories occupied by Israel in 2006.)

	“...This is the third major Israeli offensive against Hamas and the people of Gaza in the last six years. Refusing to accept international legality as the basis for resolving its dispute with the Palestinians, Israel's right-wing government is ever ready to resort to military force.
	“With a degree of cynicism that is difficult to comprehend and impossible to condone, Israel's leaders describe their periodic incursions into Gaza as ‘mowing the lawn’. Now, once again, and with characteristic callousness, they have unleashed the full force of the IDF against Gaza's captive population.
	“The death toll in the current round of hostilities is a grim reflection of the asymmetry of power between the fourth strongest army in the world and a virtually defenceless civilian population. In the first ten days of aerial bombardment, the ‘score’ was 260 Palestinian dead, mostly civilians, and one Israeli.  
	“By launching a ground offensive on July 17, Israel sharply escalated the death toll to over 300; destroyed many more houses, hospitals, and water plants; and displaced some 50,000 people out of their homes. ‘Operation Protective Edge’ has thus turned the densely populated Palestinian enclave on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean into a living hell.
	“Both sides claim to be responding to aggression by the other side. The stated aim of Israel's incursion into the strip is to put an end to the firing of rockets by Hamas militants on Israeli civilians. Hamas, the Islamic party that rules Gaza, claims it is engaged in legitimate resistance to Israel's military occupation and that the rockets fired by its military wing were a response to the violent IDF crackdown on the West Bank following the abduction and murder of three Israeli youths. The chain of action and reaction is endless. But the underlying cause of the violence is the Israeli colonialism ... for the last seven years the entire population of Gaza, mostly refugees from previous Arab-Israeli wars, has been subjected to an illegal, inhumane, and unrelenting siege...
	“What is needed now is an immediate ceasefire. The Egyptian ceasefire proposal of July 15 met Israel's needs but utterly failed to meet the needs of the people of Gaza. Israel was consulted before the proposal was announced; Hamas was not. Hamas found out about the one-sided proposal from the media, not through diplomatic channels.
	“The proposal involved a return to the status quo with calm for Israelis but with the people of Gaza continuing to live under a crippling siege. Not unreasonably, Hamas demands an end to Israeli aggression, the easing of the blockade by Israel and Egypt, and the release of recently rearrested prisoners. It refuses to return to the status quo ante because it is intolerable.
	“Beyond a ceasefire to end the current round of fighting, the international community will need to tackle the much tougher task of persuading Israel to abide by the laws of war, respect UN resolutions, end the odious occupation, and recognise the natural right of the Palestinians to live on their land in freedom and dignity.” [Avi Shlaim, Oxford University] 

	Who is responsible  for the Israeli military assault on Gaza? Many can be blamed for  Israel’s committing what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime - launching aggressive war” - but the final responsibility lies with the President of the United States.
	Without the support - economic, military, political, and diplomatic - that the U.S. government provides, Israel’s crimes would not be possible. But the U.S. does not provide this support because of undue influence from the  government of Israel or the Israel lobby. The U.S. government supports Israel - and its oppression of Palestinians - because Israel is America’s “stationary aircraft carrier” in the Mideast. 
	Most Americans think of U.S. war in the Mideast as beginning after 9/11/2001, with the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but in fact our government has been killing people in the Mideast since the Second World War to secure control of what the U.S. State Department called then “the world’s greatest material prize,” Mideast gas and oil. The U.S. government demands not just access to Mideast energy resources but control of them, because a strangle-hold over world energy flows gives the U.S. the advantage over its economic rivals in Europe and Asia, notably Germany and China.
	President Obama fails to stop Israel’s ongoing murders in Gaza - as he could, with a word - because it’s been the policy of all U.S. administrations for two generations to allow the Israelis to continue their oppression of the Palestinians so long as Israel supports and participates in the crimes of its U.S. master.

It's time for Americans to say no to the child-killers in the U.S. and Israeli governments. 
Contact the president (202-456-1111) and our representatives in Congress (202-224-3121), by phone or online:
	President Obama - <http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments>
	Senator Durbin - <http://www.durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm>
	Senator Kirk - <http://www.kirk.senate.gov/?p=comment_on_legislation>
	Representative Davis - <https://rodneydavis.house.gov/contact/email-me>
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