[candidate-development] Gazan Holocaust

[John Walsh]

At the end of the piece Nader suggests that we raise Gaza with our  
congresspeople.
Darn good idea.
john walsh (MA delegate)

March 8-9, 2008
http://www.counterpunch.com/nader03082008.html

The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering That Candidates and Congress  
Ignore

By RALPH NADER

The world's largest prison—Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many  
of  them starving, sick and penniless—is receiving more sympathy and  
protest  by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than  
is reported  in the U.S. press.

In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli  
government  blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other  
necessities from  coming into this tiny enclave through international  
relief organizations  is received with predictable silence or  
callousness by members of  Congress, including John McCain, Hillary  
Clinton and Barack Obama. The contrast invites more public attention  
and discussion.

Israel has militarily occupied Gaza for forty years. It pulled out  
its  colonials in 2005 but maintained an iron grip on the area   
controlling  all access, including its airspace and territorial  
waters. Its F-16s and  helicopter gunships regularly shred more and  
more of the areas—public  works, its neighborhoods and inflict  
collective punishment on civilians  in violation of Article 55 of the  
Fourth Geneva Convention. As the International Red Cross declares,  
citing treaties establishing  international humanitarian law,  
"Neither the civilian population as a  whole nor individual civilians  
may be attacked."

According to The Nation magazine, the great Israeli human rights   
organization B'Tselem, reports that the primitive rockets from Gaza,   
have taken thirteen Israeli lives in the past four years, while  
Israeli  forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the  
occupied  territories in the past two years alone. Almost half of  
them were  civilians, including some 200 children.

The Israeli government is barring most of the trucks from entering  
Gaza  to feed the nearly one million Palestinians depending on  
international  relief, from groups such as the United Nations Relief  
and Works Agency  (UNRWA). The loss of life from crumbling health  
care facilities,  disastrous electricity cutoffs, gross malnutrition  
and contaminated  drinking water from broken public water systems  
does not get totaled.  These are the children and their civilian  
adult relatives who expire in  a silent violence of suffering that 98  
percent of Congress avoids  mentioning while extending billions of  
taxpayer dollars to Israel annually. UNRWA says "we are seeing  
evidence of the stunting of children, their  growth is slowing."  
Cancer patients are deprived of their chemotherapy,  kidney patients  
are cut off from dialysis treatments and premature  babies cannot  
receive blood-clotting medications.

The misery, mortality and morbidity worsens day by day. Here is how  
the  commissioner-general of UNRWA sums it up, "Gaza is on the  
threshold of  becoming the first territory to be intentionally  
reduced to a state of  abject destitution, with the knowledge,  
acquiescence and-some would  say-encouragement of the international  
community."

Amidst the swirl of hard-liners on both sides and in both Democratic  
and  Republican parties, consider the latest poll (February 27, 2008)  
of  Israelis in the highly respected newspaper—Haaretz: "Sixty-four  
percent  of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with  
the Hamas  government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of  
captive  soldier Gilad Shalit. Less that one-third (28 percent) still  
opposes  such talks. An increasing number of public figures,  
including senior  officers in the Israeli Defense Forces' reserves  
have expressed similar  positions on talks with Hamas."

Hamas, which was created with the support of Israel and the U.S.   
government years ago to counter the Palestine Liberation  
Organization  (PLO), has repeatedly offered cease-fire proposals. The  
Israeli prime minister rejected them, notwithstanding "a growing   
number of politicians and security offices who are calling for Israel  
to  accept a cease-fire," according to Middle East specialist,  
professor  Steve Niva.

There is a similar contrast between the hardline Bush regime, the   
comparably hardline Democrats in Congress, and a recent survey by  
the  American Jewish Committee (itself often hawkish on Israeli  
actions  toward the Palestinians) of American Jewry.

If Democrats and Republicans were serious about peace in the Middle   
East, they would showcase the broad joint Israeli and Palestinian  
peace  movements. These efforts now include the over 500 courageous  
Israeli and  Palestinian families who have lost a loved one to the  
conflict and who  have joined forces to form the Parents Circle -  
Bereaved Families Forum. Together, these families are expanding a non- 
violent initiative to push  for a peaceful resolution to the  
conflict. Even though some of the  families have visited the United  
States, their efforts are almost  unknown even to U.S. observers of  
that area's turmoil.

A new DVD documentary titled Encounter Point (see   
www.encounterpoint.com) recounts the activities and passion of these   
Palestinian and Israeli families steeped in the peace philosophies  
of  Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

Do you think members of Congress will give them a public hearing? A   
meeting? It would be worth asking your members of Congress to do so.

Ralph Nader is running for the White House as an independent candidate.