Israel's Onslaught: One of Its Bloodiest Attacks on Palestinians in 60 Years

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted December 30, 2008.

Israel has been claiming that it's the only democracy and so on, but why is it slaughtering Palestinian democracy? They did that in 1976, when we had elections for the first time for our municipalities, and within one year, because they didn't like the elected people, they either bombarded them or deported them or arrested them. And now, after 2006 elections, they are putting 45 members of our parliament in jail. One of the leaders, one of the members of parliament, is not Hamas. His name is Ahmed Saadat. He's from the left, from the secular democratic left. He was just sentenced to 30 years in jail, just because he is the secretary-general of a Palestinian organization. It's amazing how the world is silent about this slaughter of democracy. And if Israel is happy with being in alliance with some dictator, then it is the one that is losing.

The main question here, that I want to come back to some myths that Israel is spreading. They keep stressing that they are attacking Hamas. This is not on Hamas; this is on the whole Palestinian population. They claim that they ended occupation in Gaza. This is not true. They never ended occupation in Gaza. They continue to occupy Gaza. Now they're changing the form of occupation again, and they're threatening to complete the invasion again and destroying people's lives. Third, they claim that it was the Palestinians who broke the ceasefire. This is false. This is incorrect. Israel broke the ceasefire. And now the party that is refusing to have ceasefire is Barak, the defense minister of Israel, and he's the one who is refusing to allow ceasefire to happen again.

At the same time, I must say that Israel is not only attacking the Gaza Strip. Practically, Israel in the West Bank has created a system that can only be described as an apartheid system, a much worse apartheid than the one that prevailed in South Africa at one point of time. Why do we have all these problems? For one very simple fact: The violence is a symptom of the disease. The disease has been there all the time, for 41 years, and it is the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories. And because the Israeli government does not want to stop this occupation, that's why we keep running from one conflict into another. Please.

AG: I wanted to bring Gideon Levy back into the conversation from Tel Aviv from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Gideon, you write, "Blood will now flow like water. Besieged and impoverished Gaza, the city of refugees, will pay the main price. But blood will also be unnecessarily spilled on our side. In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel's overreaction." What about -- can you elaborate on this?

GL: Yes, I think that Israel had this legitimacy to protect its citizens in the southern part of Israel, and it had the legitimacy to do something, as the Israelis all expect the government to do, but this doing something does not mean this brutal and violent operation. The diplomatic efforts were just in the beginning, and I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed.

And even about the military reaction, you know, there are all kinds of stages. Immediately to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs -- just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this. And this has nothing to do with self-defense or with retaliation even. It went out of proportion, exactly like two-and-a-half years ago in Lebanon.

AG: Dr. Moussa El-Haddad in Gaza City, the responsibility of Hamas here and the response of the people of Gaza? Right now, a quote of Tzipi Livni, who just recently said, "Unfortunately, in this kind of attack, there are some civilian casualties, but Israel took all the necessary actions to warn the civilians before the attacks to leave the places they know that Hamas stays."

MH: Well, it's not some civilians. All those who are dead now, most of them are civilians. And a question that keeps coming up, people are saying Israel has the right to protect itself from the Hamas rockets. What about the West Bank? Does Hamas -- does West Bank has rockets that they throw on Israel? Of course, none. And look at what's happening in the West Bank, in Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah and everywhere. People are being killed almost every day. And I just cannot explain to you the situation right now.

Hamas, as an organization, was, as Dr. Barghouti just mentioned, this government was democratically elected in front of the eyes of the whole world, and this is the only democratic election that happened in the Middle East, really democratic. And people -- why just the world didn't give this government a chance to prove itself? It was not going to throw rockets or just -- when they had this truce and the ceasefire, who broke it? It was Israel. We had a siege for one-and-a-half months, nothing allowed in, no medicines, no food, no nothing. And still, Hamas and other organizations did not throw any rockets. Israel kept on coming, and they killed 23 people in three weeks. Of course, this provoked Hamas, and they just did not renew this issue of ceasefire, because it was useless.

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Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program Democracy Now!

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