"Freedom
or death," is the popular Palestinian mantra. These are not simply
words, but a rule by which Palestinians live and die. Gaza is the proof
and Israeli leaders are yet to understand.
Ramzy Baroud -- World News Trust
Jan 23, 2009 (World News Trust) -- My three-year-old son Sammy walked into my room uninvited as I sorted through another batch of fresh photos from Gaza.
I
was looking for a specific image, one that would humanise Palestinians
as living, breathing human beings, neither masked nor mutilated. But to
no avail.
All
the photos I received spoke of the reality that is Gaza today -- homes,
schools and civilian infrastructure bombed beyond description. All the
faces were either of dead or dying people.
I
paused as I reached a horrifying photo in the slideshow of a young boy
and his sister huddled on a single hospital trolley waiting to be
identified and buried. Their faces were darkened as if they were
charcoal and their lifeless eyes were still widened with the horror
that they experienced as they were burned slowly by a white phosphorus
shell.
It was just then that Sammy walked into my room snooping around for a missing toy. "What is this, daddy?" he inquired.
I
rushed to click past the horrific image, only to find myself
introducing a no less shocking one. Fretfully, I turned the monitor
off, then turned to my son as he stood puzzled. His eyes sparkled
inquisitively as he tried to make sense of what he had just seen.
He needed to know about these kids whose little bodies had been burned beyond recognition.
"Where are their mummies and daddies? Why are they all so smoky all the time?"
I
explained to him that they are Palestinians, that they were hurting
"just a little" and that their "mummies and daddies will be right
back."
The
reality is that these children and thousands like them in Gaza have
experienced the most profound pain, a pain that we may never in our
lives comprehend.
"I
think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new
weapons," Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who had recently returned
from Gaza told reporters in Oslo.
"This
is a new generation of very powerful small explosives that detonates
with extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to
10 metres
"We
have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb, because
they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive, but we have seen a
number of very brutal amputations."
The
dreadful weapons are known as dense inert metal explosives (DIME), "an
experimental kind of explosive," but only one of several new weapons
that Israel has been using in Gaza, the world's most densely populated
regions.
Israel
could not possibly have found a better place to experiment with DIME or
the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas than Gaza.
The
hapless inhabitants of the strip have been disowned. The power of the
media, political coercion, intimidation and manipulation have demonised
this imprisoned nation fighting for its life in the tiny spaces left of
its land.
No
wonder Israel refused to allow foreign journalists into the tiny
enclave and brazenly bombed the remaining international presence in
Gaza.
As
long as there are no witnesses to the war crimes committed in Gaza,
Israel is confident that it can sell a fabricated story to the world
that it is, as always, the victim, one that has been terrorised and,
strangely enough, demonised as well.
The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Jan. 15:
"Livni
said that these were hard times for Israel, but that the government was
forced to act in Gaza in order to protect Israeli citizens.
"She
stated that Gaza was ruled by a terrorist regime and that Israel must
carry on a dialogue with moderate sources while simultaneously fighting
terror."
The
same peculiar message was conveyed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert as he declared his one-sided ceasefire Jan. 17.
Never
mind that the "terrorist regime" was democratically elected and had
honoured a ceasefire agreement with Israel for six months, receiving
nothing in return but a lethal siege interrupted by an occasional round
of death and destruction.
Livni
is not as perceptive and shrewd as the U.S. media fantasises.
Blunt-speaking Ehud Barak and stiff-faced Mark Regev are not convincing
men of wisdom. Their logic is bizarre and wouldn't stand the test of
reason.
But
they have unfettered access to the media, where they are hardly
challenged by journalists who know well that protecting one's citizens
doesn't require the violation of international and humanitarian laws,
targeting medical workers, sniper fire at children and demolishing
homes with entire families holed up inside. Securing your borders
doesn't require imprisoning and starving your neighbours and turning
their homes to smoking heaps of rubble.
Olmert
wants to "break the will" of Hamas, i.e. the Palestinians, since the
Hamas government was elected and backed by the majority of the
Palestinian people.
Isn't
60 years of suffering and survival enough to convince Olmert that the
will of the Palestinians cannot be broken? How many heaps of wreckage
and mutilated bodies will be enough to convince the prime minister that
those who fight for their freedom will either be free or will die
trying?
Far-right
politician Avigdor Lieberman, a rising star in Israel, is not yet
convinced. He thinks that more can be done to "secure" his country,
which was established in 1948 on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian
towns and villages. He has a plan.
"We
must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the
Japanese in World War II," said the head of ultra-nationalist
opposition party Yisrael Beitenu.
A
selective reader of history, Lieberman could only think of the 1945
atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But something else
happened during those years that Lieberman carefully omitted. It's
called the Holocaust, a term that many are increasingly using to
describe the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip.
It
is strange that conventional Israeli wisdom still dictates that "the
Arabs understand only the language of force." If that were true, then
they would have conceded their rights after the first massacre in 1948.
But, following more than 60 years filled with massacres new and old,
they continue to resist.
"Freedom
or death," is the popular Palestinian mantra. These are not simply
words, but a rule by which Palestinians live and die. Gaza is the proof
and Israeli leaders are yet to understand.
My son persisted. "Why are Palestinians so smoky all the time, Daddy?"
"When you grow up, you'll understand."
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net)
is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been
published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the
world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A
Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London).