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November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
November 25, 2001
Ralph Nader
The Crisis
in Leadership
Sam Bahour
Israel's
Choice
November 24, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
He Who
Has
the Guns Rules
November 23, 2001
Phyllis
Pollack
Long
Live The Clash
Cockburn/St. Clair
The Press
and
the Patriot Act
November 22, 2001
Oscar
Gonzalez
A
Homeland Thanksgiving
November 21, 2001
CounterPunch Wire
Rep. Chambliss
Calls for Arrest of Every Muslim That Enters Georgia
Tom Turnipseed
Broadcasting
and Bombing
David Price
Academia Under
Attack
Molly
Secours
Modern
Day Witch Trials
Tariq Ali
Killing
Mr. Biswas
November 20, 2001
Sam Bahour
Plain
Truths About Palestine
Michael Ratner
Moving Toward
a
Police State
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 19, 2001
Edward
Said
Suicidal
Ignorance
November 18, 2001
John Farley
Shame on You,
Chelsea!
Kalpana
Sharma
Flower
Power:
A Blow for Peace
Tony Mauro
The Quirin
Ruling:
FDR's Horrible Precedent for Bush's Terror Courts
C.G. Estabrook
American
Crusades
November 17, 2001
Zoltan Grossman
It Ain't
Over Til It's Over
November 16, 2001
Rick Giombetti
Rep.
McDermott and
the Decay of Liberalism
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Voices
of Muslim Feminists
Mokhiber/Weissman
Kill,
Kill, Kill
November 15, 2001
George
Monbiot
Blasting
Our Way
Toward Peace
Jack McCarthy
Hitchens
Mind-Meld
and Hot Bodies
Steve
Perry
Afghan
Puzzle Palace
RAWA
We Do Not Accept
the Northern Alliance
November 14, 2001
Jensen/Mahajan
The
Press Must Press Harder on Afghanistan
David Vest
The Great Unificator
Harry
Browne
Preventing
Future Terrorism
November 13, 2001
Peter Mahoney
Veteran's
Day, 2001
Rep. Ron
Paul
Expanding
NATO
Is a Bad Idea
November 12, 2001
Robert Jensen
Goodbye to
All That...
Patriotism
Nancy
Oden
My
Day at the Airport
CounterPunch Wire
East Timor
10 Years
After the Massacre
C.G. Estabrook
Instead
of Terror
Alexander Cockburn
Wide World
of Torture
November 11, 2001
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland
Insecurity: The Politics of Terror in America
November 10, 2001
Grover Furr
Seeking an Opposition
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Kyle
Anatomy
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November 27,
2001
Suffer Palestine's Children
By Sunil K. Sharma
Early in the morning of November 22, five Palestinian
children were blown to pieces by an Israeli mine or bomb as they
headed to school in Khan Younis. The children were 6 to 14 years-of-age,
all from the Al Astel family. It is unclear if the explosion
was set off by the children tripping over or kicking the device,
or via remote control.
The next day, a senior Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) official was quoted on Israel Radio as saying "a
big mistake was done." The officer admitted an undercover
army unit planted the device "in the area," yet evaded
any explanation as to why it was planted in the vicinity of a
school. Yesterday, the IDF issued its first official statement
regarding the killings. An IDF investigation revealed serious
flaws in the planting and operation of the ordnance. Following
the usual script, the IDF feigned "sorrow over the deaths
of five children." The IDF claims the device was planted
in an area used by Palestinians to fire mortars at nearby Israeli
colonial settlements and army positions. Israel Radio quoted
IDF officials as saying the "device was meant to remain
well hidden and was to be set off when the Palestinian shooters
returned to the area." (quoting Ha'aretz, 11/25/01)
Israeli opposition leader MK Yossi Sarid
of Meretz, responding to IDF claims that their recent operations
in Khan Younis were designed to prevent Palestinian attacks,
stated: "That's a targeted hit? Do you know who will pass
by the area [where the bomb is planted]? It's a residential area.
What kind of bombs do you place in an area where school children
pass by?" (Ha'aretz, 11/24/01)
MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) has called for
a Knesset committee to investigate the incident, expressing dismay
that the IDF sat quietly for two days before putting out an official
statement that amounts to little more than a cover-up.
MK Uri Ariel (National Union-Yisrael
Beiteinu) disagreed, stating that IDF investigations take time
because they are thorough. "I have faith in the IDF,"
he stated. "[Ariel] said that the army was is in the throes
of the battle in the territories, and was busy assassinating
Mahmoud Abu Hanoud [of Hamas] and so could not concentrate solely
on the investigation that Cohen demanded." (Ha'aretz, 11/25/01)
In other words: we were too busy trying
to assassinate a Palestinian leader to investigate our killing
of Palestinian children, but now that we've taken a five-minute
breather from our assassination campaign we can conclude from
our thorough investigation that a regretful mistake was made.
Sorry kids, we'll try to do a better job of killing the right
folks next time.
The Israelis have not condemned the killings,
though some officials say an apology might perhaps be in order.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society, the total number of Palestinians killed since the second
Intifada erupted on September 29, 2000 is 821. 16,661 Palestinians
have been injured, many maimed for life. Palestinian children
under the age of 18 represent about 1/4 of those killed.
The Israeli military's killing of Palestinian
children is not a sometimes accidental by-product of 34 years
of occupation. It is in fact a matter of deliberate policy.
In a chilling interview conducted by
Ha'aretz correspondent Amira Hass, an IDF sharpshooter admitted
it was IDF policy to shoot at children above the age of 12. Here
is an excerpt [AH = Hass, IS = Sharpshooter]:
(AH) You haven't shot children.
(IS) "All the sharpshooters haven't
shot children."
(AH) But nonetheless there are children
who were hit, wounded or killed after they were hit in the head.
Unless these were mistakes.
(IS) "If they were children, they
were mistakes."
(AH) Do they talk about this?
(IS) "They talk to us about this
a lot. They forbid us to shoot at children."
(AH) How do they say this?
(IS) "You don't shoot a child who
is 12 or younger."
(AH) That is, a child of 12 or older
is allowed?
(IS) "Twelve and up is allowed.
He's not a child any more, he's already after his bar mitzvah.
Something like that."
(AH) Thirteen is bar mitzvah age.
(IS) "Twelve and up, you're allowed
to shoot. That's what they tell us."
(AH) Again: Twelve and up you're allowed
to shoot children.
(IS) "Because this already doesn't
look to me like a child by definition, even though in the United
States a child can be 23."
(AH) Under international law, a child
is defined as someone
up to the age of 18.
(IS) "Up until 18 is a child?"
(AH) So, according to the IDF, it is
12?
(IS) "According to what the IDF
says to its soldiers. I don't know if this is what the IDF says
to the media."
(AH) And children are from 12 down. Is
there no order that between 12 and 18 you shoot at the legs and
not the head?
(IS) "Of course we try to see to
it that he really is over
20."
(AH) In the 10 seconds that you have.
(IS) "In the 10 seconds that I have,
I have to estimate how old he is."
(AH) And in what direction the wind is
blowing, and the deviation here and there, and which way he'll
jump the next moment.
(IS) "Yes, but there are hardly
any mistakes by sharpshooters. The mistakes are made by people
who aren't sharpshooters."
(AH) And it turns out that they happen
to hit the children's heads, and all this is just by chance?
(IS) "If you say you have seen children
that have been hit in the head a lot, then it is sharpshooters."
(AH) So what you're saying is that our
definition of children is different.
(IS) "Your definition is different."
(AH) Because for you it's someone who
is 12.
(IS) "Yes."
(AH) But a child of 13 doesn't bear arms,
no matter what you call him, a boy or a teenager or an adult.
(IS) "He isn't holding a gun but
a firebomb, and in certain places it is possible also to fire
on people who throw firebombs."
["Don't shoot till you can see they're
over the age of 12," Ha'aretz, November 20, 2000]
In another article, Hass reported that
a group of Western diplomats traveling from Jerusalem to Ramallah
witnessed Israeli troops fire live ammunition at a group of stone-throwing
Palestinian children, "even though the children were too
far to pose a risk to the soldiers." "The diplomats
say that shots were fired even though a long line of civilian
cars were traveling past the children at the time." "[One
of the diplomats] says that he saw a second soldier in the observation
tower clapping and raising his hands as if in victory after his
colleague fired at the children." ["Envoys say they
saw IDF fire at children." Ha'aretz, July 26, 2001]
In a damning indictment of Israeli military
criminality and pathology, New York Times Middle East Bureau
chief Chris Hedges writes: "Yesterday at this spot the Israelis
shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen.
One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy,
Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under
eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered-death
squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers
with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb
snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple
onto the pavement in Sarajevo-but I have never before watched
soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them
for sport." ["Gaza Diary: Scenes from the Palestinian
Uprising," Harper's
Magazine, October 2001]
In a report released last week, B'Tselem,
the leading Israeli human rights organization, blasted what it
called a "shallow and superficial" Israeli army investigation
into the shooting death of an eleven-year-old Palestinian boy,
Khalil al-Mughrabi.
On July 7, Khalil and twenty to thirty
other children played soccer in the Yubneh Refugee Camp, in Rafah,
near the Egyptian border. After they finished playing, the children
sat on some mounds of sand near the border fence. Suddenly, Khalil's
head burst into parts from a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier
in a nearby observation post. The soldiers proceeded to unleash
"intense fire" on the other children. Ibrahim Abu Susin,
10, and Suleiman Abu Rijal, 12, were badly wounded.
B'Tselem concludes: "An eleven-year-old
child was killed and two children were injured for no reason.
However, the army failed to open any investigation against the
soldiers responsible, even though all the army officials involved
in the review of the incident clearly knew that the soldiers
had used lethal weapons when their lives were not in jeopardy
and had violated army regulations."
B'Tselem notes that despite the deaths
of hundreds of Palestinian civilians since the Intifada broke
out, "the Military Police only opened some twenty investigation
files relating to the illegal use of weapons. In none of the
cases were indictments filed." The report goes on to say
that, "Over the years, B'Tselem has received hundreds of
letters from the Judge Advocate General's office regarding events
in which Palestinians were killed, injured, or beaten by soldiers.
In some of the cases, Military Police investigations were opened,
and in some, the Judge Advocate General's office only conducted
an internal investigation. Most of the replies that B'Tselem
received state that the soldiers acted properly and that no action
was taken against the soldiers involved." ["Whitewash:
The Office of the Judge Advocate General's Examination of the
Death of Khalil al-Mughrabi, 11, on 7 July 2001," B,Tselem,
11/13/01]
Given the well known history of the Israeli
military's farcical self "investigations," don't hold
your breath for an honest accounting of the killing of the five
children in Khan Younis.
The message Israeli troops receive from
the lack of serious investigation into and punishment for military
criminality is clear: you can murder civilians -- even little
children -- for no reason at all, and you can do it with impunity.
True to form, the US has also refused
to condemn its client's murderous actions.
US State Department spokesman Philip
Reeker expressed "regret" over the latest killing of
Palestinian children, saying the incident served as a "strong
reminder" of the consequences of the ongoing violence. "The
United States deeply regrets the tragic accidental deaths of
five Palestinian children . . . when they came in contact with
unexploded ordnance. It was a terrible tragedy. We understand
that the Israeli army has begun an investigation into the circumstances
of these deaths and we expect that investigation will thoroughly
determine what happened. This incident... is a strong reminder
of why both sides should do all they can to end the violence,
reduce tensions and resume negotiations," he added.
And so it goes, the children of Palestine
suffer, the occupation continues, Israeli state terrorism accelerates
and the best that the Palestinians can expect from the US by
way of Colin Powell is a PR performance that does nothing in
substance to pressure our Israeli client from desisting. Instead,
the US puts the burden of responsibility for "ending the
violence" squarely on the Palestinians, while calling for
an end to the Intifada, an uprising (however flawed) that is
both a reaction to Israel's brutal occupation and the Palestinian
Authority's corruption, incompetence and selling out of the cause.
To steal a quip from Palestinian writer
Sam Bahour, US statements are "equivalent to that of a policeman
walking past a rape victim, still pinned under her assailant,
and verbally scolding both parties by advising them to work out
their differences."
Israel has little to fear that its continuing
rampages through the occupied Palestinian territories and the
latest incident of child killings will jeopardize the staggering
$3-5 billion of military and economic "aid" it receives
from the US annually. Nor should Israel fear that America's vaunted
"War on Terror" will extend to them. It's simply a
matter of whose side you are on.
Our tax dollars at work as they say.
And still we wonder why the US is the object of anger and resentment
to many around the world.
Given the overwhelming US military, economic
and diplomatic support for Israel, the moral imperative is on
us to end our government's decisive role in Israel's ongoing
colonial conquest and occupation of Palestinian lands and its
people. CP
Sunil Sharma
is a musician, writer and activist based in Northern California.
He is the editor of Dissident Voice, a semi-regular newsletter
"dedicated to challenging the lies of the corporate press
and the privileged classes it serves." He can be contacted
at dissidentvoice@earthlink.net
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