------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 31, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- RED CROSS CALL SETTLEMENTS WAR CRIME: U.S.-ISRAELI WAR AGAINST PALESTINIANS ESCALTES By Richard Becker Advanced U.S. F-16 fighter-bombers flown by Israeli pilots bombed five Palestinian cities on May 18. At least 16 Palestinians were killed and more than 140 wounded in the air raids on Nablus, Ramallah, Gaza, Jenin and Tulkarem. The attacks were the first by fixed-wing warplanes since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the June 1967 war. "This is war, my friends, this is war," the Israeli minister of communications told the media following the bombings. The May 18 raids marked the most dramatic escalation of the U.S.-Israeli war against the Palestinians in a week of very dramatic escalations. Aside from its nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal, Israel is now employing much of its heaviest and most advanced weaponry--almost all of which is supplied by its Godfather, the Pentagon--against the Palestinians. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have no tanks, planes, warships, anti-aircraft systems or even a regular army. In the eight-month-long Intifada, or Uprising, more than 450 Palestinians have been killed and over 14,000 seriously injured. In the same period, 87 Israelis have been killed and several hundred wounded. Nearly all the death and destruction has taken place inside the 22 percent of historic Palestine that comprises the West Bank and Gaza, conquered by Israel 34 years ago. Yet the corporate media here constantly projects an image that is the polar opposite of reality, depicting the Palestinians as the aggressors and the Israelis as the victims. Why? Because the glorious "free press" of the United States is the propaganda mouthpiece of Corporate America, especially when it's wartime. And the latest incidents prove that it is a U.S.-Israeli war. The terms of the U.S. supplying F-16s, among the most advanced fighting aircraft in existence, include the provision that Israel can use them only for "defensive" purposes. This has always been a fiction, of course, but it is one that is all-too-clearly exposed by the use of weapons of mass destruction on defenseless civilian cities. Therefore, even from the very narrow viewpoint of bourgeois legality, the U.S. should now withdraw all the advanced aircraft it has supplied to Israel. Instead, Vice President Richard Cheney has only called for Israel not to do it again. Although the U.S. mass media has largely hidden it from the population here, the world is outraged by the heavy bombing. A comparable situation would be if the Pentagon used F-16s against urban rebellions in Los Angeles or Cincinnati. Even much of the Israeli press has condemned the bombings, but on the basis that it is damaging Israel's "democratic image"--an image nourished by the vast U.S. propaganda machine but repudiated by most of the world. That "democratic image" took another stunning blow when on May 17, Rene Kosirnik, head of the International Red Cross in Israel and Palestine, called Israeli settlements "a war crime." "The installation of a population of the occupying power in occupied territory is considered an illegal move," said Kosirnik. "It is a grave breach of law. In principle it is a war crime." This startling development went virtually unreported in the U.S. WEEK OF SHARP ESCALATION On May 14, the Israeli army assassinated five members of the Palestine Authority's National Security Force at a small checkpoint in the town of Beitunia, in a 2 a.m. surprise attack on the post. The NSF, all sides agree, has not been involved in any combat operations. The officers were methodically executed one-by-one by Israeli snipers as they were preparing a late-night meal. On the same day, the Israeli Navy and Air Force launched assaults for the first time since the eight-month-old Intifada began. Then on May 15, the 53rd anniversary of the formation of the Israeli state, huge demonstrations swept the West Bank, Gaza, the Palestinian areas inside the 1948 borders of Israel, and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria. At least five Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with Israeli forces on this day known to Palestinians and all Arab people as al-Nakba--catastrophe day. Three-quarters of the Palestinian population, which then stood at about 1.1 million people, were forcibly driven from their homeland in 1948 to make way for the Israeli state. On May 16, Israeli officials admitted that the killing of the five NSF officers was "a mistake," but issued no apology nor indicated that any action would be taken against those responsible. On the contrary, Yarden Vatikay, a spokesperson for the Israeli "Defense" Ministry, justified the assassinations, stating: "There are no bad guys or good guys among the Palestinian organizations. All are fighting us now and no one is clean." Zeev Schiff, military affairs writer for the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper, wrote: "This Beitunia mistake will not hold back the army as it conducts its new offensive . . . To the army, the Beitunia mistake is merely the type of mistake that happens during a war." On May 18, Mahmoud Ahmed Marmash, a 21-year-old member of the Izz el-Din Al-Qassam Brigades--the military wing of the Hamas organization--walked into a shopping mall in Netanya, Israel, and exploded a bomb strapped to his body, killing himself and five Israelis and wounding more than 100 people. A statement by Hamas said that Marmash carried out the attack to avenge the deaths of the five NSF officers and a four-month-old baby, Iman Hijjo, killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza earlier this month. A few hours later, the F-16s carried out their deadly and destructive raids across the West Bank, reducing several large buildings to rubble. 'RETALIATION'--WHAT'S IN A WORD? Virtually the entire U.S. capitalist media--including CNN, New York Times, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, etc.-- labeled the F-16 attacks as "retaliation," as usual. The intent is to perpetuate the image of Israel as the victim, acting in "self-defense" as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon claimed. The idea that the Israelis were "retaliating" also implies that their actions were justified. The same media has conveniently developed collective amnesia regarding Sharon's war crimes against the Lebanese and Palestinian people. But those who were the targets have not. Sgt. Major Castro Salameh, a top Palestinian security commander, was wounded in the May 18 air raid on Nablus. Of the 70 people under his command, 10 were killed, including a cook and a computer specialist. "I remember these kinds of big rockets in Lebanon," Salameh told the Associated Press. In 1982, Sharon directed three months of intensive bombing against Beirut which killed 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. The object was to drive the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) out of Lebanon. After the PLO, including Salameh, was driven out, Sharon presided over the massacre of more than 2,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. 'DIPLOMACY IS PERJURY' While the U.S ruling class and its political agents support Israel as an irreplaceable instrument in the U.S. quest to dominate the oil-rich Middle East, they are also worried by the current developments. Bush, Cheney, Powell and the rest are concerned that the region could be "destabilized" by the escalating conflict-- meaning there could be mass social explosions against U.S. client regimes in the region like Jordan and Egypt. So, on May 21, the administration launched a new diplomatic offensive. Within an hour-and-a-half of each other, the long-awaited Mitchell Commission report and a new proposal by Secretary of State Powell were announced at media conferences in Washington. An initial reading of summaries of the two proposals, which not surprisingly share many of the same elements, brings to mind the old saying that "diplomacy is perjury." The Mitchell Commission, headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, calls for the Palestinian Authority to make "a 100 percent effort to prevent terrorism" and to arrest all "terrrorists" in its territory. The Israeli "Defense" Forces should develop "non-lethal" responses to unarmed demonstrators--no "100 percent" provision on the latter. Israel should also freeze all settlement building, says the Mitchell Commission. After a "cooling-off period," negotiations could start again. Powell picked up on the Mitchell Commission's findings to announce that he was sending three U.S. diplomats to the Middle East to "facilitate implementation of the report's recommendations." But the Sharon regime has announced that it has no intention of stopping settlement building--the on-going seizure of more and more Palestinian lands with the objective of preventing the emergence of a real Palestinian state. Yet at his May 21 press conference, Powell flat-out lied when addressing a question on the issue. He declared, "New settlements, we have clearly said, and the Israelis have said, they are not creating any new settlements." Two days earlier, however, the liberal Israeli group Peace Now had issued a report saying that since Sharon took office in March, 15 new settlements have been initiated in the West Bank and Gaza. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
