Another day, another war crime committed by Israel (and at least the generally ineffective UN chief is speaking out):
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Israel on Wednesday to reconsider its decision to declare the Gaza Strip a hostile territory, warning that any cutoff of vital services would violate international law and punish the already suffering civilian population.
In one of his toughest statements aimed at Israel since taking the reins of the UN on January 1, Ban said he was very concerned at the Israeli government’s declaration earlier Wednesday and its announced intent to interrupt essential services such as electricity and fuel to the civilian population.
“Such a step would be contrary to Israel’s obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law,” he said.
“I call for Israel to reconsider this decision,” the secretary-general said in a statement read by UN spokeswoman Michele Montas.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security cabinet on Wednesday voted to declare the Gaza Strip a “hostile territory,” approving among other things the disruption of power and fuel supplies to the Strip, as a response to the ongoing Qassam rocket fire at Israeli communities.
Of course, if you’re the Australian Jewish community, punishing the Palestinians is all in a day’s work (and must make those Zionists so proud to be Jewish.) Their real concerns? The supposed anti-Israel “ratbags” on Labor’s backbench. What this really means is that the established Jewish community doesn’t want any politician of any party to speak out of turn, criticize Israel or its policies and be good little, obedient Zionists.
In other words, be the kind of friend that Israel doesn’t need. Real friends actually tell those they respect when they’re acting badly. The parochialism and immaturity of the Zionist establishment is truly pitiful to watch.
Is there any truth to the idea that anti- semitism articles appear in major newspapers whenever the IDF are embarking on the kind of actions they dont want those same readers to know about? Michael Danby had one last week and since we’ve been told of many incidents of anti semitism occurring in our communities. The crux of the Danby article in last weeks Australian was to censure Ed O’loughlin the Age Jerusalem correspondent for giving the Palestinian side of things. Prior to this we had Hanan Ashrawi (herself a Palestinian from the Fatah faction) criticising O’Loughlin for being “pro Hamas.” According to Danby, O’Loughlin’s arrticles goes further than a pro Hamas outlook. Danby quotes Tzvi Fleischer as saying “O’Loughlin’s bent is clearest in his longer features, which have generally been simply attempts to make and sell the Palestinian case to his readers.” Despite what one thinks of Hamas, having access to other Palestinians and their perspective is good while these events are unfolding. Danby then runs off a list of supposed journalistic crimes of which o’Loughlin is supposedly guilty (no direct quotes are supplied). Surely O’Loughlin is following the lead of other news agencies in describing events the way he does. In a fairer world people like Danby and others would be accused of being one sided towards Israel. We know when it comes to Israel that balance is hardly sought after and that completely ignoring the Palestinian side of things is completely de jour. So therefore Im not surprised that Danby has accused O’Loughlin of doing the exact same thing he is guilty of doing. Its the classic tactic of accusing someone of the crime knowing you yourself committed it (in order to appear less guilty). Why do these articles appear time and time again? Surely if people were so supportive of the Israeli perspective they wouldve shown their disapproval of the Age and its ilk long ago. I suspect other reasons, namely that people are already sceptical of Israel’s policies and are looking for good sources of information that tells them some semblance of the truth.