The Photo of Israel's ultimate Crime

It does not depend on a certain political perspective, nationality, religion or race to feel so outraged by the barbaric crimes of Israel in Gaza, you needs only to be a human being with a functioning heart. This region has witnessed more than its fair share of atrocities against human dignity in the past few decades. We sadly confess that a portion of these atrocities were conducted by official and rogue Arab military entities against their own populations in a battle of authority and religious conflicts. However, nothing can compare to the continuous barbaric acts committed by the Israeli war machine against innocent Palestinians and Lebanese in particular and Arabs in general.

Robert Fisk has a good historic account of the Israeli war crimes for the benefit of the ignorant western readers and we in the Arab world have a memory full of tragic illustrations of brutalities conducted against Arabs by the State of Israel.

However, nothing in this bloody history of slaughter can be compared to the photo that has shaken my body and soul and put me into a crying frenzy. The photo is for the head of a little Gazan child whose body is still buried under the rubble of her own home where she should have been alive, laughing, playing and warm. The photo was on the cover page of both Addustour and Alghad newspapers for Wednesday 7 January.

(I was unable to upload the photo due to technical problem in Jeeran so this is a link to it)

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13319

This is painful to a level that is not comprehended. No human being can tolerate such a pain of seeing this photo. Fighters and adults chose their own destinies. Some have the conscious decision of leaving civilian life and joining a military movement to defend their country or whatever they believe in. These people usually are the main victims as they engage in combat.

In this region, it is the children, with their innocent fresh young bodies and unfulfilled dreams who become the victims of a vicious, blood thirsty, non-discriminatory state terrorism conducted by Israel. With a total of 280 Children dead out of 700 total victims in Gaza until now, this war is being fought between an arsenal of devastating power and the children of Gaza. It happened in Lebanon, it happened in the two Intifadas and now in Gaza and it is a continuous course of action by the Israeli state and not an unfortunate accident.

Why is Israel doing this?

Hamas rockets? Give me a break. A wave of rockets that have killed 4 Israelis in 5 years cannot be a legitimate excuse for devastating a complete city after 18 months of starvation and siege. The answer is provided by Patrick Seale's fantastic article as he says "A striking feature of the War in Gaza is the extraordinary immunity Israel has enjoyed to strike and kill at will". Seale continues to say "there is no serious countervailing pressure on the Jewish state, neither from a weak and divided Arab world, nor from the European Union, still struggling to become a coherent political entity, nor from emerging powers such as China and Russia. The total absence of any balance of power means that

Israel

has been able to do as it pleases". Exactly

Let there be no mistake. When we say the "State of Israel" we refer to the political entity that is governed by a crop of military figures and politicians who have been baptized to power with the blood of the Palestinians. This is a state that is built around fear, illusions of victimization and the unrestrained desire to conduct any kind of atrocity against its enemies (Hamas, Hizbullah and the children of Palestine and Lebanon) without any feeling of guilt. This is a state that is besieged by the mentality of power arrogance and is threatened even by the idea of peace. This is a state that knows it will not pay any military, political, economic or existional price for its barbaric acts of terror as there is absolutely no counterforce to limit the margin of its crimes.

I cannot eliminate the reality of having a few people in Israel who are genuinely pro-peace but they are hardly recognizable, let alone being effective in a society that is mobilized around arrogance of power. All public polls in Israel reflect a strong support for the war, unwaivered even by the horrific images of dead Palestinian children. We know they see those photos, so there is no way to shift to the argument of ignorance.

We live in a crippled international order that is unable to stop the aggression. A license to kill is given by the White House and the Security Council is paralyzed by the USA veto and the rest of the world has genuine compassion with little motives to act. Why?

Because, we Arabs and Muslim brought this state of disrespect upon ourselves. Political analysts in the Arab World are crying out loud for Obama to speak. Why should he? What kind of power balance does the Arab world provide to force Obama to act? Not a gram.

As we exchange dirty accusations amongst ourselves, fail to have ONE action oriented against Israel whether political, economic or even social let alone the military action, who will care to come to our rescue. If we own power and are willing to use it, Obama would have called to ask about what he can do to help, not the Arabs begging for support.

I am a moderate person and a genuine believer in peace. As a writer I have put my reputation in the mud at some occasions to defend the strategic path of peace but there is no gain at all. The peace that we all know and strive for will not be attained until the Israeli war machine is silenced, and unfortunately it cannot be stopped without Israel becoming aware that it will pay a price for its atrocities.

The price I refer to is not necessarily violent or even a retaliatory one. A wave of missiles can never stop Israel but it will give it more reasons for crimes (although obviously it does not need them) and will put Palestinians under the blood thirsty Israeli war machine with very little to defend themselves and inflect injuries on the attacker. A political and economic price should be available to the Arab Political apparatus. Even if there is a strategic move for peace, this should not remain the only option. Such an act of protecting dignity should be Pan-Arab with all Arab countries ready to stand shoulder to shoulder to say enough is enough, for both Israel and the

USA

. It should be also capable of mobilizing the international law in the same speed and effectiveness as against Sudan, Serbia,

Indonesia

or even Mugabe's regime.

Queen Rania of Jordan, who is a moderate Arab Queen considered by the west as a symbol of modern Arab Women, has been very eloquent and direct in her statement from Amman that the "either the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not so universal, or the people of Gaza are not human beings, worthy of the same “universal” rights."

It is obvious that this little child is not considered a human being either by Israel, the USA, the so-called international order and the world at large. Otherwise, she should have been live by now.

At the end of the massacre, when thousands are killed and destruction is compelling, a ceasefire will be signed with no political change of the situation. Both Olmert, Barak and Livni will compete in showing ruthlessness to the Israeli voters as a vehicle to political leadership and Khalid Mashal will claim a Nasrallah-style victory, but those lives lost for no political reason will result only in more isolation and hatred of Israel in the region and more growth of fundamentalism at the expense of the extinction of moderate Arabs and Muslim. Peace will be the biggest loser and the whole region will be on the verge of a new more horrible tragedy.

Only courageous leadership at the global and Arab level can save the region from such a fate.