* Felicity Arbuthnot: “Advancing the Cause of Peace”

2008-03-08

Richard Moore

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8250

³Advancing the Cause of Peace²

By Felicity Arbuthnot

Global Research, March 4, 2008

³We have an appointment with death We have become familiar with our shores of 
despair ...² Ali Ahmad Said: ³Victims of a Map², Saqi Books

The world community is encouraged to celebrate and commemorate two occasions 
this year: Israel's theft of Palestine and the United Nations Declaration on 
Human Rights.

As the British government announces that the educational curriculum is to now 
include school children visiting Auschwitz ³lest we forget² the horrors of the 
Holocaust and to learn that such inhumanity must never be repeated, the Vice 
Israeli Minister for Collective Punishment and Serial Killing (sorry, ³Defence²)
Matan Viilnai, threatened a new ³Holocaust² in the Gaza Strip.

Surely, a far better education for the young would be to stay with their 
counterparts in Gaza and experience the real thing. Rows of children¹s shoes and
silent gas chambers are terrifyingly thought provoking, but pretty yesterday, 
when it can actually be lived: real human remains, real blood and even those 
reduced to real ashes - the real thing, in real time, at a Mediterranean venue 
near you. A learning experience never to be forgotten.

The 1.5 million souls to whom Gaza is home are entrapped, with no place to hide,
pounded from ground and air, by tanks, F-16's and Apache attack helicopters 
(courtesy of the ³land of the free²) in a reign of terror unleashed by ³the only
democracy in the Middle East². As little Gaza is set to become the next Sabra 
and Shatila massacre (with the advanced warning ringing round the globe) the 
world's governments deafen with their shameful, craven silence. War criminal 
turned Middle East ³peace envoy² in our Kafkaesque world, Anthony Charles Lynton
Blair Q.C., was unconcerned, taking a break from his stressful life counting his
piles of ill gotten gains, holidaying at an African game park owned by Virgin 
Airways founder, Richard Branson.

America's shoe in, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has seemingly 
borrowed his predecessor Kofi Annan's two word lexicon (³concern² and ³regret²) 
and announced his ³concern² at the situation. That, only after he had spoken of 
Israel's threat from home made rockets, fired by the resistance, before verbally
tiptoeing round Gaza's threat from weapons of mass destruction fired by the land
baggers.

Jordan's King Addullah did better, citing Israel's ³state terrorism, in 
violation of all international covenants², with his acting Foreign Minister, 
Nasser Judah, demanding a halt to the carnage and slamming Israel's violation of
³international law². Rogue states, as Israel, America and Britain, however, care
naught for international law, the former two countries stolen and settled on the
blood and beloved land of others and Britain, over centuries having plundered 
and culled across a swathe of the entire globe with impunity.

As the bodies, and the pathetic remains of humanity, a foot, a leg, a head, a 
hand, a torso and the injured mount, Israel's Prime Minister Olmert stated that 
Israel was: ³... taking an elementary step in self defence². One of his 
Ministers told the BBC that the killing and the destruction of infrastructure 
would continue. Whilst citizens can land in a Court of Law for running a red 
light, leaders (even in a country which has announced an intended Holocaust) 
ignore international laws enshrined in the Geneva, Hague and Nuremberg rulings 
with impunity.

Olmert and his shameful excuse for governmental law makers, of course, are not 
ending the fragile lives of human beings. They are targetting ³terrorists² and 
³Hamas².

Should not those suspected of crime be brought before the law rather than 
summarily executed ? Israel's actions in Gaza are indeed ³state terrorism².

Hamas, of course is a democratically elected government, fully entitled to its 
followers. Under the new world disorder, sovereignty of elected government also 
means nothing, to which Saddam Hussein and his colleagues graves are testimony. 
Not for nothing did Neil Mackay call his towering book embracing the pack of 
lies fed the populous on the Middle East in recent history : ³A War on Truth² 
(Sunday Herald Books 2006.)

And in the new world language, the untried executed are declared ³insurgents², 
³Taleban², ³terrorists², statements near never questioned. There are no mothers,
fathers, uncles, aunts, no toddlers, teenagers, children, infants. The names and
ages of countless dead are the silent scream which addresses this monumental, 
murderous lie. A family breakfast as the sun's rays spread, dispersing the 
night's cool, turns to carnage. Kids playing football become seared flesh 
against the dusty pitch, shouts and laughter forever silenced, in an instant.

A source with considerable expertise also believes that: ³The devilish weapons 
(in Israel's) most extensive armoury (include those) I think designed to 
disfigure and amputate, so that the loved ones are terrorised.²

A third of the victims of this declared Holocaust are children. There is no 
kinder transport, no child evacuees sent to safety for the duration. Babies are 
being buried. Normal people nurture the young. They wake numerous times in the 
night, for years, to creep and check that the sleeping miracle they have created
is still safe, warm. Their heart swells at the waking smile. They wash, cream, 
dress this new being in special clothes, dream up treats, carry him or her, 
hugged close, breathing in the special scent of hair and skin. They clutch a 
small hand in a fledgling walk and speed up to catch them when they run, should 
they be in danger of tripping, falling. Normal people do not kill kids.

"Uncle, I do not want to die; I want my dad", a toddler screamed as doctors 
tried to treat burn wounds across her body in Gaza¹s main Shifa Hospital. The 
girl was injured in a house which the Israeli army said was used to store and 
make weapons, reported the Jordan Times (2nd March.) Israel's ³democracy² 
spreads abnormality at every level. For most benefitting from democracy, few 
toddlers would even know what dying was.

One image speaks for all the child victims and those left behind, as a result of
Israel's criminal actions. It is a father, bent low, laying a small, wrapped 
child, in a grave, hewn in hardened earth of burned ochre, the sides tooled with
care. The little figure looks utterly lost, unbearably vulnerable, searingly 
alone, the grave seemingly so large. The father, the family will have watched as
it was covered and filled in, leaving that mite for ever alone, in rain, shine, 
cold, heat, unable to ever again wake in the night to stroke the hair, comfort a
fear. No faith could ever ease such pain, replicated again and again by 
America's client state.

"Shame on the Arabs, shame on the Muslims, shame on humanity...² said Tawfek 
Shaban, a forty four year old school teacher, of Israel's actions.

Shame on humanity indeed. A friend, currently in Palestine, compares the world's
shocking indifference to the remarkable Amira Hass's allusion ³to what her 
mother, Hanna saw when women were being taken to the death camps as German women
looked on in silence.² Hass wrote: ³The vortex is sucking louder and the world 
looks on from the side.²

My friend concluded: ³Palestine is the hinge of humanity. If the world's people 
turn away, look from the side, the vortex will become a typhoon.²

Prime Minister Olmert sees it differently. Striking at ³Hamas², he said, only 
advanced the cause of peace.

Islamonline.net has established a virtual Gaza Holocaust Museum. 
http://www.islamonline.net/English/In_Depth/GazaHolocaustMuseum/index.shtml

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and 
Muslim world on numerous occasions. She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her 
coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also senior 
researcher for John Pilger's award-winning documentary,

"Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq".
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partID=4

and author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of

³Baghdad² in the ³Great Cities² series, for World Almanac Books (2006.)

http://www.amazon.com/Baghdad-Great-Cities-World-Nikki/dp/0836850491/sr=1-5/qid=1171018142/ref=sr_1_5/105-9176229-7042804?ie=UTF8&s=books

Victims of a Map: A Bilingual Anthology of Arabic Poetry (Paperback)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victims-Map-Bilingual-Anthology-Arabic/dp/0863565247

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of 
the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on 
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