Friday, 22 August 2014

Israel’s Genocidal War Continues by Stephen Lendman

Samih al Qasim - I'm sorry

Israel’s Genocidal War Continues by Stephen Lendman

On Tuesday, peace talks collapsed. Israel sabotaged them. It refused to negotiate in good faith. It’s longstanding Israeli practice.

Straightaway fighting resumed. Hamas rockets are pinpricks compared to merciless Israeli air, ground and sea attacks.

Sophisticated weapons cause mass slaughter and destruction. Through early evening Wednesday Gaza time, at least 24 more Palestinians were reported killed.

They’re mostly civilians. They include women and children. The Palestinian death toll exceeds 2,040. Over 10,200 were injured. Many seriously. Some will die. Casualties keep mounting.

Life for many thousands of Gazans won’t ever be the same. Many lost homes and all their possessions. Losing loved ones matters most.

Israel reported striking “60 terror sites” overnight. Two individuals were targeted. An attempt to kill al-Qassam Brigades commander Muhammad Deif failed.

His wife and four-year-old daughter weren’t as fortunate. An Israeli air strike murdered them in cold blood.

Haaretz calls Dief “a serial assassination-attempt survivor.” He survived at least five attempts on his life.

If it’s now six, Netanyahu will face added pressure to show how over 10,000 Palestinian casualties and large parts of Gaza in ruins benefit Israel.

July 12, 2006 was the last known time Israel tried to kill Dief. He was wounded, survived, and continues leading Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades resistance righters.

Anti-Israeli world public opinion remains strong. Global BDS initiatives are increasing.

According to Haaretz, Killing Dief is important for Israel. Assassinations are lawless extrajudicial acts.

In Israel, they’re “considered achievements that can be marketed to the public,” said Haaretz. At the same time, they don’t fundamentally change things on the ground.

SuperValu is Ireland’s biggest food retailer. It decided no longer to sell Israeli products. In early August, it ordered its 232 stores to remove them from their shelves.

Major Irish toy retailer Smyths did the same thing. It displayed a poster saying Israeli products were removed from store shelves.

The decision followed a huge surge in Irish Palestinian support. It includes growing numbers of boycott initiatives.

Reports indicate other major European retailers did the same thing without announcing it publicly.

Boycotting Israel is more important than ever. Hitting it economically works. So does citing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza as reason enough to do it.

An August Hebrew business web site called The Marker said retailers fear the influence of growing numbers of consumers boycotting Israeli products.

A spokesman for major Israeli fruit grower/exporter EDOM said:

“Importers from Europe are telling us that they can’t sell Israeli produce.”

“One European buyer has told me that he had been blocked in several chains in Denmark and Sweden, and then in Belgium.”

“Last weekend, he told me that mangoes which had been packaged in the Netherlands, as always, and shipped to Ireland, were returned, claiming that Israeli produce would not be accepted.”

“I’ve heard of major exporters from whom chains in southern France are no longer buying.”

“There is no official boycott, but everyone is afraid of selling Israeli fruits. We can only hope that things do not get worse.”

An Israeli pomegranate grower cancelled an “entire work plan in the UK” because major chains don’t want Israeli products.

Belgium and Scandinavia importers report similar stories. Israeli fruit juice producer Priniv lost a major Swedish contract.

It did so for refusing to keep potential retail buyers from knowing it came from Israel.

BDS initiatives continue gaining traction. Israel’s Operation Protective Edge accelerated the process.

BDS efforts in recent years succeeded in pressuring growing numbers of European retailers to announce they won’t carry products from illegal Israeli settlements or companies operating there.

UK-based retail giant Tesco is second only to Walmart in sales and profits. It’s the latest company to boycott settlement-made products.

It won’t be the last. In recent years, campaigns against Israeli produce gained considerable traction.

Growing it on stolen Palestinian land explains why. Jordan Valley settler leaders said BDS efforts cost Israeli companies around $29 million in lost sales.

Campaigns against Israeli produce intensified after Britain’s Co-operative retail chain boycotted companies operating in settlements.

Similar campaigns are ongoing in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Israeli exporter Agrexco collapsed in liquidation after BDS initiatives got European retailers to cut business ties.

Will other Israeli companies suffer the same fate? Will BDS campaigns prove the best way to hit Israel where it hurts most – its economy?

Will they succeed in achieving long denied justice for Palestinians when other efforts failed?

All campaigns for justice are longterm struggles. Expect the fullness of time to have final say.

For four days, San Francisco area activists prevented a ship from Israel’ largest shipping company, Zim Integrated Shipping Services (Zim Line), from unloading its cargo.

Initially, organizers planned a one-day action. August 16 was chosen. Zim Line’s Zim Piraeus avoided Oakland completely.

It remained at sea. It did so to avoid thousands of protesters on the docks. On August 17, they returned.

They got International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) support. Local 10 honored their picket line.

They refused to unload the ship. They did so until Tuesday overnight. According to ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees, “(a)ll the work was (finally) completed.”

The Zim Piraeus “was untied this morning and cast off at 8:45.”

Reports said it left Oakland overnight Tuesday supposedly bound for Los Angeles. It made a U-turn, returned to Oakland, and got its cargo unloaded.

According to Arab Resource and Organizing Center’s Reem Assil:

“Zim has undoubtedly suffered significant economic losses, and we have set a powerful precedent for what international solidarity with Palestine, through boycott, divestment and sanctions, can look like.”

In solidarity with Palestinian resistance, it’s even more effective. On August 20, San Francisco’s National Black Newspaper BayView published Samih Al Qasim’s “Enemy of the Sun” Palestinian resistance poetry, saying:

“You may take the last strip of my land,

Feed my youth to prison cells.

You may plunder my heritage.

You may burn my books, my poems

Or feed my flesh to the dogs.

You may spread a web of terror

On the roofs of my village,

O enemy of the sun

But

I shall not compromise

and to the last pulse in my veins

I shall resist.”

It added former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s comments on American 16th century colonization.

He called it “the worst case of ethnocide ever recorded in human history.” It depopulated his native Haiti almost to the last man, woman and child.

It annihilated over 95% of native peoples throughout the Americas.

“Dear citizens,” said Aristide, “the roots of terrorism lie there! There, in the heart of slavery” and mass extermination.

Palestinians are today’s Native Americans. Israel continues genocidal war against them. It’s been ongoing for decades.

Unless stopped, potential extermination is possible. It happened in Haiti, America and elsewhere.

We’re all Palestinians. They deserve universal support to stop Israel from annihilating them altogether.

Operation Protective Edge is an example of how far Israel will go to control all valued parts of Judea and Samaria. It includes genocidal mass slaughter to do it.