The West's selective concern for civilians

The West's selective concern for civilians

In the 24 hours to 8am, 22 March 2011, Israeli soldiers beat up and hospitalised a 12-year-old Palestinian boy and injured a total of eight children in air strikes and other violence. New Zealand Television News channels ignored these horrors and Radio New Zealand News briefly announced that Israel was making air strikes on Gaza and made no further mention of them.

During those 24 hours Israeli soldiers also abducted two 16-year-old Palestinian boys. In addition, the Israeli Navy opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats, Gaza homes came under fire as Israeli forces invaded and bulldozed crops. Meanwhile, settler terrorists set fire to a house, damaged Palestinian fruit trees and opened fire on a funeral procession. Palestinians endured raids and/or home invasions in a refugee camp and 11 towns and villages. There were 9 air strikes, 5 attacks, 23 raids including home invasions, 25 Palestinians injured, 5 Palestinians taken prisoner, 13 detained and 83 restrictions of movement forced on Palestinians in their own land.

On March 20, New Zealand's Minister of Foreign Affairs the Rt. Hon. Murray McCully gave New Zealand's support for military strikes against the Libyan regime because, as he said in a New Zealand Government Press Release: "Gaddafi has been responsible for brutal acts of violence against the Libyan people." Mr McCully went on to say, "The message behind the Security Council was clear; accept a ceasefire and desist from acts of brutality against the Libyan people or there would be international intervention." Why has Mr McCully not condemned Israel's "brutal acts of violence" against its own Palestinian citizens, captive Palestinians in the illegally Occupied West Bank and the people of the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip?

UK MP Jeremy Corbyn, http://www.jeremycorbyn.org.uk/ speaking on 17 March in the House of Commons in the General Debate: North Africa and the Middle East, reminded the House that:

"Since 1967, Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 800,000 Palestinians, and at present there are thought to be 6600 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including children, elected members of the Palestinian Authority, a number of prisoners who are in isolation and at least 1000 who are deprived of any kind of family visit. Those are abuses of the human rights of those individuals. Add that to the construction of the wall, add that to the settlement policy, add that to the checkpoints, add that to the imprisonment of the people of Gaza, add that to the huge levels of unemployment resulting in Gaza, add that to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians living in the Negev Desert, add that to the removal of Israeli-Palestinian homes in Haifa and Jaffa - add all that up and what we clearly get is a constant harassment of all the Palestinian people.

" . . . Israel has been building the wall and continuing the settlements in defiance of all international law and all pressures to the contrary. Where are the condemnations and the sanctions? Where is the public discussion in the west of Israel's behaviour and policy? . . . there is no condemnation of what is being done, which is so damaging to the Palestinian people."

A first non-violent step towards curbing Israel's appetite for grievous harm to Occupied Palestinians and the Zionist State's own Palestinian citizens would be for the US to make its military aid and diplomatic assistance to Israel conditional upon respect for the norms of international law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention. Instead of rewarding Israel by welcoming it into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD could have made qualification for admission dependent upon an end to Israel's illegal Occupation settlements and the dismantling of its annexation Wall. Such manifest disapproval would have had a sobering effect upon the Zionist State, enjoying as it does at present, uncritical Western support and indulgent impunity for its war crimes.

Mr McCully applauded Israel's admission to OECD membership because it encouraged what he called "dialogue". Plainly, Israel sees that sort of dialogue as approval, and in practical terms that it is exactly what it is. It's time for New Zealand's voice to be heard in support of genuine human rights, natural justice and support for international law. New Zealand's endorsement of yet another Western military intervention in an oil producing nation places our country in league with the very forces that for the past almost one hundred years have sought to control strategic resources by denying the human rights of the peoples of a vast region. New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister should demonstrate this country's even-handed commitment to human rights everywhere. The present selective concern for human liberty will be seen by the majority of global civil society as self-serving and hypocritical.

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