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SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct 11 (IPS) – When Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations spoke outdoors the Safety Council on Sunday, he said: “That is Israel’s 9/11. That is Israel’s 9/11.” In the meantime, in a PBS NewsHour interview, Israel’s ambassador to the USA mentioned: “That is, as somebody mentioned, our 9/11.”
Whereas the phrase may appear logical, “Israel’s 9/11” is already getting used as an enormous propaganda weapon by Israel’s authorities — now engaged in large battle crimes in opposition to civilians in Gaza, after mass homicide of Israelis by Hamas final weekend.
On the floor, an analogy between the atrocities simply suffered by Israelis and what occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 may appear to justify requires unequivocal solidarity with Israel. However horrific actions are in course of from an Israeli authorities that has lengthy maintained a system of apartheid whereas crushing fundamental human rights of Palestinian individuals.
What may be very sinister about trumpeting “Israel’s 9/11” is what occurred after America’s 9/11. Carrying the shroud of sufferer, the USA proceeded to make use of the horrible tragedy suffered inside its personal borders as a license to kill huge numbers of individuals within the identify of retaliation, righteousness and, in fact, the “battle on terror.”
It’s a playbook that the federal government of Benjamin Netanyahu is presently adapting and implementing with a vengeance. Now underway, Israel’s collective punishment of two.3 million individuals in Gaza is an intensification of what Israel has been doing to Palestinians for many years.
However Israel’s extremism, greater than ever touting itself as a matter of self-defense, is at new racist depths of willingness to deal with human beings as appropriate for extermination.
On Monday, Israel’s Protection Minister Yoav Gallant described Palestinians as “beastly individuals” and said: “We’re combating animals and are performing accordingly.”
Indiscriminate bombing is now taking place together with a cutoff of meals, water, electrical energy and gasoline. Noting that “even earlier than the most recent restrictions, residents of Gaza already confronted widespread meals insecurity, restrictions on motion and water shortages,” the BBC reported {that a} UN official mentioned individuals in Gaza “had been ‘terrified’ by the present scenario and anxious for his or her security — in addition to that of their youngsters and households.”
It is a horrible echo from the post-9/11 method of the U.S. authorities, which from the outset after Sept. 11, 2001 conferred advance absolution on itself for any and all of its future crimes in opposition to humanity.
Within the identify of combating terrorism, the USA inflicted collective punishment on big numbers of people that had completely nothing to do with 9/11. The Prices of Conflict challenge at Brown College calculates greater than 400,000 direct civilian deaths “within the violence of the U.S. post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.”
Early within the “battle on terror,” Protection Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had customary a template to supply approval for just about any killing by the U.S. army. “We didn’t begin this battle,” he mentioned at a news briefing in December 2001, two months into the Afghanistan battle. “So, perceive, accountability for each single casualty on this battle, whether or not they’re harmless Afghans or harmless People, rests on the ft of the al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
Rumsfeld was showered with acclaim from the U.S. media institution, whereas he not solely insisted that the U.S. authorities had no accountability for the deaths brought on by its armed forces; he additionally attested to the American army’s notable decency.
“The concentrating on capabilities, and the care that goes into concentrating on, to see that the exact targets are struck, and that different targets aren’t struck, is as spectacular as something anybody may see,” Rumsfeld mentioned. He lauded “the care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it.”
Even earlier than its present high-tech assault on Gaza, Israel had amassed an extended observe file of killing civilians there, whereas denying it each step of the way in which. As an example, the United Nations found that in Israel’s 2014 “Operation Protecting Edge” assault, 1,462 Palestinian civilians died, together with 495 youngsters.
There’s no motive to doubt that the civilian loss of life toll from the current Israeli army actions in Gaza will quickly climb far above the variety of individuals killed by the Hamas assault days in the past. As within the aftermath of 9/11, official claims to be solely combating terrorism will proceed to function PR smokescreens for a authorities terrorizing and inflicting mass carnage on Palestinians.
Deserving solely unequivocal condemnation, Hamas’s killing and abduction of civilians set the stage for Israel’s slaughter of civilians now underway in Gaza.
Absent from the New York Instances dwelling web page Monday night time and relegated to web page 9 of the newspaper’s print version on Tuesday, a grisly news story started this fashion: “Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza on Monday, flattening mosques over the heads of worshipers, wiping away a busy market stuffed with buyers and killing complete households, witnesses and authorities in Gaza mentioned.”
“5 Israeli airstrikes ripped via {the marketplace} within the Jabaliya refugee camp, decreasing it to rubble and killing dozens, the authorities mentioned. Different strikes hit 4 mosques within the Shati refugee camp and killed individuals worshiping inside, they mentioned. Witnesses mentioned boys had been enjoying soccer outdoors one of many mosques when it was struck.”
Together with releasing a statement concerning the newest tragic flip of occasions, at RootsAction.org we’ve provided supporters of a simply peace a quick way to e-mail their members of Congress and President Biden. The gist of the message is that “the horrific cycle of violence within the Center East is not going to finish till the Israeli occupation ends — and an enormous impediment to ending the occupation has been the U.S. authorities.”
Norman Solomon is nationwide director of RootsAction.org and government director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He’s the writer of many books together with War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was printed in summer season 2023 by The New Press.
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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