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Colleagues in War Crimes

P. A. Chacko P. A. Chacko
15 Apr 2024

Six months into the war in Gaza, Israel revels in having murdered 33,000 plus Palestinians including 16,000 children. Another 75,600 people have been reported injured. And hundreds of thousands missing! Call it human tragedy! Call it a man-made catastrophe! Call it calculated genocide! All rolled into one. It is not surely an earthquake that has caused such a human disaster. "Nearly 26,000 children – or just over two percent of Gaza's child population – have been killed or injured in Gaza in six months of a war which has decimated the health system and severed access to education", Save the Children said. UN Chief Antonio Guterres says, "Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinians by Israel".

Netanyahu's tragic genocidal spree continues, aided and abetted by American bombs and British and German ammunitions. The ground and aerial attacks by the Israeli military, its AI system and super-spyware have added to the destruction of Palestine, turning it into a no-man's land of pulverised buildings and unclaimed rotting human bodies. The Zionist regime of Israel has left the remaining 1.6 million Palestinians on the road to nowhere, forcing them to starve and die of malnutrition and hunger. These skeletal human figures are used by Israel as ransom bargains for the release of the kidnapped Israelis. All this is in the name of 'self defence' of the mighty Zionist nation, supported by the world's superpowers such as America, Britain, Germany and some other European countries! The souls of those children killed, crossing 16,000, cry for justice, not revenge; retribution, not retaliation.

In the recent past, at the beginning of the present war, after the October 7 Hamas attack, Netanyahu swore by his Zionist Bible: "God ordered the Jews, after their sojourn in Egypt, to attack the Amalekites, destroy them and capture their land". A Zionist atheist regime swears by the God of Exodus when it is convenient to destroy another nation! Its actual god is a land-grabbing and murderous god.

Not satisfied with weaponising the Bible to bomb and destroy Palestine, he now weaponises food as his cruel strategy. The UN relief agency UNRWA was ordered to stop feeding the starving Palestinians. The charitable World Central Kitchen suffered its worst tragedy by having had their seven staff members killed by Israeli strikers. The intended message was: "Keep your feeding hands off these hungry people. Let them suffer and die in the name of Hamas. Let's see if Hamas will come to save them". Similar words were heard at Calvary from the mouths of the Jews who crucified Jesus: 'Let us see if Yahweh will come and save him.'

Netanyahu was not satisfied with the illegal and forceful Israeli settlements in Palestine under military protection from Israel since 1947. His invader nation further wants to make sure that the Palestinian population is totally decimated and their land annexed to Israel. That is Netanyahu's one-nation theory. Hamas's attack and "self-defence" are but superficial ploys to justify the genocide. It is decidedly a war of apartheid and ethnic cleansing unleashed by Israel against a defenceless Palestinian population.

Israel's argument of self-defence against Hamas falls flat when you realise that hospitals have been razed to dust, food aid agencies have been killed, churches and mosques bombed, and educational institutions and research centres targeted to destroy history, learning and future generations.

How do you understand that, to ferret out a handful of Hamas fighters, Israel has forced the Palestinian population to remain shelterless and starving? The death scenes of malnourished babies or the spilt blood of hospital patients due to Israeli bombings would evoke righteous anger and revolt in the hearts of any sensible human being. But not in the heartless person of Netanyahu or the likes of him in those national leaders who connive with him by aiding and supporting Israel. Not in the hearts and minds of nations like America, Britain, Germany and other European countries! Because war in West Asia has to continue! The Middle East is a strategic area for resource tapping, weapons sales to Israel and geopolitical manoeuvring.

Germany is reported to supply 30 per cent of weapons bought by Israel. Britain's share, too, is quite much. America plays the superpower by supplying fighter jets, bombs, etc. Israel has received over $70 billion, or 32% of all U.S. security assistance to foreign countries between 2000-2022. According to reports, the Biden administration is considering an 18 billion dollar arms package to Israel. Biden gets a new nickname in America, "Genocide Biden", we are told. Britain licenses the sale of British-made explosive devices, assault rifles and components for military aircraft to Israel. More than 600 British jurists, including three retired judges of the Supreme Court, are calling on the British government to suspend arms sales to Israel, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The UN Security Council Resolution to effect a ceasefire in the holy month of Ramadan went unheeded by Israel. So, too, the ICJ's legally binding orders. Speaking at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese highlighted the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian territories and stated that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. "Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings," she said.

At least 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in 1948. That was the result of the UN General Assembly's controversial decision to partition Palestine into two entities, the Jewish State and the Arab State, with Jerusalem to remain as an international city. Although the Jewish population was only 30 per cent and owned about 7 per cent of the land composed of colonists, the proposed Jewish state was given approximately 55 per cent of the area. From then on, conflicts increased even as forced Israeli occupation spiralled, ejecting large numbers of Palestinians.

The International Court's injunctions were clear: Israel must take immediate steps to prevent genocidal actions in Gaza, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, allow access to humanitarian aid, and prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence of alleged crimes. It was also to report to the court within a month of implementing these measures. Israel doesn't care.

Where will all this end? When rogue nations are determined to destroy other nations, populations, races or communities, the silence of those who can condemn such inhumanity is itself a complicit act. At least some smaller nations have come forward to declare sanctions against Israel. If the other rich and powerful nations will not declare sanctions to force Israel to stop the Gaza war, they will stand condemned in the eyes of a sane world as colleagues and co-conspirators in war crimes.

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