Yet Another Israeli Massacre

Once again Israeli troops have massacred innocent Palestinian civilians. In the latest bloodbath, Israeli artillery shells killed 18 people, including 8 children and 6 women, at a cluster of houses in Beit Hanun, one of the largest single losses of life in Gaza in years. Over 60 were wounded, 26 of them children.

Because these "accidents," as Israeli authorities invariably term them, are becoming common, and because we can become numbed to the horror of ongoing Israeli genocide, I will quote from an Associated Press description of the scene:

"Shells were fired directly onto the people who were rushing out of the house," said Akram al-Athamna, a relative of the victims. "There was blood everywhere."

Another family member, 14-year-old Asma al-Athamna, said she saw her mother, older sister and brother-in-law die as they fled their home. "I was behind them and I was wounded," the weeping girl said from her hospital bed. Her 2-year-old niece, Malak, lay in an adjacent bed, recovering from shrapnel wounds to her face.

The family is prominent in Beit Hanoun and includes several doctors and professionals. Family members said they had fled during the Israeli offensive, returning home after Tuesday's pullout.

Bits of dismembered bodies were plastered to walls of the damaged buildings and lying on the ground. A woman's head scarf, children's boots and slippers, and a pair of jeans — all burnt — were strewn outside.

Weeping relatives gathered outside the homes. One man dipped his hand in victims' blood and smeared it over his face. "God avenge us, God avenge us," he wailed.

A young man, standing in the bloodied alleyway, said an infant girl had been blown to pieces. "I tried to look for her head, I tried to look for her head," he shrieked, then sank to the ground, weeping.

How long will the world permit Israel to slaughter Palestinians? Will the celebrated victory of the Democratic party on Tuesday make possible a change in U.S. policy toward Israel? The blood of the murdered Palestinians is on our hands, for years of U.S. government support and financial assistance have made possible the oppression of the Arab Muslims and Christians of Palestine.

This does not justify the killing of innocent Israelis by suicide bombers. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak. When the Zionists were fighting English occupiers for the independence of Israel, they used terrorists techniques to great effect. However, any examination of the 60-year bloody history of Israel will conclude that the casualties have been overwhelming disproportionate. The killing of hundreds of well-fed 1st world citizens of Israel is outweighed by the deaths of thousands of suffering 3rd world citizens in the Occupied Territories.

There is a solution: Demand an end to Zionist apartheid in the Middle East, and call on Israel to become a true democracy with full rights of citizenship for all residents of Israel and the Occupied Territories, Jew, Muslim and Christian (The "One State Solution"). In the 21st century, no religious state can be called a democracy, and a country in which followers of one religion massacre the followers of another is an abomination.