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Children face the wrath
The end game looks familiar: Israel starts a military campaign, America waits till the Israelis "achieve" their goals or find themselves in a mess, and then.Washington arranges for a ceasefire.
- By Omar Shariff, Staff Writer
- Published: 23:41 January 11, 2009
The only thing more shocking than the images of the dead and injured children in Gaza is the inaction of what we in the media refer to as the "international community".
More than 270 children have been murdered so far by the Israelis - 270 young souls who should still have been in school or at home.
A picture, they say, speaks louder than a thousand words. There has been no shortage of pictures of dead toddlers of Gaza in the regional media - not, regrettably, in the Western press - but those who can do something about it do not seem to care.
Indeed, the outgoing leader of the world's greatest democracy has put the blame squarely on the brutalised. Not surprising, given his own tally of the dead in Iraq. But people expected more from his to-be successor, who promised "change we can believe in" and has now broken his deafening silence on Gaza to announce that he is "deeply concerned".
If anyone had any lingering doubts about the influence the Israeli lobby exercises over the US political class, then Friday's vote in the US House of Representatives would have put all those doubts to rest. One after another, congressmen and women spoke out in support of Israel. In the end, the resolution to back Israel's military campaign in Gaza was passed by 390 votes to five.
The ongoing assault on Gaza is not suprising in itself, given the unsurpassed criminality of the Tel Aviv regime. Elections are around the corner, and it's time to show how tough you are by going for the usual target.
Qana massacre
The fact that hundreds will be killed in the process doesn't figure in the calculation. The same tactic was employed by arch-hawk Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 when he launched "Operation Grapes of Wrath". Only that time the victims were Lebanese. The assault ended in the shameful massacre in the town of Qana (which was to suffer another massacre in Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon). He did win the 1996 elections.
The end game looks familiar: Israel starts a military campaign, America waits till the Israelis "achieve" their goals or find themselves in a mess, and then Washington arranges for a ceasefire. Back to square one, in other words. A trail of dead and injured and raw emotions and bitterness is left behind.
By banning journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, Israel is ensuring the international audience doesn't get the true picture of the situation in Gaza.
Journalists of all major international networks are camping on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, reporting about "sounds of explosions in the background".
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East Editor, an expert on the region, glumly observed in his online diary: "I am going to London for a very quick break. I have now spent two weeks looking over the border at the war in Gaza, unable to get in."
For the English-speaking audience, the only window to Gaza is Al Jazeera English, whose reporters have been doing a great job under immense pressure.
It has even won over sceptical viewers with its compelling coverage of the hell on earth that Gaza has become for its residents. But it is a sign of the times we live in. These days, even the horrific deaths of hundreds of children don't seem to shake the conscience of world leaders. Granted, at street level there has been an outpouring of support for the people of Gaza. However, in decision-making circles, this has not translated into anything significant.
How different things would have been if the victims were Israelis. Would the international media adopt the same stand? If 270 Israeli children had been killed by Palestinians, would the international media have exercised the same ridiculous "caution" in reporting events?
In March 2001, a Palestinian sniper in Hebron shot and killed Shalhevet Pass, the ten-month-old daughter of a Jewish colonist. The incident made international headlines. If you Google search for "Shalhevet Pass" gets you 6,670 entries.
But this cannot be said of the Palestinian children who are being killed so callously.
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