June 5, 2003: 36 years of Israeli occupation terrorism and world hypocrisy, by Hassan El-Najjar

Opinion, June 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info

Al-Jazeerah.info, 6/5/03

Today, June 5, 2003, is the 36th memorial day for one of the darkest events in the history of humanity. On June 5, 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It was a "pre-emptive strike," as Israelis and their supporters have falsely described it. If that was the case, Israel would have withdrawn its forces after destroying Arab military capabilities. But the real objective has been continuous expansion on, and annexation of, Arab lands.

The war resulted in the occupation of the Egyptian Sinai, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank of Jordan and Gaza Strip.

Israelis have done everything they could to destroy the Palestinian society in order to force Palestinians to leave the land for them. It did not happen. Palestinians resisted the occupation from Jordan and Lebanon, which resulted in the 1970 civil war in Jordan and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It also resulted in the horrific massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla, in which Ariel Sharon was implicated. Moreover, it resulted in occupying south Lebanon until 2000, when Israel withdrew its forces under fire from Hizulllah fighters, with all the horrors of attacks and counter attacks in which civilians suffered on both sides of the border.

For Israeli governments, Labor and Likude, to maintain their occupation of the Palestinian territories, they used maximum force against the Palestinian people by killing thousands, injuring hundreds of thousands, arresting tens of thousands in detention camps and prisons, demolishing Palestinian homes, and even uprooting Palestinian trees.

It has become a calculated policy by Israelis, particularly the Sharon government, to hit Palestinians hard using all the above measures in order to trigger a Palestinian response. Palestinians responded with suicide bombing, which was used to justify more of Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people.

With every suicide bombing, world leaders, including Arab leaders and even the Palestinian President, were expected to condemn Palestinian terrorism. President Bush never missed an opportunity to do so. However, he never condemned Israeli terrorism against civilian Palestinians, whether the daily killing and brutality or in the case of massacres like the Gaza Al-Daraj massacre in which Ariel Sharon ordered dropping a one-ton bomb on a building killing tens and injuring hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Yesterday, and the day before, the speeches and statements of participants in Sharm El-Shaikh and Aqaba summits focused on stopping terrorism, Palestinian terrorism of course. Nobody had the courage to say that the real terrorism is the Israeli occupation and that all what the Palestinians have done, right or wrong, was in reaction to that Israeli brutal and terroristic occupation.

Today, we have a new hope, the Road Map. But it depends on whether President Bush will really stand by his own policy and enforce it or he just will let Sharon dodge it through his many reservations.

We saw so many UN and US plans to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, resolutions 242, 334, 1407, Mitchel, Tenet, Zinni, and now the Road Map. All of them could not be implemented because of hypocrisy. World leaders could not stand up against Israel and say "you are the aggressors, leave the Palestinians alone." Until this happens, the Road Map will just be added to the list of failed plans, the suffering of the Palestinians and Israelis will continue, and the curse of God will come down upon terrorists, hypocrites, and accomplices.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

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