Israel Charges Palestinian Speaker with Being a Member of Hamas

I have tried very hard to keep my opinions about the Lebanon – Israel and Palestine – Israel wars to myself, but when I saw this story on BBC News, I just can’t do it anymore. The Israeli government is charging the Speaker of the Palestinian Assembly with being a member of Hamas. What? Did I hear that correctly? Israel lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, so even though Hamas is the elected government of Palestine, they can sweep into Palestine, kidnap its elected officials and charge them with being members of Hamas. Daily incursions, daily kidnappings, more fabricated charges.

Grow up, Ehud! Israel lost the war to Hezbollah because it was an exercise for your ego. Your entire administration is without military experience and proved it with adept skill during the Lebanon conflict. Israel is dead center of the media for the number of “mistaken” precision bombings that destroyed Lebanon’s infrastructure. What makes Israel different than Al-Qaeda? Oh yes, the support of the crusading US government.

When BBC and CNN reported this story yesterday and it made my blood boil. After 34 days of bombing the hell out of Lebanon, claiming of self-defence as it displaced almost a million Lebanese citizens and killing 1000. Call it what you want, but when a elected democracy abuses, kills and kidnaps citizens of another country, it is terrorism. But when I hear that they are charging the Parlimentary Speaker of the Palestinian Authority with being a member of Hamas because ISRAEL says Hamas is a terrorist organization, I have had enough.

When will the world wake up to these school yard bullies that seem to think that they are judge and jury for the entire Muslim world? When will the international community step in and demand that Israel implement the 60 UN Security Council resolutions that it has refused, REFUSED, to follow? While the conflict in Lebanon was going on, the Israel Defence Forces (the most cowardly military in the world) was invading Palestine daily and kidnapping Palestinian citizens and elected government officials. When it came to a ground war against Hezbollah, the IDF was beaten like little school girls because it was an exercise of the ego, not a planned military battle. Israel had no place in Lebanon and Hezbollah made sure that it was taught a lesson.

Ehud, do you think that this will keep the public from demanding your government’s resignations? Do you understand that Israel has committed an act of war and that if it were to dare do that to a country that has a military, it would be bombed into the stone age? But the Palestinians are not a threat. What is the worst they can do? Throw a rock over the apartheid wall that Israel has built around them? The typically school yard bully, push around those who can’t defend themselves. And Israel claimed self-defence against Lebanon for the kidnap of 3 soldiers. I believe it was Israel’s Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, that said that they would “bomb Lebanon back 20 years.” How dare you?

Is Israel really above reproach? Can no one dare to speak against Israel? Self Defence against Lebanon??? Really?? Was it the Lebanese that kidnapped Israeli soldiers? Was it the Lebanese that were lauching rockets into Haifa and other northern cities? No! It was Hezbollah. But the IDF is a cowardly military force that doesn’t have the ability to fight on the ground, as was demonstrated once the ground invasion started. The Americans have proved that anyone can drop bombs, but it takes military strategies to plan and execute a ground war. Israel’s IDF is an ego exercise for the Israeli government to show its US military might.

I watched Mark Regev on every news channel spewing about self defence and the non-implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 for 34 days, while excusing the fact that Israel has not implemented 60 UN Resolutions, including 242 which calls for the end of Israel’s occupation of Arab lands. Mark, do you think that everyone is as stupid as George Bush? Why has 242 not been implemented? You want to see peace in the Middle East and safe borders? Get the hell out of the Arab lands! Sheba Farms belongs to the Arabs. Palestine belongs to the Arabs. Lebanon belongs to the Arabs. Invade and occupy, like George Bush and it will see the same fate as the US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Massive casualities and international embarassment. But that is already happening. The UN gave Israel a country after one of the greatest human atrocities, but that was not enough. Israel deserves more. More of Palestine. More of Lebanon. If left to the Israelis, there would no longer be a Palestine or Lebanon. It would be Israel and Israel alone.

Anyone watching news broadcasts today is hit square in the face with continued reports of the IDF using chemical weapons in Lebanon. Cluster bombs on civilian populations. Refusing to hand over the maps to land mines that were planted during the 16 year occupation of southern Lebanon. These are all war crimes. Maybe Hezbollah should become like Mossad after WWII and start kidnapping Israel’s government officials and metting out justice without the international community involvement. A little of your own medicine may bring you back to reality.

Sadly, the Palestinian’s don’t have a slick PR guy like Mark Regev to turn the international opinion. If the Palestine had a PR guy, you would hear that since September 29, 2000:

• 775 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis compared to 121 Israeli children
• 4,171 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis compared to 1,084 Israelis
• 30,670 Palestinians have been injured compared to 7,633 Israelis
• The US gives US$ 232,290 per day to Palestinian NGO’s compared to US$ 15,139,178 to the Israeli government per day
• 0 UN Resolutions have targetted the Palestinians while 65 UN resolutions that have targetted the Israelis
• 9,599 Palestinians are in Israeli jails compared to 1 Israeli in Palestinian jails
• 4,170 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israeli compared to 0 Israeli home demolished by Palestinians
• 60+ new Jewish-only settlements have been built on confiscated Palestinian lands

(Courtesy of If American Knew and B’Tselem – Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in Occupied Territories)

Since its inception, Israel has done nothing but grab land from the Arabs under various excuses about the “security of the Jew state.” And because no Western power has turned around and slapped it across the face as it deserves, it continues to harass and punish the 3.2 million Palestinians for the actions of a few freedom fighters. I will not call them terrorists. If God forbid, my country is occupied by a foreign force and I have to live with the conditions that the Palestinians struggle with each day, anyone trying to get our freedom is a Freedom Fighter. The terrorist is the occupying force!

The best statement that I heard was from the wife of one of the kidnapped Fox News journalists, sitting with the mothers and wives of Palestinians jailed in Israel, with CNN’s camera’s on: “Today, Palestine is a prison and I am in prison with you.” Oddly, I don’t believe that the Palestinians have kidnapped either of these journalists.

Enough crap. One George Bush is enough in this world, we don’t need the Israelis trying to flex their muscle.