Mohammad Helmy
One of the world's most powerful military machines is pounding civilian areas in Palestine. People, including little children, are dying in Gaza. International laws are being broken and collective punishment is being exercised against the Palestinian people.
We are demanding our government seek to stop the Israeli military assault on the Palestinian civilians. What double standards: compare the response to the North Korean missile launch with the devastating Israeli assault on Palestinians. The silence of our government on Palestine is deafening.
People talk about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but there is only an Israeli occupation of Palestine. We are demanding an end to the economic blockade of the Palestinian people. The Israeli and US governments are punishing the Palestinian people for their democratic choice. We demand respect for the democratic choice of the Palestinian people, and to free the detained elected representatives.
I will not forget the little girl, Huda [Ghalia], running in heart-wrenching anguish between the bodies of her father, mother and five siblings who were lying on the beach of Gaza. Unwittingly, Huda became a symbol of Palestinian pain and suffering. I will not forget her shrieking screams as she calls on her father to wake up. I ask myself what has Huda done in her young life to be scared in such a way? What is sadder is that there are thousands more like her.
This event, as well as other assassinations of civilians, took place before the capture of the Israeli soldier, not after. None attracted anywhere near as much media attention. The media has been playing with words, calling the capture of the Israeli soldier "kidnapping", and the kidnapping of the Palestinian MPs "arrests", all to appease the Zionist lobby.
The assault of the Israeli military on Palestinians has been going on despite a 12-month ceasefire by Palestinian factions, including Hamas. Nobody is asking what that soldier was doing in the supposedly autonomous Palestinian area?
Approximately 20% of the Palestinian population has been in Israeli detention at least once. Many are held without trial in "administrative detention", and not given access to the Israeli justice system. The Israeli NGO B'Tselem said that in January more than 8200 Palestinians were held in Israeli custody. According to Defence of Children International (DCI), as of June, there were 388 Palestinian children in Israeli detention.
More than 3000 children have been through Israeli jails since September 2000, the majority for allegedly throwing stones. In May, DCI reported that a West Bank child as young as five years old was snatched from his father's arms and held in detention for six-and-a-half hours, allegedly for throwing stones. A five-year-old detained for throwing stones?
The Palestinians now have no electricity, hospitals, schools, food and are isolated from international aid. As if this is not enough, they are being bombed by F16s, and all under the watchful eye of the world.
The Israeli soldier, a prisoner of war, was used as an excuse to cripple the elected Palestinian government. If Israel's real intention was to free the soldier, it would have accepted the prisoner exchange offer. Instead, it elected to use military power. What the Israeli government is doing is illegal — it is state terrorism.
The occupation of Palestine has gone beyond being a Palestinian issue only, or a Middle Eastern issue only. Neither is it an Islamic issue only, as Palestinians are Muslims and Christians and both are at the receiving end of the Zionist military machine.
The occupation of Palestine is an issue for the conscience of humankind. It is time to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people and say enough to Israeli aggression.
[Mohammad Helmy is a representative from the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth in Melbourne. This is an abridged version of a speech he gave to a July 15 rally in Melbourne organised by the Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 26, 2006.
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