 |
/English version below/
Hát elfelejtettük a 17,500 halottat - majdnem mind civilek, többségük gyermek és asszony - Izrael 1982-es libanoni inváziója során; az 1700 palesztin civil áldozatot a Sabra-Shatila mészárlásnál; a 106 libanoni civil menekült (fele gyermek) 1996-os Qana-i lemészárlását az ENSZ-bázison; a Marwahin-i menekültek vérontását, akiket az izraeliek kergettek el az otthonaikból 2006-ban, majd egy izraeli helikopter legyilkolta őket; az ugyanezen évi libanoni invázió és bombázás 1000 halottját, akik szintén túlnyomó többségben civilek voltak?
Ami ámulatra méltó, az az, hogy annyi nyugati vezető, annyi elnök és miniszterelnök, és - attól tartok - annyi szerkesztő és újságíró bevette a régi hazugságot, hogy Izrael annyira, de annyira vigyáz a civil életekre. "Izrael minden tőle telhetőt megtesz, hogy elkerülje a civil áldozatokat", mondta egy izraeli követ mindössze pár órával a gázai mészárlás előtt. És minden elnöknek és miniszterelnöknek, aki megismételte ugyanezt a badarságot, ürügyként, hogy elkerüljék a tűzszünetet, a tegnap (a cikk 7-én jelent meg - a szerk.) esti vérengzés áldozatainak a vére szárad a kezén. Ha George Bushnak lett volna mersze, hogy tűzszünetet követeljen 48 órával előbb, az a 40 civil, az idősek, asszonyok és gyerekek most életben lennének.
Ami ámulatra méltó, az az, hogy annyi nyugati vezető, annyi elnök és miniszterelnök, és - attól tartok - annyi szerkesztő és újságíró bevette a régi hazugságot, hogy Izrael annyira, de annyira vigyáz a civil életekre. "Izrael minden tőle telhetőt megtesz, hogy elkerülje a civil áldozatokat", mondta egy izraeli követ mindössze pár órával a gázai mészárlás előtt. És minden elnöknek és miniszterelnöknek, aki megismételte ugyanezt a badarságot, ürügyként, hogy elkerüljék a tűzszünetet, a tegnap (a cikk 7-én jelent meg - a szerk.) esti vérengzés áldozatainak a vére szárad a kezén. Ha George Bushnak lett volna mersze, hogy tűzszünetet követeljen 48 órával előbb, az a 40 civil, az idősek, asszonyok és gyerekek most életben lennének.
 Robert Fisk |
Korábban számoltam már be a hasonló eseményekre az izraeli hadsereg által adott ürügyekről. Mivel nagy valószínűséggel ezeket a közeljövőben újramelegítik, íme néhány: a palesztinok ölték meg a saját menekültjeiket, a palesztinok ástak ki holttesteket a temetőkből és helyezték őket a romokra, végül is az egész a palesztinok hibája, mert egy fegyveres mozgalmat támogattak, vagy mert felfegyverzett palesztinok direkt ártatlan menekülteket használnak védőpajzsként.
A Sabra és Shatila mészárlást Izrael libanoni jobboldali falangista szövetségesei követték el, amíg izraeli seregek - ahogyan Izrael saját vizsgálóbizottsága is feltárta - csak nézték 48 órán keresztül, és az ég világán semmit sem tettek, hogy megakadályozzák. Amikor Izraelt hibáztatták, Menachem Begin kormánya azzal vádolta meg a világot, hogy a középkori vérváddal illetik őket ismét. Azután, hogy az izraeli tüzérség lövedékekkel sújtotta a Qana-i ENSZ-bázist 1996-ban, az izraeliek azt állították, hogy Hezbollah fegyveresek rejtőzködtek ott. Nem volt igaz. A több mint 1000 halott miatti felelősséget 2006-ban - a háború úgy kezdődött, hogy a Hezbollah foglyul ejtett két izraeli katonát a határon - egyszerűen a Hezbollah nyakába varrták. Aztán Izrael azt állította, hogy a második Qana-i mészárlásnál a halott gyermekek testét valószínűleg temetőkből vitték oda. Ez is hazugság volt. A Marwahin-i vérontásra még csak mentséget sem kerestek. A falubelieket távozásra szólították fel, aminek eleget tettek, majd ezek után nehézfegyverzetű helikopterrel rájuk támadtak. A menekültek a teherautó oldalába állították a gyermekeiket, hogy látható legyen: ártatlanok utaznak benne. Az izraeli helikopter közelről kaszálta le őket. Mindössze ketten élték túl, úgy, hogy halottnak tetették magukat. Izrael még bocsánatot sem kért soha.
Tizenkét évvel később egy másik izraeli helikopter támadt egy szomszédos faluból civileket szállító mentőautóra - ugyancsak azután, hogy Izrael távozásra szólította fel őket - és ezzel megöltek három gyereket és két asszonyt. Az izraeliek azt állították, hogy egy Hezbollah-harcos volt a mentőautóban. Ez sem volt igaz. Én tudósítottam ezekről az atrocitásokról, én megvizsgáltam mindet, beszéltem a túlélőkkel. Ugyanezt tette jópár kollégám. A mi sorsunk természetesen a vádak közt legrágalmazóbb lett: antiszemitizmussal vádoltak minket.
És a következőket a legkisebb kétely nélkül írom: hallani fogjuk ezeket a botrányos kitalációkat megint. Majd mondják a Hamász a hibás-hazugságot - Isten a megmondója, volna miért hibáztatni őket enélkül is -, és valószínűleg a temetőből kiásott halottas hazugságot, és minden bizonnyal a Hamász volt az ENSZ-iskolában is-hazugságot, és legfőképpen az antiszemitizmus-hazugságot. A vezetőink pedig pfújolni fognak, és emlékeztetik a világot, hogy eredetileg a Hamász szegte meg a tűzszünetet. Nem így volt. Izrael szegte meg, először november 4-én, amikor a bombatámadásban megöltek 6 palesztint Gázában, és ismételten november 17-én, amikor egy másik bombázás ölt meg 4 palesztint.
Igen, az izraeliek megérdemlik a biztonságot. Húsz izraeli halott 10 év alatt Gáza körül, ez valóban gyászos szám. De 600 palesztin áldozat (ma már 900-nál is több, harmada gyermek - a szerk.) mindössze egy hét alatt, ezrek az évek során 1948 óta – amikor az izraeli mészárlás Deir Yassin-nal megkezdte a palesztinok kivándoroltatását Palesztina azon részéből, ami később Izrael lett – teljesen más mértékű. Ez nem egy átlagos közel- keleti vérontásra emlékeztet bennünket, hanem a balkáni háborúk szintjén lévő atrocitásokra a kilencvenes évekből. És persze amikor egy arab nekilódul visszatarthatatlan haraggal, és kiadja lázító vak dühét Nyugaton, mi azt fogjuk mondani, hogy ehhez nekünk semmi közünk. Miért utálnak minket? - fogjuk kérdezni. De nehogy azt mondjuk, hogy nem tudjuk a választ.
Robert Fisk - The Independent
Fordította: Irisz
Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask
Robert Fisk - The Independent
Fordította: Irisz
Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask
So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?
by Robert Fisk - The Independent
Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.
What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I'm afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against "international terror". The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.
I've reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.
The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel's right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel's own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin's government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn't even apologise.
Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.
And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we'll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We'll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we'll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn't. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.
Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.
Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.
What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I'm afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against "international terror". The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.
I've reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.
The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel's right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel's own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin's government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn't even apologise.
Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.
And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we'll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We'll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we'll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn't. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.
Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.
