THERE ARE TWO words that the corporate media have studiously avoided, but others have not. Like Amnesty International. After an extensive study, including analysing satellite imagery and verifying photos and video, it has concluded that Israel is guilty of 'unlawful attacks, including indiscriminate attacks.' It states that Israel has caused 'mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.'
Aggnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary-general, did not mince her words. In a statement she said: 'In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel, and electricity.'
As Israel's assault on Gaza continued on Friday, 4,100 Palestinians were recorded as having been killed by the Israeli military - including over 1,600 children- and at least 13,000 others wounded. The relentless bombardment has destroyed or damaged nearly a third of the besieged strip's homes.
In claiming that Israel has the right to 'defend' itself, western governments led by the United States, have given Israel the green light to wage its genocidal campaign against the people of Gaza. They are complicit in the atrocities we are witnessing on our television screens everyday. Indeed last week lawyers with the U.S.-based Centre for Constitutional Rights warned that the Biden administration was 'rendering itself complicit in possible genocide against Palestinians by providing weapons, political support, and diplomatic cover for Israel's war.'
Although New Zealand has yet to confirm its next government, the response to Israel's genocidal campaign has also been, like the United States, to claim that Israel has the right to 'defend' itself. Both Prime-Minister- in -Waiting Christopher Luxon and Labour's Chris Hipkins have merely called for 'restraint' from Israel. They have also agreed to funds being made available for humanitarian aid.
But we are well past the point when a call for 'restraint' even makes any kind of logical sense, since Israel has every intention of sending ground troops into Gaza and the death toll will rise considerably further.
Over the weekend there were several rallies throughout the country in support of the people of Gaza and condemning Israel's barbarism. But our two main political parties appear unmoved. The new National-led government, whatever atrocities continue to be committed in Gaza by Israel, will tag along behind the United States - just like the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern.
To their credit both the Green Party and Te Pati Maori have called for an immediate ceasefire. Te Pati Maori has gone as far as calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador if Israel fails to agree to a ceasefire.
Perhaps not coincidentally, that call came a day after the Colombian government of Gustavo Petro expelled the Israeli ambassador. The expulsion was the culmination of a breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two countries. Petro denounced what he said were neo-Nazi 'efforts to destroy the Palestinian people, freedom and culture.....If foreign relations with Israel must be suspended, let’s suspend them. We do not support genocides.'
He also pointed out that Israel had, in the past, also 'unleashed massacres and genocide in Colombia' by training right wing paramilitary forces.
Meanwhile former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also had nothing to say about recent events in Gaza. Some four years ago, Ardern was forthright in her response to the massacre of Muslims in Christchurch by a lone gunman: 'They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not.' But despite the carnage in Gaza and the deaths of thousands of Muslims, Ardern has said nothing.
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