Israel's Carefully Planned, Mass Media Facilitated, Genocide

[blackbear]

Feroze Sidhwa

The Israel Defense Forces invaded and occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem (the Occupied Territories) in June 1967. Since then Israel has maintained a military occupation in those territories with several unique characteristics. According to Harvard’s Sara Roy, the relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories “is characterized by an economic process specific to Israeli rule, a process that could be characterized as de-development.” The occupation has “proven more exploitative than … other settler regimes, because [it] rob[s] the native population
of its most important economic resources – land, water, and labor – as well as the internal capacity and potential for developing those resources.” Indeed, “the government of Israel has structurally and institutionally dismantled the Palestinian economy as well as undermined the fabric of Palestinian society and the expression
of cultural and political identity. The economy is but one (critical) reflection of this phenomenon.” (The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development, Washington, D.C., 2001.)

While in 2003 food security “remain[ed] poor and food insecurity [was] a real or constant threat for seven out of 10 Palestinians,” since “2006, the political and economic situation in the WBGS [West Bank and Gaza Strip] has deteriorated even further.” In 2004, the World Bank “estimate[d] that per capita food consumption declined some 25 per cent in real terms compared to 1999.” The decline in food consumption continued, with a further decline of 8 per cent in the first half of 2006 alone.

... In 2004, wasting reached 1.9 per cent; stunting 9.9 per cent; and vitamin A deficiency in children 12-59 months old reached 22 per cent; 50.5 per cent of West Bank children under 24 months and 71.9 per cent of Gazan children 9-12 months old are anemic. UNICEF reports that “one in ten children is stunted, one in two is anemic, and 75 per cent of children under the age of five suffer from vitamin A deficiency; … low birthweight rates are as high as 8.2 per cent…”

... December 2002, Palestinian gross national
income (GNI) losses “reached some U.S.$5.2 billion in 27 months – when one considers that GNI was estimated at U.S.$5.4 billion in 1999, the opportunity cost of the crisis represents almost one entire year of Palestinian wealth creation.

... Cumulated raw physical damage [from September 2000 to December 2002] has jumped in the last year to some U.S.$930 million, and lost investment to U.S.$3.2 billion.” The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reports that the “post-Oslo investment surge … was followed by extraordinary Israeli restrictive measures and destruction and losses of up to one-third of the existing physical capital and productive capacity” of the Occupied Territories. Real per capita GDP declined 10 per cent GDP declined to 10 per cent in the first half of 2006 alone.

... The WFP lists nine major risk factors predisposing Palestinian households to food insecurity; all but the ninth are due to Israeli occupation policies. They note further that “increased mobility restrictions, continued building of the Barrier, and the … boycott of the PA have all put increased negative pressure on the factors that influence food security….” A joint European Union and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report lists eight reasons for the increasing cost of food; all but the eighth are due to Israeli occupation policies.

... Roy describes the core policies of de-development as “measures designed… [to] fragment Palestinian society… to render it unviable… include: …the introduction of advanced agricultural technologies concomitant with the steady confiscation of land and water; the introduction of refugee rehousing programs together with the establishment of Jewish settlements on Arab land; improved access to employment in the Israeli economy in conjunction with prohibitions on the development of the domestic Palestinian economy (e.g., restricted access to international markets, control over all forms of indigenous production and over the flow of information, and consistently low levels of government investment in key economic sectors)…” Following the Palestinian legislative elections of January 2006, Israeli prime ministerial advisor Dov Weisglass bluntly summarized Israeli policy toward the Palestinians: “It’s like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.” (Haaretz, Feb. 19, 2006.)

... 1979, “85 per cent of Palestinian children reported having witnessed a violent event related to occupation and resistance, and 39 per cent had lost a family member to ongoing conflict with the Israelis.” In the first two years of the first Intifada, Israeli forces injured “between 50,000 and 63,000 Palestinian children and youth… in shootings, beatings, and tear-gassing,… about 7 per cent of the total child/youth population.” (Child Development, 1996, Issue 67.)


... Amnesty International reports IDF bulldozers uprooted and destroyed “hundreds of thousands of olive, citrus, almond, date and other trees” between September 2000 and May 2004 alone; these orchards “constituted a source, and in many cases the only source, of livelihood for hundreds of thousands of people.”

... In 1994, Human Rights Watch reported that nearly all Palestinians undergoing interrogation” are “tortured or severely ill-treated”. Thus, “the number of Palestinians tortured or severely ill-treated while under interrogation during the [first] Intifada is in the tens of thousands – a number that becomes especially significant when it is remembered that the universe of adult and adolescent male Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is under three-quarters of one million.” Mark Tessler reports that “arrests and imprisonments associated with the [first] Intifada totaled about 50,000” by December 1989; the Intifada continued until 1993. (A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Bloomington: 1994.)

.... According to Baker, in 1990 “more than three-fourths (77 per cent) of … released [Palestinian] prisoners reported intrusive memories, and nearly one-half (47 per cent) were plagued with repeated nightmares associated with … torture.” These findings were largely confirmed by El Sarraj et al in 1996.

... The long-term psychological effects of torture go beyond PTSD

... Most participants reported suffering from anxiety. Many had recurrent nightmares about their torture or were reminded of it by ordinary stimuli. Many experienced a diminished responsiveness to the external world.” Sixty-two per cent had difficulty sleeping; 59 per cent reported a decreased ability to concentrate and remember; 43 per cent had difficulty relaxing and were easily fatigued; 41 per cent reported intrusive recollections of torture and phobias; and 38 per cent reported constant anxiety and an inability to trust others. A similar study of torture victims resettled in Canada reported worse outcomes, perhaps because the sample had experienced generally higher levels of abuse. (Allodi, et al, in The Breaking of Bodies and Minds, New York: 1985.)... Given that torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians has been “routine” for the past forty years, and given the very large (if uncertain) percentage of the male Palestinian population tortured or ill-treated, it is likely that the psychological symptoms of torture go beyond individual mental health concerns and have reached the level of a public health crisis.

... The prevalence of PTSD “corresponds with the levels of PTSD among Cambodian … refugee children fleeing atrocities” in the mid-1980s. (European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2003; 12(6).

... Almost one-half (48 per cent) of children report having personally experienced conflict-related violence or witnessed violence affecting an immediate family member. Around 40 per cent of parents report intifada-related psychological problems among children (aggressive behavior, nightmares, etc.)… ... “Nearly half of all students have seen their schools besieged by [Israeli] troops, and more than 10 per cent have witnessed the killing of a teacher….”

... Israel’s recent designation of Gaza as a “hostile entity” and U.S. Secretary of State Rice’s agreement with the declaration do not indicate that either international support or Israeli assistance will be forthcoming. Israel’s subsequent declaration of intent to cut fuel and electricity supplies to Gaza could portend a humanitarian disaster in the true sense of the term, creating a pocket of sub-Saharan Africa-level poverty and starvation in the Middle East.

Feroze Sidhwa received his B.A. in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University in 2004, and is currently a second year medical student at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He lived and worked in Israel from October 2004 to May 2005; volunteered at various hospitals in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, for three weeks in December 2006; and volunteered in Hebron, West Bank, at al-Ahli Hospital and with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society for six weeks this summer. For a complete list of references for this article, please contact him at sidhwa@uthscsa.edu.

Alk.....

This is cold-blooded, carefully planned genocide.
Israel must become an international pariah, just as South Africa was: total divestment and boycott are the only way left, to make them stop.