Writing as someone who has delivered, and raised, three healthy children (thank G-d), and as someone who knows the difference between “birth pangs” and an abortion, I feel I need to tell Condoleezza Rice (no known kids, no known abortions) that what Israel has been doing in Lebanon and occupied Palestine with the so far unquestioning support of the US government is much more like a series of abortions of democracy than like any “birth pangs” of democracy.
I am particularly concerned about what has been going on in Palestine, almost unremarked by the MSM in a United States that continues to give Israel unbelievably generous funding and political support, even while it continues its assault against the residents of Gaza and the West Bank. We can recall that in January 2005 these Palestinians went to the polls and held a free and fair election in which they elected Mahmoud Abbas to be President; and in January 2006 they held a second free and fair election in which they elected a Hamas-dominated parliament into office…
In recent weeks, a total of 40 of the elected Palestinian legislators (out of 128) and five government ministers have been arrested by Israel, and today an Israeli court brought some very evidently politicized charges against the previously arrested speaker of the Palestinian legislature, Dr. Abdel-Aziz Dweik.
Birth pangs– or abortion?
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has this depressing report about the IOF’s major rights abuses against the Palestinians in the period 10-16 August, and also 25 June through August 16.
Throughout this longer period, PCHR reports:
- 207 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 46 children and 10 women, have been killed by IOF.
o At least 815 Palestinian civilians, including 232 children and 27 women, have been wounded by the IOF gunfire.
o At least 217 air-to-surface missiles and hundreds of artillery shells have been fired at Palestinian civilian and military targets in the Gaza Strip.
o Buildings of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National economy, the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister and a number of educational institutions have been destroyed.
o The electricity generation plant, providing 45% of the electricity of the Gaza Strip, was destroyed, and electricity networks and transmitters have been repeatedly attacked.
o 6 bridges linking Gaza City with the central Gaza Strip and a number of roads have been destroyed.
o Hundreds of donums[1] of agricultural land and dozens of houses have been destroyed.
o Hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including 8 ministers and 27 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), including the Speaker and Deputy Speaker have been arrested. Minster of Prisoners’ Affairs, Minister of Labor and Deputy Speaker of the PLC were released.
o The Palestinian governmental compound in Nablus has been destroyed.
o Many families in Rafah, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia have been forced to leave their houses.
o IOF intelligence has warned some Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip by phone to evacuate their houses, which would be attacked.
o 25 houses belonging to activists of Palestinian factions were destroyed by IOF warplanes.
o IOF have imposed a strict siege on the OPT, and have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.
Birth pangs– or abortion?
And then, of course, there have been all the many Israeli depradations against Lebanon since July 12, as I discussed earlier, here. Let’s recall that in May-June 2005, Lebanon held a nationwide round of parliamentary elections that were deemed to have been generally free and fair. The Lebanese government was then formed by that legislature. It contains two members from Hizbullah, not surprisingly since the Hizbullah-Amal List in the elections won 35 of the 128 seats.
Birth pangs– or abortion?
Maybe someone needs to take Condi aside and discuss the facts of gynecological life with her? Or gosh, do you think maybe the administration’s commitment to “democratization” for Muslim and Arab people might be only skin deep??
Israel’s policy towards Lebanon and Palestine is similar in some respects to US policy towards the larger Middle East region. Both the US and Israel are frustrated with real nationalist, Islamist movements in the Middle East. The US continues providing its $2 billion in aid to the Egyptians, even as Mubarak strengthens his grip on the region to the detriment of the Muslim Brotherhood. First the US supports the Cedar Revolution of Lebanon but then allows Israeli, using weapons it provides, to bomb the hell out of Lebanon and basically destroy Southern Lebanon, to the detriment of Hezbollah.
Likewise, Israel first supports Hamas (in the 90s) and helps fund extremist Islamist groups in order to divide Palestinians and create a rift between them and the secular nationalists and the Christians, and then frustrates any chance of Hamas succeeding and their people of having the aid they so crucially need.
In sum, the similarity between US / Israeli foreign policy towards the Middle East is that both are keen on actively suppressing nationalist movements.
I refer readers to this WaPo article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/22/AR2006082200978.html
Israel… bombs the hell out of Lebanon and basically destroys Southern Lebanon, to the detriment of Hezbollah.
detriment? Nasrallah has gloated about a great victory.
Good point. But the consequences of Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon are different from the intentions that caused them. Israeli officials have publicly said that the reason they were bombing Lebanon so badly is to bleed support for Hezbollah among the Lebanese population. That the opposite has (predictably enough) happened doesn’t alter the fact that Israel was targeting for the most part communities that they saw as sympathetic to Hezbollah, and were especially violent against Shi’a Muslims in the south. In this sense Israel is trying to drain support for a popular Islamist movement.
I should’ve spoken more clearly, thanks for pointing that out.
April 17, 2006: Terror struck in southern Tel Aviv as a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd at the entrance to a fast food stand, killing nine people and wounding close to 70 others.
On May 20, 2002, Yosef Haviv, 70, of Netanya was one of three Israelis killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded section of Netanya’s open-air market.
Nov. 18, 2002: Israeli woman was killed Monday after being shot by Palestinian gunmen in an apparent drive-by shooting near the Rimonim Junction, 20 kilometers northeast of Ramallah, Israel Radio reported.
Helena, one can list these murders on both sides endlessly. What good does it do to condemn one side without simultaneously condemning the other? Murder of civilians is murder of civilians. If you take one life it’s as if you have killed the whole world.
OK Jim agreed the killing on both sides is equally wrong death for death, so how do you see the way forward to peace?
Great metaphor Helena: “Birth pangs” or an “aborted” new Middle East. Indeed. Rice proclaims the former while catalyzing the latter. If I was a cartoonist, I’d have her dressed as a grim reaper hovering over Lebanon, on stilts, with a caption about “birth pangs?”
You know: I think we and fellow peacemaking advocates from all sides should take a cue from your post and start a new political movement for the Middle East. We could start by calling it, say, the “pro-life movement”….
The brutal military policies imposed on the Middle East have again resulted in the death of the rape victim. There will be no birth pangs because there will be no birth. There will however, be more of the same — rape, death, grief.
I’m afraid BillMon beat you to it but of course chose the tawdry “war porn” route. I have to warn you it’s a ghastly picture and NOT FOR THE SQUEEMISH
Not to worry I think it was sourced from Reuters and the decapitated baby is probably fine and well.
He made quite a number of posts on this theme, “C-Section” “Midwives” and “False Labor”