I doubt many of you will be familiar with left-wing website The People's Voice, but they have an article by one Salim Nazzal on Israel's aid effort in Haiti that's worth a look: "Israel starving Gaza and help Haiti? Is it compassion or propaganda to clean up the brutal face of Zionism?"
"What is the relationship between Israel and humanitarian aid?" asks Nazzal (erm...how about the aid missions in Turkey, India, El Salvador, Georgia, Tanzania, Chile, the Czech Republic and all the other nations that state-run aid agency MASHAV has been/is active in?), continuing with "I raise this question because evidence has shown that the Zionist state comes up very short regarding issues of compassion toward humanity: to impose a relentless régime of terror, around the clock, on a whole nation for 61 years does not present an imagine one would associate with culture possessed of a humanitarian spirit."
It goes on to list a series of alleged terrible crimes against humanity supposedly carried out by Israel, most of which have little grounding in fact, for example stating that Israel deliberately added poisonous bacteria to the Yarkon River in order "to sicken the Palestinian population of Akka in order to occupy the town..." I assume the author is referring to the polluting of the river caused by the Reading Power Station in Tel Aviv District, since any accusation that Israel might poison her largest coastal river, one upon which a large percentage of irrigation schemes in the Negev Desert depend, seems just a bit too ridiculously paranoid to be true. It also states that Israel used napalm in 1967 (presumably during the Six Day War) which is, regrettably, true. But then, napalm has been used by a number of different nations over the years, nations including Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Brazil, France and, of course, the USA. Napalm is a terrible weapon which results in horrible deaths and injuries, but Israel cannot be singled out for special condemnation.
Coming hot on the heels of the napalm is that persistant allegation that IDF members murdered unarmed Egyptian prisoners. Nazzal neglects to mention when and where this took place, so we'll assume he refers again to the Six Day War, following which Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Gabby Bron and others claimed to have witnessed executions of this type. ""It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it," said military historian Uri Milstein in a quote familar to those of us who have been following investigations into the abuse of prisoners at the hands of US and British soldiers during recent conflicts, abuse that once again was not official policy but arose due to a feeling that such actions were acceptable. War is a horrible thing, and it makes monsters of men - but when such actions are not sanctioned by the state that those men are fighting for, it is those individuals that perpetrate these crimes who are to be blamed. Israel cannot be blamed for the personal conduct of a minority of its military personnel any more than the entire USA can be blamed for the personal conduct of Lynndie England who tortured Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Israel continues to deny that the murder of prisoners was given official approval, and to date no proof has been found to suggest otherwise.
Next up is the modern version of the napalm allegation - Israel's use of white phosphorous during Operation Cast Lead, an allegation that once again is regrettably correct. It should be remembered, however, that while white phosphorous causes terrible second and third degree burns, it is not a banned chemical weapon (although its use is regulated by international humanitarian law). White phosphorous has also been used by the USA in Iraq, by Russia in Chechnya and by both Germany and the UK as an igniter in incendiary bombs during World War 2. According to Haaretz, Israel's most trusted newspaper, it was also used by Hamas in a rocket that fell in the Western Negev in 2009. Nazzal, interestingly, makes no mention of this and once again Israel cannot be singled out.
Nazzal then moves on to organ harvesting, a modern retelling of the blood libel accusation that has dogged the Jewish people since time immemorial. Following the publication by a Swedish news agency of accusations that the IDF harvested organs - without the victim's family's consent - from the victims of Palestinians it deliberately murdered for this purpose, the Israeli military was forced to admit that forensic pathologists had in fact harvested organs in the past but had stopped in 2000, adding that it did so from both Palestinian and Israeli casualties. However, it strenuously denied murdering anybody in order to do so - denials which, despite worldwide attention, have never been disproved and which are generally held to be truthful.
Once he's done accusing Israel of whichever imaginary crimes against humanity he can cook up from the basic ingredients truth has allowed him (he resorts to outright lies on a few occasions, such as when he claims Israel executed "unarmed Palestinians in Genin camp" (sic) or when he states that "Palestinian children have been used as human shields on the front of their military vehicles"), Nazzal writes of the wave glorious wave of human rights and aid the people of Gaza are ready to bestow upon our beleagured world just as soon as the evil Zionists are pushed into the sea, never to return. "...it would have been very logic, very natural, and in harmony with the Palestinian culture that the future post Zionism Palestine will help brothers and sisters in humanity anywhere in the world. Palestine history is the best testimony: Palestine has helped and welcomed refugees and religious and ordinary immigrants from many parts in the world."
Well, that came as news to me; but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt while I did my research. I started looking for some instances of humanitarian work carried out by the Palestinians, trying not to think about that white phosphorous rocket in the Negev or... erm... all those other rockets that the unarmed civilians and inhabitants of those "comfortable homes and towns" "only a few hundred meters" from the "misery and suffering" that the Palestinians have to endure. Those would be towns such as Sderot, I expect. Nothing like a near-constant rain of Qassam rockets to make your home comfortable, better than any armchair. Oh, and the 32 Palestinians who have been murdered in Gaza by the Palestinian Security Services and the "dozens of other people" who were injured after being either shot or beaten by the same organisation, as reported by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The PCHR mentions "killings of fugitives, prisoners and detainees, injuries caused by severe physical violence, torture and misuse of weapons, the imposition of house arrest, and other restrictions that have been imposed on civil society organizations" too. These people sound like veritable angels, don't you think?
Some of those Egyptians allegedly murdered in 1967 by Israel were, according to those who believe the story, unarmed prisoners of war fleeing from an internment camp. That explains why the following sounded familiar when I read it: "Unidentified gunmen killed at least seventeen prisoners and detainees who fled Gaza Central Prison, which lies in the PSS compound in central Gaza City, after the IOF had bombarded the compound on 28 December, 2008." It goes one: "According to testimonies given to the PCHR by the families of those who were killed, as well as by eyewitnesses, unideintified gunmen abducted a number of prisoners whilst they were fleeing Gaza Central Prison, and their dead bodies were found a few days later in different areas of the Gaza Strip." The rest of the PCHR's report lists a number of cases in which other people were shot, beaten or turtured by the PSS. It concludes with a number of recommendations, including one that the "Government of Gaza takes immediate and effective measurements within the law to end these violations against human rights, conducts serious investigations into all the allegations of violations, bringing perpetrators to justice, whether they are members of the Palestinian Security Services or members of armed groups, and publishes all of its findings." To date, Israel has brought to justice one IDF member accused of committing human rights violations. Gaza? Not one.
It has been claimed by some non-governmental organisations, including Toronto-based One Free World Internationall, that Hamas digs up the graves of Christians in Gaza, "claiming that they pollute the earth." Compare that to Israel's laws ensuring freedom of religion and its guarantee that Christians would have access to West Bank churches after it gained control over the area in 1967 - or, for that natter, its guarantee that Muslims would have access to mosques. Muslims who choose to live and worship peacefully in Israel are free to do so - I wonder how life would be for a Jewish family in Gaza City?
With all of this in mind, it seems unlikely that a free Palestine - a nation that was little more than desert, archaeological ruins and towns that had hardly changed in centuries before Israel introduced modern architecture, agirculture and human rights - would have been the first nation to land rescue teams and a well-equipped field hospital in Haiti. Nazzal's article is yet another instance of an antisemite hijacking a left-wing media entity and using it for sinister purposes, thinly disguised as anti-Zionism and concern for human rights. It's time for the left-wing need to wake up and realise they're being used.