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Sanctions against Israel?

Israel, home and refuge for so many from the horrors of the holocaust has consistently demonstrated the extent of it's own fascist agenda and its total disregard for the human rights of Palestinians. In September 2000 there was an explosion of Palestinian anger after Ariel Sharon forced his way into the Haram a-Sharif (Dome of the Rock). The death count from September 29, 2000 to October 15, 2002 stands at 1834 Palestinians and 578 Israelis (updated 4/11/02 - Statistics from Middle East Policy Council Website). Between September 2000 and April 2002, 122 Health Personnel have been injured, 7 killed and 165 ambulances hit by ordnance (Statistics from MAP-UK). The western world seems happy to sit back and report the lack-lustre efforts at rekindling the now-dead peace process, rather than doing the right thing and isolating Israel from the international community. Long the upstart, Israel has now proven it's contempt for it's Arab neighbours and the total abhorrance of Israeli popular opinion. "We don't want any arabs here!" shouts one Israeli at the camera during the September 2000 clashes, ignoring the fact that a large proportion of israel's population are Arab. However, Israeli abuse of human rights is not restricted to within its own borders.

On September 16, 1982 Israeli troops organised the march of Phalange troops into the Arab refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The residents of the camps had fled the horrific USA-funded bombardment that virtually flattened Beirut, including clearly-marked hospitals and orphanages (see Chomsky's Fateful Triangle for details), which were hit with surprising accuracy. Estimates of the death count vary, but a safe bet is 17,000 individuals, mostly civilian. This was no exceptional attack, but is perfectly in line with the policy of David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of Israel, who wrote in his Independence War Diary "(we must) strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent." So, in line with their spiritual father's wishes, Israeli Defence Force troops looked down from their observation posts as men, women and children were massacred by the Christian Phalange Militia and the bodies dumped into clearly visible mass graves. The Israeli Defense Force positions were so close that they could have heard the screams of the massacred all night. The Israeli authorities were warned but chose to do nothing, and even sent the troops back in after they had been refreshed (See Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk). The massacres were whitewashed by the self-contradictory and politically-motivated Kahan Commission and Israel's image in the United States and elsewhere remains barely tarnished.

Israel has now become the very thing that so many of it's ex-West-European citizens were running from, a racist, chauvanistic and intolorant military state aided and abetted by US/UK companies such as McDonalds, Sainsburys, Marks & Spencer and Starbucks (See the list of companies supporting Israel here). Perhaps it is the time to move beyond mere boycotts (powerful as they are) and call for sanctions against Israel similar to those levied against South Africa in the Apartiad era. Some argue that sanctions are unikely that would improve the situation. Chomsky (1999) doubts that sanctions will be enforcable against Israel, as David Ben-Gurion and others like him have suggested that Israel should act as "a wild state". Ben-Gurion's message is that if the USA withdraws aid, Israel may commit acts of 'madness' and 'terrorism' to destabilise the middle east. It throws an intriguing new light onto the US's policy against "rogue states" which only appears to refer to Muslim countries with oil reserves (See William Blum's Rogue State). Israel is holding an American-supplied gun to America's collective head. As a result, the USA will veto any attempted sanctions, which (as the record shows) is what it has done in the past.

Updated 4/11/02

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