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Let it be known--
The state of Israel has various obligations in response to the Holocaust. . . .
The state of Israel has various obligations under the Geneva Convention. . . .
The state of Israel has various obligations in recognition of international human rights. . . .
The state of Israel has various obligations under International human rights. . . .
The state of Israel has various obligations under U.S. law. . . .
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_17.shtml
And yet:
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
My country of the United States, which sends 3 billion in military aid every year to Israel, fails to use any leverage to get the state of Israel to move away from Gestapo-like tactics since the recent murders of many in and out of Gaza over the past month, including the siblings of Amar Sharrub, whose story is outlined as follows:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/22/part_ii_palestinian_us_college_grad
Two weeks ago Friday, Amar Sharrub’s “dad and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. His brother, twenty-eight-year-old Kassab, died in a hail of bullets, trying to flee the vehicle. His other brother, eighteen years old, Ibrahim, survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach him and his father until twenty hours later. By then, it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father.”
The entire detailed story can be heard on last Thursday’s DEMOCRACY NOW. As the father was contacted by Al-Jazeera by cell-phone just moments before the second son died, much of the Arab world has the story.
So far, no Israeli officer has been arrested, although the events are nearly ten days old and despite the fact that both Palestinian and Israeli witnesses were on site.
Amar Sharrub, who is a member of Seeds for Peace http://www.seedsofpeace.org/ , reported that he talked on the cellphone many times over the two days his second brother was allowed to die, because the Israeli officer denied Israeli medics repeated pleas to go help the wounded as per international law and protocol mandates. (The officer also refused permission for an ambulance to enter the area.)
Here is exactly what Sharrub, a recent U.S. college graduate from Vermont, shared on DN: “They [Israeli troops across from his family’s farm] were shooting from a house that was about thirty or forty yards away from the car. He doesn’t know any one of them in person. B ut the soldiers took a group of the residents and other citizens. They took them as hostages or human shields in that house. And some of these hostages actually understood Hebrew. They spoke and understood Hebrew, and they overheard the conversation between the soldiers. The [Israeli] soldiers told the officer, when they saw the car, that this car, they [Israeli soldiers] know the car, and they know that the passengers are civilians, but the officer ordered them to shoot and shoot to kill. Later on, as part of this unit, there were two army medics, two army doctors, who asked the officer for permission to go help the victims, to go help the injured, but the officer refused, because he knew they were civilians, and he didn’t want to get exposed. He didn’t want the story to get out, because he thought he might get in trouble for that.”
