Cross-posted from Wallwritings
A relative holding the body of Khalil Muhammad al-Anatim before he is lowered into the ground
(Image by Photo by Kelly Lynn, a freelance photojournalist based in the West Bank.) Details DMCA
"Israel has the right to defend itself" was the Orwellian doublespeak Israel used to justify its latest invasion of Gaza, carried out at the same time as its under-reported increased military action inside the West Bank.
President Obama, eagerly joined by would-be presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul, and Elizabeth Warren, rushed to endorse Israel's 51-day August assault against the Palestinians, by proclaiming, "Israel has the right to defend itself."
Prompted by AIPAC, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to embrace the doublespeak Israeli claim that it was killing Palestinians "because it has the right to defend itself." The vote was taken on the final day before the senators went into their annual summer recess.
Were there any among that list of endorsees who understood the meaning of "doublespeak," which Wikipedia defines as "language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words"?
Did that "right to defend" give Israel the right to kill 11-year-old Khalil Muhammad al-Anati, just before he was to begin the sixth grade in the Al-Fawwar refugee camp school south of Hebron? (See map below)
Khalil Anati died on Sunday morning, August 10. Israel's invasion of Gaza was well underway.
When that invasion ended August 26, with a shaky month-long cease fire, according to United Nations figures, the invasion had killed 2,104 Palestinians in Gaza, "including 253 women (12 percent) and 495 children (24 percent).
During the same period, 69 Israelis were killed including four civilians (6 percent).
The UN also reported "that 10,224 Palestinians, including 3,106 children (30 percent) and 1,970 women (19 percent) were injured in Gaza. Preliminary estimates indicate that up to 1,000 of the children injured will have a permanent disability and up to 1,500 orphaned children will need sustained support from the child protection and welfare sectors."
Media attention during the invasion was focused on Gaza. Next door in the West Bank, the IDF stepped up its daily military incursions inside Palestinian population centers.
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency, describes the camp, where Khalil lived, died and is now buried.
"The southernmost of the West Bank camps, Fawwar was established in 1949 on 0.27 square kilometres of land, 10km south of Hebron.
"The camp's original inhabitants came from 18 villages in the Gaza, Hebron and Beersheeva areas. Like other West Bank camps, it was established on land UNRWA leased from the government of Jordan....
"The residents of the camp depend almost entirely on work inside Israel and have been especially badly affected by the inaccessibility of the Israeli labour market. Unemployment stands at 32 percent...."
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