(stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Throughout its sordid history, Israel turned the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and especially Gaza into free-fire zones – killing, injuring, maiming, and otherwise brutalizing Palestinians with impunity.
The world community doesn’t care about Palestinian lives and welfare – doing nothing to stop Israeli occupation harshness, nothing to hold its officials accountable for Nuremberg-level high crimes, nothing to protect the rights and welfare of millions of tyrannized Palestinians.
March 30, 2018 will long be remembered as bloody Friday – the horrific toll through 8:00PM local time included 17 Palestinians murdered by Israeli snipers and tank fire, another 1,416 wounded, mostly by live fire, including use of expanding (dumdum) bullets, designed to cause maximum internal injuries – according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The toll should shock the conscience of everyone. At least 20 wounded Palestinians suffered life-threatening injuries, the death toll virtually certain to rise.
Israeli viciousness came in response to day one of a 45-day nonviolent “Great March of Return” – in Gaza and elsewhere in Occupied Palestine.
Israeli soldiers attacked nonviolent Palestinian demonstrators near Ramallah with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets and toxic tear gas – numerous injuries reported.
In Bassem/Nariman/Ahed Tamimi’s home Nabi Saleh village, dozens of demonstrators were attacked the same way.
Other towns and villages across the West Bank were assaulted by Israeli viciousness.
Perhaps the Friday horror will continue throughout the 45-day period. A Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) press release said the following:
“This huge number of victims proves that the Israeli forces continue to commit further crimes and use of excessive force against Palestinian civilians in disregard for their lives upon an official political decision.”
“PCHR emphasizes that before occurrence of demonstrations -previously declared by the organizers as peaceful demonstrations only calling for implementation of United Nations Resolution 194 and raising only Palestinian and UN flags – the Israeli forces sent threatening letters to intimidate the organizers and Gaza Strip residents in addition to deploying snipers and dog sniffer units along the borders with Gaza as declared by the spokesperson of the Israeli Army on his Facebook page.”
“The spokesperson also threatened that ‘if needed, we will respond in the center of the Gaza Strip against those behind these violent protests,’ hinting about committing crimes of extra-judicial killings (assassinations).”
PCHR blamed international community silence for Friday’s bloodbath and countless others like it since the creation of the Jewish state.
On Friday, state-sponsored violence was preemptively unleashed on nonviolent Palestinian demonstrators threatening no one.
A separate article explained the following:
Friday demonstrations commemorated the 42nd anniversary of Land Day since 1976 in response to Israel’s announced intention to steal thousands of dunums of Palestinian land for settlement construction.
On March 30, 1976, Israeli police lethally shot six Arab citizens, protesting peacefully against theft of Palestinian land.
Since then, annual Palestinian protests commemorate that fateful day throughout the territories and in Israel.
The current Palestinian “Great March of Return” will continue through mid-May Nakba Day.
How much more Israeli violence will occur between now and then? How much more bloodshed?
How many more Palestinians die, be injured or maimed for life? How much Israeli-inflicted Palestinian suffering is too much?
How great a price must Palestinians pay to be free at last from Israeli occupation viciousness?
A Final Comment
The late Palestinian scholar/activist Edward Said (1935 – 2003) once said “(w)hat George Bush knows about Palestine can be engraved on the head of a pin.”
The same goes for Obama, Trump and most congressional members.
Commenting shortly before his September 2003 death, Said ridiculed Bush’s touting of “American” values, explaining:
“What Arabs, Muslims, and Europeans more and more see is a country that flouts international law. It tears up some treaties and refuses to sign others. It thinks of itself above and exceptional in all things.”
The same criticism applies to Israel, operating extrajudicially, embracing the false notion of Jews as “God’s chosen people,” claiming exclusive right to historic Palestine, stealing the land dunum by dunum, the so-called peace process the greatest hoax in modern times.
Said called it “a repackaging of the Israeli occupation.” He cited “the absence of (strong leader-led) initiative (as) our greatest enemy.”
So is US-led Western support for Israel, Washington partnering in its high crimes, providing billions of dollars annually, used for militarism, aggression and repression.
Palestinians are largely on their own, prevented from living free on their own land in their own country by a ruthless occupier.
Resistance remains their only option – struggling one day to be free at last.
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