Over the past three weeks the world has watched in horror as Israeli soldiers butchered 1 360 Palestinians – most of them women and children – while maiming hundreds of others.
This reign of state-sponsored terrorism also saw 5 000 houses belonging to Palestinians destroyed through continual Israeli air strikes.
The world has seen shocking images of burnt homes, bodies of babies rendered lifeless as cold-hearted Israel seeks to fulfill its genocidal ambitions with impunity.
Israel – like a rabid dog in a chicken coop, drooling for more blood – has continued to commit one war crime after another as could be attested by one incident on Wednesday when it spilt the blood of 21 unarmed civilians. Prior to that bloodletting, another 100 civilians were mowed to death on Tuesday. Eight people – including five members of one family – were massacred by Israel, who earlier this week ignored global appeals for a ceasefire.
Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hardheaded generals claim the slaughter in Gaza is essentially tit-for-tat in response to the 53 Israelis killed by Hamas, their argument is flawed to say the least.
Despite well-meaning attempts by Egypt to broker a ceasefire, the Israelis on the other hand have only shown determination to quench their thirst with more Palestinian blood.
Israel also ignored appeals for an immediate ceasefire from the U.N. Security Council and even the impassioned plea from the Head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis.
The SADC Ministerial Committee of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation (MCO) that met in Swakopmund also noted with grave concern the blatant and disproportionate attacks against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the State of Israel.
The attacks have been disproportionate. The Israelis claim theirs was a response to attacks on its territory by Hamas, which begs the question of why 1 360 Palestinians, mostly kids, have become targets of the Israeli onslaught. Also, 5 000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed.
How does Netanyahu sleep at night with blood dripping from his hands? How does he justify the war madness by a group of Israeli troops who shelled a U.N. school sheltering refugees in which 15 Palestinians were killed and 90 wounded?
True, Israel reserves the right to defend itself from any attack by Hamas as is their argument. But the Israelis have been indiscriminate in their onslaught, and that is what the world is concerned about.
The attack on the elementary school was so repulsive even Netanyahu’s handlers at the White House have had enough. The White House issued a carefully worded condemnation to the effect it was “extremely concerned” about the plight of displaced Palestinians.
Of course we are not surprised the White House – whose selective morality is public knowledge – for such a strangled sob because had Israel been on the receiving end, Washington would possibly already have dispatched its armed troops into Gaza.
But Israel is the pampered child, a blue-eyed boy of the Americans and the British. Anyone lifting the proverbial finger towards Israel, even in self-defence, is regarded as anti-Semitic. When the late Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein rained 39 Scud missiles on Israel the Americans led an international condemnation and mobilised other countries in a war that resulted not only in the ouster of Saddam Hussein but also his killing through the hangman’s noose.
That said, we pray for a day when the Israelis and Palestinians will hold hands and march towards good neighbourliness.
We reiterate our government’s strong support for the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of an independent state of their own. Both nations have the right to coexist, as independent and sovereign states, with no threat or provocation whatsoever.
All sane people should strongly condemn Israel that plays God by killing innocent unarmed civilians, including women and children.