By Ron Forthofer
The U.S. corporate mainstream media have done a terrible job covering the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, a catastrophe created by Israeli assassinations, raids and blockade.
Here are a few statements that demonstrate the deliberate creation of the crisis and how dire this situation is. In February 2006 former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's adviser Dov Weissglas shockingly admitted the goal for the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as: “We have to make them much thinner, but not enough to die.”
In October 2006 John Dugard, a South African law professor and the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, stated that Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians where life is “intolerable, appalling, tragic” and appears to have thrown away the key.
Earlier this year Dugard called the Israeli government's actions “serious war crimes” for which its political and military officials should be prosecuted and punished.
In a June 23, 2007 article, Ilan Pappe, a Jewish professor and one of the leading historians of the Middle East, described the situation as genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
These statements were before Israel totally sealed Gaza on Jan. 18, 2008. After this hermetic closure, Karen Koning AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, stated: “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and-some would say-encouragement of the international community.”
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