B'Tselem (Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in Occupied Territories) has this link to a blog reporting human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.
B'Tselem also documents the appalling mortality statistics between 29.9.2000-30.11.2008 which show 2,994 Palestinians (including 634 minors) in the Gaza Strip were killed by Israeli security forces/civilians compared with 136 Israeli dead (including 4 minors) in the same territory killed by Palestinians.
With totals across Gaza, West Bank and Israel for the same period showing 4,897 Palestinian dead (including 955 minors) and 1,062 Israeli dead (including 123 minors).
The current bombing and incursion into the Gaza Strip will of course swell these figures markedly in relation to the number of Palestinians killed or wounded.
When will enough be enough?
Philip Slater over at The Huffington Post expresses what must be a common sentiment:
I can understand that after centuries of persecution it's satisfying for a Jewish state to be the aggressor for a change, but there's a codicil that goes with that role. You don't get to act like a victim any more. "Poor little Israel" just sounds silly when you're the dominant power in the Middle East. When you've invaded several of your neighbors, bombed and defeated them in combat, occupied their land, and taken their homes away from them, it's time to stop acting oppressed. Yes, Arab states deny your right to exist, threaten to drive you into the sea, and all the rest of their futile, helpless rhetoric. The fact is, you have the upper hand and they don't. You have sophisticated arms and they don't. You have nuclear weapons and they don't. So stop pretending to be pathetic. It doesn't play well in Peoria.
B'Tselem 2009 testimony page.
1 comment:
Compare those Israeli mortality rates with 430 (in 2007, more in previous years) killed on Israeli Roads.
To quote a Jerusalem Rabbi from before the current slaughter...
Hundreds of people are killed in road accidents every year, and the total is about four times higher than all those killed in all the wars since the Return to Zion and in the war on terror. Add to that the 20,000 people who are severely injured in road accidents every year – injured in a way which no longer lets them lead a normal life and you have Israel’s No. 1 enemy.
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