Looking the other way

In an action that is reminiscent of the Nazi destruction of 
the Czech village of Lidice during WW 2 and the US massacre in 
the Vietnamese village of My Lai in the 1960s, the Israeli army 
has invaded the Palestinian Rafar refugee camp in the Gaza Strip 
and destroyed many homes and killed scores of Palestinian 
civilians.

President Bush and Prime Ministers Howard and Blair were looking 
the other way as these atrocities were being carried out by the 
Israeli army. If such destruction had been carried out by the 
armed forces of any country other than Israel or the United 
States they would have screamed their condemnation using terms 
such as "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide".

As the Gaza Strip atrocity was taking place Bush praised Ariel 
Sharon and told a pro-Israeli election rally that Israel "has 
every right to defend itself against terror".

Even Israel's own justice minister said of the Gaza events: "We 
look like monsters in the eyes of the world. It makes me sick."

The UN representative for refugees described what happened in the 
Gaza Strip as a "humanitarian catastrophe" while Turkey's Prime 
Minister labeled Israel as a "terrorist" state during a meeting 
with an Israeli minister visiting Ankara.

The overwhelming majority of the Turkish people sympathise with 
their Palestinian brothers and there have been angry 
demonstrations on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul in 
solidarity with the Palestinians.

Earlier in Israel itself about 120,000 people demonstrated 
against the policies of the Sharon government.

President Bush stubbornly supports the repressive policies of the 
Sharon government while claiming to support the so-called 
"Roadmap for peace". He wants the considerable Jewish vote for 
his re-election in November but Jewish support for Bush is 
running at only 31 percent which shows that over two-thirds of 
Jews in America do not support the war-mongering policies of Bush 
and Cheney.