Take action to end the nightmare in Israel & Palestine! #SaveGazaChildren

As originally posted on Blog Watch, Philippine Online Chronicles.

It’s time to take definitive non-violent action to end this decades long nightmare by signing this petition : https://secure.avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_rb/?bEcgsdb&v=42735

I am haunted by the image of this tearful boy. The look reminds me of my little boy many years ago trying to be brave while controlling his tears, thinking his discomfort is trivial. But this boy from Gaza just tugged at my heart… I could not help but cry . I cannot even begin to imagine his pain, the pain of his mother and family members. As I surfed through the hashtag #SaveGazaChildren on twitter, the images of dead children even hit me harder. A father held his daughter close to his chest with her skull broken in half. Bodies of children lie on the floor at the morgue of the Al-Shifa hospital. Blood everywhere! Israeli military official said in a recent interview that not all civilian casualties come from strikes going astray; some take place when civilians are in places the military aims to hit. But this is not true in this case

“Our little girl was playing in our garden when it happened. The Israelis bombed a house across the street: the blast came straight through our house – then I saw my daughter lying in blood,” said Mr Masri. “She was injured badly in the head, so we fear very much.”

Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow destroys the Prime Minister of Israel’s Chief Spokesperson, Mark Regev, live on air on British television; questioning Israeli military attacks on Al-Wafa hospital and an attack which killed three young boys playing ball on a Gaza beach while Regev continues to claim “the Israeli military does not target civilians” as shown in this video alone.

Dr Nabil Sharqawi had been treating many of the child patients at al-Shifa Hospital. He showed the photograph of a young boy with terrible wounds. The boy was only 10 years old. He had lost both his arms and a leg. But he was fully conscious, he said to me: ‘Please doctor stop this pain.’ But there was very little we could do: he died soon afterwards.”

Don’t Gazan Children have the right to live just like other children of the world? Jane Ashby reacts to someone in defense of Israel.

My tears flow for the Palestinian people being killed in one of the worst possible ways, Israel is an occupying force, literally imprisoning Gaza, stealing land and homes as well as denying the people their basic human needs. In the second world war, the French Resistance fought for their country and were thought of as heroes by the west. Hamas has been forced to do the same, and yet they are terrorists! America is deluding it’s citizens by clever use of the media. It makes me sick how people can still back Israel, knowing full well what it’s doing. Jews were once the victims, but now the Israeli state are the perpetrators of a holocaust. As for the ‘knock on roof’, Have you ever tried to get out of an apartment building in less than a minute? Impossible if you have children, elderly, sick people or live on the upper floors. It’s all to fool gullible people like you, Paul. All it does is terrify people before they die or get burned or horrifically injured. Would you like this to happen to you and your family, Paul? I don’t condone killing by anyone, but I can understand why Hamas exists.

This should give you an idea on life on the Gaza Strip.

Call to action: #SaveGazaChildren

You can take action to end the violence in Israel and Palestine.

It’s not enough just to call for another ceasefire. Shortly after I looked at the devastating photos of #SaveGazaChildren, I received an email from Avaaz.org , a global campaign network. I believe it’s time to take definitive non-violent action to end this decades long nightmare by signing this petition : https://secure.avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_rb/?bEcgsdb&v=42735

Our governments have failed — while they have talked peace and passed UN resolutions, they and our companies have continued to aid, trade and invest in the violence. The only way to stop this hellish cycle of Israel confiscating Palestinian lands, daily collective punishment of innocent Palestinian families, Hamas firing rockets, and Israel bombing Gaza is to make the economic cost of this conflict too high to bear.

We know it works — when EU countries issued guidelines not to fund the illegal Israeli settlements it caused an earthquake in the cabinet, and when citizens successfully persuaded a Dutch pension fund, PGGM, to withdraw, it created a political storm.

This may not feel like a direct way to stop the current killing, but history tells us that raising the financial cost of oppression can pave a path to peace. Click to call on 6 key banks, pension funds and businesses to pull out — If we all take smart action now and turn up the heat, they could withdraw, the Israeli economy will take a hit, and we can turn the calculation of the extremists politically profiting from this hell upside down:

In the last six weeks three Israeli teenagers were murdered in the West Bank, a Palestinian boy was burnt alive, an American kid was brutally beaten up by Israeli police, and now almost 100 Gazan kids have died in Israeli air strikes. This is not the “Middle East conflict”, it’s becoming a war on children. And we are becoming numb to this global shame.

The media makes out like this is an intractable conflict between two equal warring parties, but it is not. Palestinian extremists’ attacks on innocent civilians are never justified and Hamas’ anti-semitism is disgusting. But these extremists claim legitimacy by fighting the grotesque, decades-long oppression by the Israeli state. Israel currently occupies, colonises, bombs, raids, and controls the water, trade and the borders of a legally free nation that has been recognised by the United Nations. In Gaza, Israel has created the largest open-air prison in the world, and then blockaded it. Now as bombs fall, the families literally have no way to get out.

These are war crimes and we wouldn’t accept that anywhere else: why accept it in Palestine? Half a century ago Israel and its Arab neighbours went to war and Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Occupying territory after war happens all the time. But no military occupation should turn into a decades-long tyranny which only fuels and benefits extremists who use terror to target the innocent. And who suffers? The majority of loving families on both sides that just want freedom and peace.

To many, particularly in Europe and North America, calling for companies to withdraw investments from financing or taking part in Israel’s occupation of Palestine sounds completely biased. But this campaign is not anti-Israel — this is the most potent non-violent strategy to end the ritual violence, ensure Israelis’ security and achieve Palestinian freedom. Although Hamas deserves much pressure too, it is already under crippling sanctions and facing every kind of pressure. Israel’s power and wealth dwarfs Palestine, and if it refuses to end its illegal occupation, the world must act to make the cost unbearable.

Dutch pension fund ABP invests in Israeli banks that help fund the colonisation of Palestine. Massive banks like Barclays invest in suppliers of Israeli arms and other occupation businesses. Computer giant Hewlett-Packard supplies sophisticated surveillance to control the movement of Palestinians. And Caterpillar provides bulldozers that are used to demolish Palestinian homes and farms. If we can create the biggest global call ever to get these companies to pull out, we will show clearly that the world will no longer be complicit in this bloodshed. The Palestinian people are calling on the world to support this path and progressive Israelis support it too.

Let’s save the Gaza children by signing this petition. The time has come to turn to sanctions and disinvestment to finally help end the horror for Israelis and Palestinians.   Screencap from twitter #saveGazaChildren and Avaaz.org. Some rights reserved.