IRAQ :
From 1991 to the present day the United States Air Force and Navy have slaughtered over 200,000 civilian people in Iraq with Depleted Uranium missiles, cluster bombs, cruise missiles and other so-called “smart bombs.”
During the “Desert Storm” terror campaign the arsenal also included fuel-air bombs and napalm. 177 million pounds of bombs were dropped on the people of Iraq in the most concentrated aerial bombardment in the history of the world. In the 110,000 sorties of the six-week onslaught the cowardly American and British pilots (and to a lesser extent French and Saudi pilots) mass-murdered at least 200,000 people, using depleted uranium missiles, napalm, cluster-bombs, fuel-air bombs, cruise missiles and other so-called “smart bombs.” The slaughter of civilian people in the Amariyah bomb shelter was a Prime example of this American/British state terrorism. Most of them were women, children, elderly, and invalids from a new housing development. Cowardly U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force jet pilots caught one sixty-mile-long column of fleeing Iraqi soldiers and Palestinian civilian families in vehicles on the Kuwait to Basra highway - and pounded them ruthlessly with bombs and machine-gun fire. The road, clogged by four lanes of one-way, bumper-to-bumper traffic, was carpet bombed by B-52s dropping 1,000-pound bombs, and repeatedly hit with laser-guided missiles and “smart” bombs. All the Iraqi soldiers, as well as Palestinian workers and their families, were slaughtered without mercy. The bloodthirsty American pilots gleefully described the massacre as “shooting in a sheep pen.”
During the Desert Storm terror campaign at least 944,000 rounds of Depleted Uranium ammo were fired from American A-10 Warthogs all over Iraq and Kuwait . When a depleted uranium tipped shell strikes a tank or armoured personnel carrier it easily penetrates the armour and burns the crew alive. The impact also vaporizes the depleted uranium, creating an aerosol of radioactive heavy-metal particles which can spread as far as 190 miles on the wind. When inhaled or ingested, the depleted uranium particles cause chemical and radioactive damage to the bronchial tree, kidneys, liver and bones. Cancer often results, and the effects can even include genetic damage.
The Dutch Laka Foundation estimates that the United States terror campaign left behind 300-800 tons of radioactive waste from this ammunition all over Kuwait and Iraq - poisoning the air, the land, the water and the people everywhere. Afterwards, wherever the depleted uranium firing had been concentrated, there were cancer epidemics among Iraqi civilians living nearby. In the ten years since then, sanctions, polluted water and depleted uranium together have killed somewhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Iraqi civilian people. At least 600,000 of the dead are children. Cancer rates have quadrupled in areas of southern Iraq bombed by the American and British state terrorists. Since it began, thousands of Iraqi babies have been born with horrible birth defects. This is something that has never before been seen in Iraq .
Over the course of only 43 days and nights, approximately 62,000-80,000 air-delivered cluster bombs were dropped on the Iraqi people by the American-led state terrorists. In addition, 10,000 MLRS rockets and 100,000 “Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition” artillery shells were fired. All this translates to about 24-30 million “sub munitions” or bomblets. Assuming a dud rate of 5%, it is estimated that the number of Dangerous land-mine cluster bomblets lying on or just under the surface of the ground in Iraq and Kuwait would be from 1.2 to 1.5 million. At least. In the desert, however, the percentage of these duds rose to 30%. So the number of unexploded ordnance still lying in wait for unsuspecting Iraqi children and civilian people could be as high as 7 to 9 million bomblets. A Human Rights Watch report says that of the estimated 24 to 30 million bomblets dropped during the Desert Storm terror campaign, the 1.2 to 1.5 million (at least) that did not immediately explode led to the bloody deaths of 1,220 Kuwaiti and 400 Iraqi people - mostly children - and over 2,500 maimed. And that was in just the first two years after the end of the “war.” So the American/British systematically targeted Iraq 's civilian infrastructure. Schools, hospitals, factories and every industry connected to food production, water purification and irrigation were targeted for destruction. U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots destroyed a baby formula plant, food warehouses, pharmaceutical plants, fertilizer plants, pesticide plants, storage facilities, refrigeration facilities, electrical generation and communication plants and every single grain silo in the country. All these were destroyed in order to intensify the impoverishing effect of the sanctions. In the process, U.S. and British pilots slaughtered at least 200,000 Iraqi men, women and children. And of course all these murdered human beings were dismissed by the Pentagon as “collateral damage.” In the 10 years since that carnage, the United Nations estimates that over one million Iraqi civilians – including 600,000 children below the age of five - have died as a result of American sanctions alone. One of the most important strategies of the 1991 terror-campaign against the civilian Iraqi people was the bombing of numerous water-purification plants. After that, the American sanctions prevented Iraqis from getting enough replacement parts to repair most of the plants.
So, just as the evil U.S. and British governments planned, the lack of clean drinking water in Iraq has caused a massive human catastrophe. It is contaminated water, more than anything else, that is killing Iraqi babies and small children, by the thousands, every month. Because they are the most vulnerable they are dying from diarrhea and dysentery primarily, and also diseases such as typhoid, hepatitis, cholera and polio - all caused by bacteria and viruses within the contaminated water. And just to make the whole diabolical scheme complete, the American sanctions also prevent the Iraqis from acquiring sufficient medicine to treat these deadly diseases. In an interview of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on CBS's 60 Minutes, correspondent Lesley Stahl asked her if the death of these 600,000 Iraqi children was “worth it.” Albright's reply:
“...we think the price is worth it.” General Colin Powell when asked about the number of Iraqi people who were slaughtered by Americans in the 1991 “Desert Storm” terror campaign: “It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in.” “If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk.
And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.” U.S. Brig. General William Looney Washington Post, August 30, 1999 - referring, in reality, to the brutal mass murder of hundreds of civilian Iraqi men, women and children during 10,000 sorties by American/British.
PALESTINE :
Since September 29, 2000 the Israeli Army, together with violent gangs of Israeli “settlers,” have launched a massive military assault on the Palestinian people. In this latest onslaught the Israelis have murdered over 600 people so far, including many children, and injured over 15,000, many severely Of these 15,000 people, over 1000 have sustained serious physical or neurological injuries requiring long-term health care. The Israelis have surrounded all Palestinian villages and blocked all exits, refusing to allow those with severe injuries to get medical help outside. Meanwhile the Israeli Army fires into the villages with missiles from Cobra helicopter gunships and with shells and heavy-gauge ammo from tanks.
Israeli invaders of the West Bank , who are given the misleading name of “settlers,” actually live in hilltop fortresses above many of the Palestinian villages. From these fortresses the “settlers” fire at will down on the unarmed Palestinian people below. In addition to murdering people, the Israeli military is extensively targeting infrastructure, with the intention of destroying the Palestinian economy. Under the guise of “retaliation,” “destroying sniper hiding places” or “protecting Israeli settlers,” Israeli helicopter gunships have fired missiles into Gaza TV studios, factories, office suites, police stations and administrative centers of the Palestinian Authority, destroying them all.
VIETNAM :
American Genocide of the Vietnamese People, 1945-1974 “I would like to say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”
John Kerry Navy lieutenant, leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 1971 During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations the number of murderous U.S. military personnel invading Vietnam jumped from 23,000 in 1963 to 184,000 in 1966. During 13 years of America's war against the people of Vietnam 8000,000 Tons of bombs (like Napalm and cluster bombs) and defoliants (Agent Orange) were dropped in total - and at least 3 MILLION Vietnamese people were slaughtered. During the Vietnam Genocide there was even an official CIA program of systematic terror, torture and mass-murder called Operation Phoenix.
CAMBODIA :
The direct American genocide of the Cambodian people lasted from 1969 to 1975. After that the Khmer Rouge, America 's covert clients, took over the job. Estimated civilian deaths: 2,000,000 - 2,500,000 people From the U.S. Air Force carpet bombing and the Khmer Rouge combined.
From Derailing Democracy by Dave McGowan:
Not content with the destruction being wrought upon Southeast Asia, the U.S. began a massive covert bombing campaign against Cambodia , resulting in famine, economic chaos, and a staggeringly high death toll. The desperate conditions created by the bombing set the stage for the Rise to power of the Khmer Rouge, resulting in yet another round of death and destruction for the besieged country.
From Rogue State by William Blum:
Cambodian Prince Sihanouk was yet another leader who did not fancy being an American client. After many years of hostility toward his regime, including assassination plots and the infamous Nixon/Kissinger secret “carpet bombings” of 1969-70, Washington finally overthrew Sihanouk in a coup in 1970.
This was all that was needed to impel Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces to enter the fray. Five years later, they took power. But the years of American bombing had caused Cambodia 's traditional economy to vanish. The old Cambodia had been destroyed forever.
Incredibly, the Khmer Rouge were to inflict even greater misery upon this unhappy land. And to multiply the irony, the United States supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge after their subsequent defeat by the Vietnamese.
LAOS :
The United States Air Force dropped the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years on the people of Laos, from 1965 to 1973 - over 2,000,000 tons. This was some of the heaviest aerial bombing in world history. Estimated civilian deaths: 500,000 people The United States dropped an estimated 285 million cluster bomblets all over Southeast Asia during the course of the Vietnam War - seven bomblets for every man, woman and child. By 1973 it was estimated that there were at least nine million unexploded bomblets still lying on Laotian territory. As much as half a million tons of unexploded ordnance (primarily cluster-bombs) remains littered all over the Laotian countryside - 35 years later. Every year, throughout all these past 35 years, hundreds of innocent Laotian children and civilian people are murdered or maimed by American cluster-bombs. Bombs dropped by United States Air Force crews.
From Rogue State by William Blum:
The Laotian left, led by the Pathet Lao, tried to effect social change peacefully, making significant electoral gains and taking part in coalition governments. But the United States would have none of that. The CIA and the State Department, through force, bribery and other pressures, engineered coups in 1958, 1959 and 1960. Eventually, the only option left for the Pathet Lao was armed force. The CIA created its infamous “Arme Clandestine”- totaling 30,000, from every corner of Asia - to do battle, while the US Air Force, between 1965 and 1973, rained down more than two million tons of bombs upon the people of Laos, many of whom were forced to live in caves for years in a desperate attempt to escape the monsters falling from the sky. After hundreds of thousands had been killed, many more maimed, and countless bombed villages with hardly stone standing upon stone, the Pathet Lao took control of the country, following on the heels of events in Vietnam.
KOREA :
Between 1950 and 1953 the greatest devastation was of course inflicted upon the civilian people of North Korea . The United States Corporate Mafia Government and military were terribly frustrated by the heroic determination of the Korean people and their Chinese allies to be free of American domination. To teach them the “virtues” of the American way, the Pentagon began a deliberate campaign of bloody genocide from the air and on the ground beginning in June 1950, using 20 times more napalm against the Korean people than it used in World War II. It was during the Korean Genocide that American military personnel first started using the term “****.” Many subhuman Americans felt it was okay to slaughter Korean children and rape Korean women because they were all just “gooks.” This sort of bestial racism is a tradition in the bloodthirsty United States military. War criminals always attempt to justify their own evil inhumanity by imagining their victims as being less than human. By the end of America's genocidal assault nearly 3 million civilian people in North Korea had died horribly, either directly from American bombing and massacres or from war-related causes such as starvation and disease. The events in Sinchon County are a typical example of American war crimes in Korea .
SINCHON:
Sinchon was considered a Communist stronghold when American troops occupied the town in September 1950. By the time a North Korean and Chinese counter-offensive was able to drive them out in early December 1950, racist American troops had already managed to mass-murder 35,383 people- one out of every four of the county's 140,000 inhabitants. To this day a local museum carefully chronicles the extent of U.S. war crimes in Sinchon: Americans burned 5,484 dwellings and destroyed 618 factories, public buildings and irrigation facilities, committing the cold-blooded murder of tens of thousands of people in the process. Then, when American troops were forced to retreat, they took revenge on women and children. In order to make the world safe for democracy, American troops murdered 900 helpless civilian people in an air-raid shelter by pouring gasoline into the shelter's ventilation hole and setting it on fire.
In Wonam-ri , North Korea , American troops locked 502 women and their children in two storehouses and then burned them all alive too. This was done in December 1950, while American politicians and military leaders preached from every pulpit about the terrible threat of “Godless Communism.”
“No refugees to cross the front line. Fire everyone trying to cross lines.” 8 th Cavalry Regiment communications log two days before the No Gun Ri massacre. “American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies.” Chun Choon-ja - a 12-year-old Korean girl in 1950 survivor of the No Gun Ri massacre Japan .
JAPAN :
In August, 1945 there was the truly unnecessary atomic-bomb genocide of hundreds of thousands of Japanese CIVILIAN men, women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning.Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki , with perhaps 50,000 killed. The ruthless use of this genocidal weapon was the greatest “psy-op” of all time a major example of psychological warfare. The genocides of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were America 's supreme acts of international terrorism. By dropping The Bomb the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government was introducing the world to its new Master. 1989 American Invasion of Panama
From Rogue State by William Blum:
Less than two weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States showed its joy that a new era of world peace was now possible by invading Panama, as Washington's mad bombers struck again. On December 20, 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City was wiped out; 15,000 people were left homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting between U.S. and Panamanian forces, 500 natives dead was the official body count - i.e., what the United States and the new U.S. installed Panamanian government admitted to. Other sources, examining more evidence, concluded that thousands had died. Additionally, some 3,000 Panamanians were wounded, 23 Americans died, 324 were wounded. Question from reporter: “Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?” George Bush: “Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it.” The era of “The Ugly American” was announced on August 6, 1945. It continues to this day: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist - McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15.” Thomas Friedman Ugly American columnist for the New York Times In addition, the terrorist U.S. military and CIA have trained, armed, funded, provided intelligence and direct military support for fascist puppet-regimes and right-wing death-squads around the world. The Philippines It was just nine years after the United States Army Seventh Cavalry slaughtered 300 helpless Lakota children, women and men at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890: In a major yet little-known campaign of the Spanish-American war, all branches of the U.S. military committed the mass-murder of 200,000 civilian men, women and children in the Philippines . This genocide was accomplished by a viciously racist United States Army, Navy and Marines, from 1899 to 1902. Why? Corporate profit. The Philippine islands were a profitable part of the old Spanish Empire. They also provided a valuable base of operations for the exploitation of China - which was far more profitable. When the Filipinos resisted us - with the curious idea that they had a right to control their own country - American soldiers, sailors and Marines slaughtered and tortured them. Heroic American soldiers even murdered ten-year-old Filipino boys. This was the point in American history when the emphasis shifted from the domestic abuse and exploitation of Red Indians and Africans to the far more profitable field of international terrorism. Mark Twain condemned the genocide in scathingly cynical terms. So did others among that small percentage of Americans possessed of a human conscience. President William McKinley, however, was of the official opinion that the cruel bloodshed was “God's Will.”
Saving Private Power:
Saving Private Power is the most provocative history of the “Good War” ever published. It questions the ultra-patriotic assumptions we have been taught since birth. The U.S. did not enter WW II to end the Holocaust, to make the world a safer place, or to stop fascism. The opposite is true. The U.S. business class traded with Hitler and Mussolini up to and even during the war. Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh's public Hitlerphilia were symbolic of the admiration of big business for Hitler's anticommunism. Using techniques gleaned from modern advertising, the U.S. Office of War Information injected anti-Japanese bloodlust and hysteria into the population. When the U.S. killed 672,000 Japanese through indiscriminate bombing, even Secretary of War Henry Stimson wondered why “there has never been a protest over...such extraordinarily heavy loss of life. There is something wrong with a country where no one questions that.”
The Red Indian Genocide
The Red Indian Genocide “The destruction of the Red Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.”
David E. Stannard, historian In spite of that fact, the typical mentally-sleeping American remains only vaguely aware of the horrific holocaust of American Red Indians. Yet every single locality where Americans make their homes today is consecrated to the cause of cruel, racist inhumanity - with the blood of Red Red Indian people. Every single locality where Americans make their homes today is the scene of the murder, rape, torture and impoverishment of the Red Indian people who lived there first. But mainstream Americans would choke on their apple pie if they dared to think about that. Too many Americans would rather stick their heads in the sand about our evil history - just as they stick their heads in the sand about what is happening today. In the centuries after Christopher Columbus the Butcher, more than 100 million native people fell under the sadistic, racist rule of the invading European-Americans.
Supplied curtsey of http://www.tanzeem.org
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Some Examples of Israel's Half-Century
Reign of Terror
The King David Massacre, 1946: 92 dead
This attack was carried out by the Irgun terrorist organization and with the knowledge of David Ben Gurion, the highest-ranking Zionist official of the period. A total of 92 people, consisting of Britons, Palestinians, and Jews, were killed, and 45 were seriously injured.
Baldat Al-Shaikh Massacre, 1947: 60 dead
Sixty Palestinians sleeping in their beds, among them women, children, and the elderly, lost their lives as a result of this attack, which was carried out by 150-200 Zionist terrorists. The attack began at 2:00 a.m. and lasted for 4 hours.
Yehida Massacre, 1947: 13 dead
At Yehida, one of the first Zionist settlements, Zionist assailants dressed as British soldiers opened fire on Muslims.
Khisas Massacre, 1947: 10 dead
Two cars full of Haganah members entered the village of Khisas on the Lebanese border and opened fire on everyone who crossed their paths.
Qazaza Massacre, 1947: 5 children dead
Five children lost their lives in this episode, in which Zionist terrorists attacked a random house.
The Semiramis Hotel Massacre, 1948: 19 dead
In an operation aimed at making the Palestinians uneasy and forcing them out of Jerusalem, a group of Zionist terrorists directed by Israel's first president, David Ben Gurion, blew up the Semiramis Hotel. Nineteen people were killed.
Naser al-Din Massacre, 1948
A group of Zionist terrorists dressed as Arab soldiers opened fire on those townspeople who left their homes to greet them. Only 40 people escaped the carnage, and the village was wiped off the map.
The Tantura Massacre, 1948: 200 dead
Tantura, now home to about 1,500 Jewish settlers, was the site of a large massacre of Muslims in 1948. Israeli historian Teddy Katz described the attack as follows: "From the numbers, this is definitely one of the biggest massacres."
The Dahmash Mosque Massacre, 1948: 100 dead
Israeli 89th Commando Battalion lead by the future Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, announced to the villagers that they would be safe only if they assembled at the mosque. However, the 100 Muslims who sought refuge there were slaughtered. The terrified residents of Lydda and Ramle abandoned their lands. Approximately 60,000 Palestinians emigrated, and 350 more died en route due to poor medical conditions.
Dawayma Massacre, 1948: 100 dead
This attack was one of the largest Israeli massacres. A majority of those killed were assembled at the mosque for Friday prayers. Palestinian women were raped during the attack, and homes were dynamited with people inside them.
Houla Massacre, 1948: 85 dead
Israeli soldiers forced 85 people into a house and then set it on fire. Afterwards, most of the terrified residents fled to Beirut. Of the 12,000 original residents of Houla, only 1,200 remained.
Salha Massacre, 1948: 105 dead
After residents of the village were forced into the mosque, the people were fired upon until not a single person remained alive.
Deir Yassin Massacre, 1948: 254 dead
The fact that the world agenda is controlled by the Western media, most of which is pro-Israeli, sometimes prevents events occurring within Israel from coming to light. But some incidents of such violence and cruelty have been documented in detail by international organizations. This is one of those incidents, and was carried out by the Irgun and Stern terrorist organizations.
On the night of April 9, 1948, the people of Deir Yassin awoke to the order "evacuate the village" coming from loudspeakers. Before they understood what was happening, they had been slaughtered. Subsequent Red Cross and United Nations investigations conducted at the scene showed that houses were first set on fire and that all people trying to escape the flames were shot dead. During the attack, pregnant women were bayoneted in their abdomens while still alive. The victims' organs were mutilated, and even children were beaten and raped. Throughout the Deir Yassin massacre, 52 children were maimed under the eyes of their own mothers, and then they were slain and their heads cut off. More than 60 women were killed and their bodies mutilated.35 One woman who escaped alive related the following atrocity that she had witnessed:
I saw a soldier grabbing my sister, Saliha al-Halabi, who was nine months pregnant. He pointed a machine gun at her neck, then emptied its contents into her body. Then he turned into a butcher, and grabbed a knife and ripped open her stomach to take out the slaughtered childe with his iniquitious Nazi knife.36
Not satisfied with just the massacre, the terrorists then rounded up all the women and girls who remained alive, removed all their clothes, put them in open cars, driving them naked through the streets of the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Jacques Reynier, the Red Cross representative of Palestine at the time, who saw the mutilated bodies during his visit to Deir Yassin the day after the attack, could only say: "The situation was horrible."37
During the course of the attack, 280 Muslims, among them women and children, were first paraded through the streets and then shot execution-style. Most of the girls had been raped before their execution, and the boys' genitals had been cut off.38
It should be pointed out that the terrorists who carried out this atrocity were not members of radical organizations acting outside the law or beyond the government's control; rather, they were controlled directly by the Israeli government. The Deir Yassin massacre was carried by the Irgun and Stern gangs, under the direct leadership of Menachem Begin, the future prime minister of Israel.
Begin described this inhuman operation, merely one example of the official policy of Israeli brutality, in these words: "The massacre was not only justified, but there would not have been a state of Israel without the 'victory' at Deir Yassin."39 Zionists used such attacks to terrorize the Palestinians and drive them from their land so that the immigrating Jews would have a place to settle. Israel Eldad, a famous Zionist leader, expressed this truth openly when he said: "Had it not been for Deir Yassin - half a million Arabs would be living in the state of Israel [in 1948]. The State of Israel would not have existed."40
The Zionists considered this type of ethnic cleansing as vital to establishing the state of Israel. Indeed these operations, which continued after the Deir Yassin attack, caused many Palestinians either to abandon their land and flee, or to suffer the same fate as the residents of Deir Yassin.
The Massacre at Qibya, 1953: 96 dead
Another Zionist attack designed to "encourage" the Palestinians to flee occurred in Qibya, a village of 2,000 on the Jordanian border. Later investigations at the scene conducted by quite a few observers clearly revealed the nature of this atrocity. The Qibya massacre, which occurred on October 13, 1953, consisted of demolishing 40 houses and murdering 96 civilians, a majority of them women and children. The "101" unit was led by Ariel Sharon, another future prime minister of Israel. Its approximately 600 soldiers first cordoned off the village and severed its contact with all other Arab villages. Entering it at 4:00 a.m., the Zionist terrorists began to systematically demolish houses and kill the residents. An unperturbed Sharon, who personally led the attack, made the following announcement after the massacre: "The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example to everyone."41
Dr. Yousif Haikal, Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations at that time, explained the massacre in his report to the Security Council:
The Israelis entered the village and systematically murdered all occupants of houses, using automatic weapons, grenades, and incendiaries; and dynamited houses over victims' heads... Forty houses, the village school, and a reservoir were destroyed. Twenty-two cattle were killed and six shops looted.42
The famous Catholic journal The Sign, published in the United States, also reported on the atrocities perpetrated during this attack. Editor Ralph Gorman explained his thoughts as follows: "Terror was a political weapon of the Nazis. But the Nazis never used terror in a more cold-blooded and wanton manner than the Israelis in the massacre at Kibya."43
Those who later came to the massacre site encountered horrifying images. Most of the dead bore bullet wounds to the back of the head, and many had been decapitated. Along with people who died beneath the wreckage of their houses, many innocent women and children also were brutally murdered.
Kafr Qasem Massacre, 1956:49 dead
The attack on Kafr Qasem, during which 49 innocent people, without regard to women or children, young or old, were brutally murdered, occurred on October 29, 1956. On this very day, Israel also launched its assault on Egypt. Israeli frontier guards went on security rounds at about 4:00 p.m., claiming that they were securing the borders. They told local officials in the border towns that curfew from that day onwards was to start from 5:00 p.m. instead of the usual 6:00 p.m. One of these towns was Kafr Qasem, near the Jewish settlement of Betah Tekfa.
The townspeople were informed of the new curfew only at 4:45 p.m. The local official told the Israeli soldiers that most of the townspeople worked outside the town and, as they would just be returning from work, they could not possibly be informed of this change. At the same time, Israeli soldiers started to erect a barricade at the town's entrance. Meanwhile, those working outside the town started returning home. The first group soon reached the border of the town. What follows is eyewitness Abdullah Samir Bedir's account of what happened next:
We reached the village entrance at about 4:55 p.m. We were suddenly confronted by a frontier unit consisting of 12 men and an officer, all occupying an army truck. We greeted the officer in Hebrew saying 'Shalom Katsin' which means 'Peace be unto you officer,' to which he gave no reply. He then asked us in Arabic: 'Are you happy?' and we said 'Yes.' The soldiers started stepping down from the truck and the officer ordered us to line up. Then he shouted to his soldier this order: 'Laktasour Otem,' which means 'Reap them!' The soldiers opened fire…44
Bedir, who escaped this terrifying ordeal only by playing dead, was certainly not the only witness of this brutality. From this moment on, Israeli soldiers stopped every vehicle attempting to enter the town and executed those inside. Among them were 15- and 16-year-old boys, young girls, and pregnant women. Those who heard the noise and went outside to see what was going on were shot for violating the curfew the moment they stepped outside. The Israeli soldiers were ordered not to arrest, but to execute, all who violated the curfew.
This incident, reported in full detail in official Israeli Parliament records, is one of the most striking examples of official Israeli policy.
Khan Yunis Massacre, 1956:275 dead
The Israeli soldiers who attacked the refugee camp in Khan Yunis murdered 275 people. UN officials who conducted an on-site investigation discovered victims who had been shot in the back of the head after their hands had been tied.45
The Massacre in Gaza City, 1956: 60 dead
In this attack, Zionists killed 60 people, including women and children.
Fakhani Massacre, 1981: 150 dead
As a result of Israeli air attacks on this Lebanese region, 150 people died and 600 were wounded.46
The Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, 1994: 50 dead
On Friday, February 25, 1994 a terrible massacre occurred in Palestine. In an attack carried out by a Zionist Jew on Muslims gathered for Friday prayers at the Ibrahimi Mosque, more than 50 Muslims died and almost 300 were wounded. Some of the wounded later died from their injuries.
The massacre was perpetrated by a Jew living in the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement in Hebron. This terrorist also turned out to be a reserve officer in the Israeli army and a member of a Zionist terrorist organization. Israeli sources reported that he wore military clothing during the attack.
The attacker sneaked into the mosque and hid behind a column as the Muslims were performing their dawn prayers. As they bowed their heads in unison, he opened fire on them with a machine gun. According to eyewitness accounts, he did not act alone – he was simply busy pulling the trigger. As his clips emptied out, his accomplices replaced them.
Following this incident, Israeli soldiers surrounded the mosque and prevented reporters from reaching it. Many more people died when these soldiers opened fire on Palestinian Muslims who had gathered around the mosque to protest the attack.47
Qana Massacre, 1996: 109 dead
More than 100 people, mostly women and children, lost their lives in the Qana refugee camp when it was bombed by the Israeli air force. The terrible scenes of carnage, including those of decapitated children, have never been forgotten. A UN inspection team determined that the massacre was deliberate.
Massacre of Sabra and Shatilla
"I had to take the babies and put them in buckets of water to put out the flames. When I took them out half an hour later, they were still burning. Even in the mortuary, they smouldered for hours." Dr. Amal Shamaa of the Barbir hospital, after Israeli phosphorus shells had been fired into West Beirut, 29 July, 1982.48
The Zionist terrorist operations to intimidate Palestinians and drive them off their land following WWII resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. But Israel's attack on the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 will go down in history as one of the worst acts of Zionist genocide ever committed. During the attack by Lebanon's Christian Phalangist groups, with the support and direction of Israeli soldiers, more than 3,000 people, most of them women and children, were murdered. Subsequent research and investigation showed that Ariel Sharon, at that time Israel's defense minister and now prime minister, was responsible for the operation. Due to this bloody attack, he is still known as "The Butcher of Lebanon."
Journalist and Middle East expert Robert Fisk reported on the horrifying scenes he saw immediately after the attack in an article written after Sharon was elected prime minister:
For everyone who stood in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut on 18 September 1982, his (Ariel Sharon's) name is synonymous with butchery; with bloated corpses and disembowelled women and dead babies, with rape and pillage and murder... Even when I walk these fetid streets today, more than 18 years after… the ghosts haunt me still. Over there, on the side of the road leading to the Sabra mosque, lay Mr Nouri, 90 years old, grey-bearded, in pyjamas with a small woollen hat still on his head and a stick by his side. I found him on a pile of garbage, on his back… Just up the lane, I came across two women sitting upright with their brains blown out, next to a cooking pot... One of the women appeared to have had her stomach slit open. A few metres away, I discovered the first babies, already black with decomposition, scattered across the road like rubbish… The flies racing between the reeking bodies and our faces, between dried blood and reporter's notebook, the hands of watches still ticking on dead wrists. I clambered up a rampart of earth – an abandoned bulldozer stood guiltily nearby – only to find, once I was atop the mound, that it swayed beneath me. And I looked down to find faces, elbows, mouths, a woman's legs protruding through the soil. I had to hold on to these body parts to climb down the other side. Then there was the pretty girl, her head surrounded by a halo of clothes pegs, her blood still running from a hole in her back.49
In another article, Fisk describes what he saw while touring the hospitals where the injured were being treated: "What we saw here we would not easily forget. Visiting the Barbir hospital was to see what gunfire does to flesh."50
The brutality that these pitiful and innocent people were subjected to should serve as a warning of the Israeli leadership's ideology. Most of the murdered women had been raped. Pregnant women had been sliced open so that their babies could be ripped out. Children barely 3 or 4 years old had been murdered in front of their parents. Many of the men had had their ears and noses cut off before being shot execution-style.
A news report about the massacres appeared in the French Le Monde newspaper on February 13, 2001. Nihad Hamad, a now-42-year-old survivor, describes what happened:
The Israeli Armed Forces spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning surrounding the camp. They wanted to seal off the east side. Our mujaheddin had left. Around here there was no one left but some boys of 15 or 16… On Thursday night, the bombing got twice as intense. We realized our light weaponry wouldn't be of any use. Everyone in the shelters was a refugee. Everyone was afraid. The elders of the group, those that people listened to, decided to go to the Israelis and tell them that the camp would surrender. With white flags in their hands they got in the car and headed out. They never came back. Some young men left with weapons and went in the same direction. They never came back either, nor the ones who went looking for them. Then we realized much better that we had to get out of here right away… Hundreds of people were fleeing to the same common salon in the northern part of the camp. There were so many of us that we almost suffocated. At daybreak there was the silence of death everywhere; this place was a ghost town now. The bombing had stopped. Every once in a while we could hear single shots being fired. Then, from the direction of the mosque, a woman's screams pierced the silence. Her hair was a tangled mess, her tattered clothes covered in blood. She had the manner of someone who had lost her mind. At her feet were children whose throats had been slit... They behaved brutally, and they used their knives and other incisive tools to carry out the murders in silence. After the militias finished their work at the camps, they finished their dirty work at the Gaza Hospital. They dragged the doctors, nurses, and wounded out of the hospitals and killed them. Along with those who were missing, we learned that between 3,000 and 3,500 people had been killed.51
This frightful scene was the work of Ariel Sharon, known for such remarks as "The Arabs know me, and I know them" and for describing the Arabs in such disparaging terms as "bugs."52 Following the 1967 War, Sharon caused 160,000 Palestinians to leave East Jerusalem and become refugees. His punishment techniques include bombing houses, bulldozing refugee camps, and arresting hundreds of youths for no reason and subjecting them to torture. When Sharon was responsible for security in the Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinians were assassinated, thousands were arrested and deported, and in Gaza alone 2,000 homes were destroyed and 16,000 people were exiled for the second time. Aside from the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, 14,000 people (including 13,000 unarmed civilians) died within the space of a few weeks, and about half a million people were made homeless.
The cruelty and brutality described here has occurred continuously on Palestinian soil for the past 50 years. Moreover, the examples cited above are merely those massacres during which many Palestinians lost their lives on a single day. Similar events, among many others, are as follows: 8 people in al-Sammou, 1966; 9 people in Aitharoun and 16 people in Kawnin, 1975; 20 people in Hanin and 23 in Bint Jbeil, 1976; 7 people in Adloun, 1978; 80 people in Abbasieh, 1979; and 20 people in Saida, 1980. Beyond these, several people have been killed or maimed every day for years. And every day houses are still destroyed and people are still driven from their homeland. Clearly, Israel's ultimate goal is to intimidate the Palestinians, drive them off their land, and bend them to their will through a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing.
The entire world looks on as this community is murdered, as it is subjected to blatant genocide. For some reason, most governments have – and continue to – ignored these brutal and inhumane practices and apply no sanctions other than the occasional "condemnation."
In his classic work World Orders: Old and New, Middle East commentator Noam Chomsky describes the Israeli government's view of the Palestinian people and how American strategists evaluate this view:
As for the Palestinians, U.S. planners had no reason to doubt the assessment of Israeli government specialists in 1948 that the refugees would either assimilate elsewhere or "would be crushed": "some of them would die and most of them would turn into human dust and the waste of society, and join the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries." Accordingly, there was no need to trouble oneself about them. These basic interpretations have remained stable until today, taking concrete form as events unfolded.