Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ben Mitchell, of Bellows Falls, a Democratic Socialist who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House seat.
[T]he pictures from Gaza are chilling and unambiguous. For weeks now, Israeli snipers, shooting from the safety of well-defended, distant positions, have been killing and maiming unarmed, peaceful Palestinian demonstrators. The snipers shoot from behind a buffer zone of open ground and two fences, one of barbed wire. The snipers fires methodically into throngs of men, women and children, mostly at the men and boys. As of May 14, Israeli snipers had killed 55 people, while suffering zero casualties themselves.
How is this not a continuing crime against humanity? How is there not a world outcry against state-sanctioned shooting fish in a barrel? How is there hardly a voice in the U.S. raised against such official savagery?
And the killing isn’t even the worst of it. Israeli policy calls for wounding more than it kills. More than 2,000 Gazans have been wounded with high velocity ammunition that leaves fist-sized exit wounds and injuries likely to last a lifetime. Israeli policy calls for snipers to aim low, causing belly and leg wounds, leaving survivors intentionally crippled for life.
On March 31, an Israeli Defense (sic) forces spokesman tweeted: “Yesterday we saw 30,000 people; we arrived prepares and with precise reinforcements; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed.” That is a confession.
There is no justification for hunting Palestinians in the open-air prison that is Gaza. Israel deliberately created the conditions of Gaza, which are roughly equivalent to the Warsaw ghetto of 1944.
The U.S. Congress has expressed little concern for Gaza. It took till April 14 before even five of the best representatives could manage only mild tut-tutting over “the tragic loss of life over the past two weeks.” Tragic loss of life is something very different from shooting unarmed, defenseless people. On April 26, Vermont’s representative, Peter Welch, attached his name to a mealy-mouthed statement that begins: “We are deeply concerned by the violence and the tragic loss of life along the border of Gaza. As strong supporters of Israel …”
And there’s the problem. As strong supporters of a rogue state committing mass murder, even our best members of Congress have lost their moral footing. What they call “violence” is execution-by-sniper. What they call a “border” isn’t a border at all, it’s a barbed-wire fence line imprisoning two million residents of Israel, three-quarters of them internal refugees driven out of their homes elsewhere in the country. Peter Welch and his ilk can’t even get the suffering right, much less offer any answer to it.
The answer to the murder and crippling of unarmed, peaceful, defenseless civilians should start with outright condemnation and should not end until we get a verdict from a war crimes tribunal.
