Why are you not doing anything about Gaza, Bush?

Two prominent people have written open letters over the Gaza crisis - one to President Bush, the other to Mr Obama

Mr Ralph Nader is a political activist who has run for the US presidency as an independent candidate in 2004 and 2008, and as a Green Party candidate in 1996 and 2000.
January 04, 2009





Here are excerpts of Mr Nader's letter to US president George W Bush published in CommonDreams.org


DEAR George W Bush,

Where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred and destroyed respectively by US-built F-16s and US-built helicopter gunships?

The deliberate suspension of your power to stop this terrorising of 1.5 million people, mostly refugees blockaded for months by air, sea and land in their tiny slice of land, is in cowardly contrast to the position taken by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

That year, he single-handedly stopped the combined British, French and Israeli aircraft attack against Egypt during the Suez Canal dispute.

Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2,000 so far as is known.

Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400 times greater then the casualties incurred by the Israelis.

Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.

It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter.

Then there is the matter of the Israeli government blocking imports of critical medicines, equipment such as dialysis machines, fuel, food, water, spare parts and electricity to Gaza at varying intensities for almost two years.

The depleted UN aid mission there has called this illegal blockade a humanitarian crisis especially devastating to children, the aged and the infirm.

Chronic malnutrition among children is rising rapidly.

UN rations support 80 per cent of this impoverished population.

How do these incontrovertible facts affect you?

Do you have any empathy or what you have called Christian charity?...

Mr Gideon Levy, the veteran Israeli columnist for Ha'aretz, called the Israeli attack a 'brutal and violent operation' far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south.

Apparently, thousands of Israelis, including some army reservists, who have demonstrated against this destruction of Gaza, agree with Mr Levy...

Peace was possible

Your spokespeople are making much ado about the breaking of the six-month truce. Who is the occupier? Who is the most powerful military force? Who controls and blocks the necessities of life?...

Peace was possible, but you provided no leadership, preferring instead to comply with all wishes and demands by the Israeli government - even resupplying it with the still-active cluster bombs in south Lebanon during the invasion of that country in 2006.

The arguments about who started the latest hostilities go on and on with Israel always blaming the Palestinians to justify all kinds of violence and harsh treatment against innocent civilians.

From the Palestinian standpoint, you would do well to remember the origins of this conflict which was the dispossession of their lands.

To afford you some empathy, recall the oft-quoted comment by the founder of Israel, MrDavid Ben-Gurion, who told Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann:

'There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?'

MrAlfred North Whitehead once said: 'Duty arises out of the power to alter the course of events.'

By that standard, you have shirked mightily your duty over the past eight years to bring peace to both Palestinians and Israelis and more security to a good part of the world.

The least you can do in your remaining days at the White House is adopt a modest profile in courage, and vigorously demand and secure a ceasefire and a solidly based truce.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader