Gaza today: This is ‘American democracy’

Alameen Templeton
Even Gazans themselves are astonished Monday at the depth and breadth of Zionazi depravity as they freely wander through shattered buildings and devastated neighbourhoods where “American democracy” has left its familiar mark after 15 months of unrelenting genocide.
Gaza bears all the hallmarks of the Pentagon’s “Genocide Chic” that adorned other cities left devastated in the wake of American hubris. Like Sirte, its buildings are honeycombed with bullet and shrapnel holes; like Homs, the streets in many areas are completely empty, devoid of life where everything is covered in a blanket of grey ash; like Fallujah, the air is thick with the cloying smell of decomposing bodies trapped beneath the rubble; like Raqqa; like Benghazi, Kabul, Kandahar, Tripoli and every miserable village, mud hovel, scrap of desert and corner of corner of forgotten oilfield, the Real Holocaust has taken its toll.
The Real Holocaust
As Markaz Sahaba pointed out in October, Brown University estimated in May last year, America’s “War Against Terror” – unleashed in 2001 – had exterminated at least 4.5 million Muslims in direct and indirect deaths.
That is a minimum figure, based on a collation of verifiable death tolls arising from America’s genocide adventurism in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Pakistan that had turned at least 38million people into refugees.
Four and a half million dead Muslims was the minimum figure Brown Unversity could come to, using minimum multiple of three times direct deaths. Demographers typically multiply direct war deaths up to a maximum of 15, implying the real death toll could be in excess of 22.5million, dwarfing Hitler’s “Practice Holocaust” in World War Two.
So, the Zionazis are even worse than Hitler and the entire Third Reich when it comes to genocide. And they cemented their reputation into the annals of world history in just 15 blood-soaked months.
At least the Hitlerian Nazis tried to hide their crimes; the Netanyahu Nazis bragged about theirs openly and in plain sight on social media for the duration.
But they save the turtles
And still they pontificate about “justice” and compassion as they strive hard to believe they’re still the “good guys”.
As Palestinian poet Mostafa Ibrahim says in his poem “Telk Qadeya” (That’s a cause): “They save turtles; they kill human animals. That’s a cause (and this is not).”
Hundreds of millions of “White angels” in Europe, America, Australia, Israel, South Africa and Ukraine continued to believe throughout the entire passage of Gaza extermination that they’re saving the planet and doing good, Mostafa observes.
Just as they whitewashed Srebrenica from their memories, so now they are too preparing to forget Gaza’s misery and to save turtles in the Red Sea instead. That is a cause; Gaza is not.
And Gaza seems doomed to remain, like the rest of the blighted region of Sham, a pawn on an international chessboard.
As Al-Akhbar notes Monday, Gazans are experiencing contradictory emotions as they stumble through the ruins of their lives, their dreams, their memories, their homes. Everyone is of course relieved the genocide has paused.
But there is little space for joy. The crushing press of detritus that bobs and dances in genocide’s wake leaves no room for celebration; death remains a close and constant companion.
No war planes, killer drones or assassination quadcopters are weaving the skies and ground below with death – for now. But the cloying smell of putrefaction is everywhere. It assails the nostrils and makes itself at home in the back of throats that are hoarse from weeping, pleading and just gasping desperately for life, for just another day, desperately hoping someone was coming to help.
But the “international community” was away saving turtles.
Home is where the heart is
Palestinians vacating their bombed-out tent camps are horrified, speechless, at what they see of their old neighbourhoods – Rafah, Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Saftawi, Al-Fallujah, Bir al-Naja, Gaza City – are just piles of crushed and tumbled concrete. Most have tried to eke out a precarious existence for over a year in the camps, not knowing what is happening beyond the camp perimeter.
Now, full horror of what they have endured is starting to dawn on horrified faces.
Al-Akhbar reports not one home remains standing in the entire northern Gaza; tens of thousands of home are just crumpled rubble.
“It took me two hours to find the street where my house used to be,” Umm Muhammad Matar says, sitting on the remains of her home.
“Since the beginning of the war, they haven’t left us alone for a single month,” she tells Al-Akhbar.
“Their last invasion was revenge on us because we stood firm, were patient, and defied them. My house and all the houses of the people were gone, and everyone became homeless. But we stayed alive, and the living will be rebuilt. This land is precious, and it is mixed with the blood of our martyred sons. We will hold on to it and love it even more.”
In the Beit Lahia project, the occupation army turned the crowded neighborhood into a concrete junkyard, with nothing to see on the horizon but pulverised ruins that crush the soul.
Planned, systematic destruction
Abu Amjad, who Al-Akhbar met while he was busy cleaning one of the rooms in the house that was spared destruction, said, “The destruction is beyond our capacity, uncle,” adding, “We are not talking about just destroying a house or even several houses, nor about destroying a residential block and damaging other houses. What happened was systematic destruction, according to a plan to turn the neighborhood and all the neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip into areas unfit for human habitation.
“What is more, the occupation wants the displaced to be unable to reclaim even one room in their homes, and even to not find a place to set up a tent, because removing this rubble requires the effort and expertise of major countries and a political decision.”
The UN estimated in December 69% of all buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed. If Gaza remains under the Zionazi siege, it will take more than 350 years to clear it, ABC News reports.
More than 630 trucks of humanitarian aid have entered the Gaza Strip, following the ceasefire deal. Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said that at least 300 of the trucks were sent directly to the north.
When “late” is “never”
“There is no time to lose,” Fletcher wrote, rather unnecessarily. It’s a truism Joe Biden’s administration should have realised 15 months ago.
Hospital wards across Gaza are dark and empty. If they had supplies, if the Lawnmowers hadn’t killed doctors, nurses, ambulance and paramedics with all the precision needed to destroy Gaza’s entire health infrastructure, they would still not function because there’s no fuel. Most have had none for many months.
Getting water, food and medical supplies to children in Gaza is the first priority for many aid organisations.
Nearly all 1.1 million children in Gaza – about half of the population – are in urgent need of attention, with many surviving on just one meal a day after 15 months of war.
Inger Ashing, chief executive officer for Save the Children International, said the ceasefire had to be permanent; a pause in fighting was not enough to combat hunger and disease “as the shadow of famine looms.”
“The pause must be permanent, and efforts urgently ramped up to end the siege and vastly increase the entry of aid,” Ashing said, AP/Reuters reporthttps://www.aap.com.au/news/humanitarian-aid-priority-as-gaza-ceasefire-welcomed/.
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said there was a sense of relief but Palestinians didn’t trust Israel’s word.
“Israel needs to be held accountable by the international community … international law must apply,” he said.
Searching for lost loved ones
“Gaza is an apocalypse zone, the UN estimates it will take 15 years to clear the rubble.
“The fact that the world has allowed it to go on for this long is shameful and history will judge those leaders very poorly.”
Al-Akhbar says the loss of homes is not the biggest pain Gazans are dealing with Monday. Tens of thousands of displaced people have returned to search for loved ones, or for their remains and bodies.
Tariq Abu al-Tarabish, who lost all his family members, could not find anything to say, as he surveyed the desolate remains of what was once home in Beit Lahia.
“Whose house will it be anyway? All of its people are gone.”
His entire family refused to leave Beit Lahia and were killed in an airstrike that targeted their home. No ambulance was able to reach them. The grieving young man added: “Right now, their pure bodies are under the roof of the house. All the houses in the north are graves for their people. Those who refused to leave and be displaced were all killed.”