Today, Thursday May 31 2012, the Palestinians held an official ceremony for prayers and burial of 91 Palestinians, killed so many years ago, and buried in what Israel calls “Numbers Graveyard”, where each person is buried with a number attached to the body. Skulls and bones were buried today, while mainstream media just shed a blind eye, as it seems the lives of Palestinians killed by Israel are not newsworthy.
Bereaved mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters had to live so many years not knowing whether their loved ones are among the living simply because the state of Israel killed them, dumped their bodies in many of these graveyards, and never even cared about reporting these deaths, some of them are fighters, but a significant number of them are, or were, prisoners of war, injured and killed, tortured to death in brutal Israeli interrogation facilities.
What caught my attention most is the total media blackout, corporate media agencies, Zionist media agencies and their puppets in the United States and elsewhere, just ignoring the whole issue, as if nothing happened.
You do not have to be a supporter of the Palestinian cause to report on this issue, or to be moved by it, it is simply a fact that Israel has these illegal graveyards, where it dumps the bodies of Arab and Palestinian prisoners of war, and does not even care about informing the families or at least the Red Cross, simply because what Israel is doing is not only outrageous, cruel and inhumane, but also illegal and violates international law.
But there is nothing new here, Israel has been violating International Law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention, since its creation in the historic land of Palestine; a creation that meant the massive expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population, taking over their homes and lands, and the total destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns, before settlers danced celebrating the creation of their state, some knowing that massacres took place but still danced and celebrated.
After all, some of them were deluded by Zionist movement’s racist ideology, the same ideology that pushed many Jews to leave Palestine simply because they did not want to be part of these crimes, but Israel is not about Judaism. It is about Zionism — Jews and Arabs managed to live together in Palestine before the Zionist ideology crept in, and I believe they can live together, once again, in peace and harmony.
Today, the Palestinians had to bury 91 persons, skulls and bones placed in coffins, and tried to give them the respect and the burial ceremonies they duly deserve.
Corporate media agencies would not budge, nothing worth reporting here, as for them the lives of Palestinians do not count as lives of human beings, those are the same agencies that couldn’t care less when Israel killed 1419 Palestinians during the war on Gaza, and injured more than 4000, mainly children, elderly, infants and women. Instead, they focused on the Israeli side of the border.
Not that Israeli lives are worth less, but during that war, 13 Israelis were killed, eight of them were soldiers, and five of those eight were killed by friendly fire.
But corporate media chose to ignore Israel’s bombardment of UN facilities where hundreds of residents, children and women, took shelter, chose to ignore the bombardment of hospitals and medical centers, and the deliberate targeting of rescue teams and reporters. They continued to ignore the annihilation of entire families, infants and babies.
Those are the same agencies that made it look like the Palestinians were ‘showering Israel with missiles”, although the resistance was firing homemade metal shells, while Israel was using its planes, tanks and artillery, bombarding the densely populated Gaza Strip with different sorts of missiles and bombs including the illegal white phosphorus shells.
Today, we buried 91 skulls, the bones of 91 persons, and Israel still has more, who knows how many more skeletons it has in its closet. After all, Israel is a state that considers itself above the law, above all international laws, enjoying the protection of the United States that gives it billions of dollars in direct financial aid and hundreds of millions of dollars in military and “civil” aid.
Israel has killed more than 204 prisoners of war, and I am not talking here about the dozens of fighters, including Arab fighters, it killed, but I am talking about prisoners, who should have enjoyed all of those international treaties that protect prisoners of war.
Those prisoners were tortured to death, some of them executed after their arrest, others died due to not receiving the medical treatment they urgently needed.
But today, we buried 91 skulls and bones, and nobody even cares, after all were are talking about Arabs dying here, buried nameless, so corporate media agencies and Israel’s hardcore supporters continue to shed a blind eye over Israel’s crimes, crimes not only against the Palestinian people, but against humanity.
These bereaved Palestinian mothers, fathers and families, just do not matter; do not count for those Zionists, as human beings, but the Palestinians are living in their homeland, fighting for the liberation of their stolen homeland, and just like an eagle, will continue to guard their homeland and sacrifice for it, for its liberation.
The idea of mass graves, where bodies are just dumped, should make you shiver, at least for a second, even if you do not care. But if you are not moved, even a little bit, by this then you need to start searching for your humanity, simply because you’ve lost it, lost your heart, lost your dignity, and lost your soul.
Today we buried 91 skulls, but it is OK, as the bullets, the shells, that do not kill us, make us stronger, and when they kill us, they generate an entire population who will continue to love their land, to protect their land, and to fight for the liberation of their land.
To the bereaved mothers, fathers, and families, I say continue to raise your heads high in the sky, rise above and beyond your pain, like a Phoenix that gets burnt and rises up again, filled with determination, you are the symbols of steadfastness and resistance, you are the parents of the entire nation of Palestine.
