Spiral of violence must be broken

The military offensive of the Israelis against the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza strip has lasted for four days. More than 350 people have already been killed. During this time four Israelis were the victims of Palestinian rocket attacks. An end to the fighting is not in sight. The media report that the Israeli leaders have rejected a truce until there is no more danger of rocket attacks from the Gaza strip. The General Secretary of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), Tilman Zülch made a statement:

"It is with shock and sorrow that we have learnt of the consequences of the Israeli intervention in the Gaza strip. The number of victims, among them many civilians, is already above 350. The threatening invasion of Israeli troops will call for further terrible deaths. The humanitarian and economic blockade of the Gaza strip by Israel, which affects 1.5 million people, half of whom are children and young people, was an irresponsible and devastating step by the Israeli government against the Palestinian civilian population.

The military offensive of Israel follows the many acts of terror of the totalitarian Hamas movement after the clearing of the Jewish settlements in this region.

However the spiral of violence must be broken. It is not only the Palestinians who have become refugees since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Israel itself was founded by refugees, survivors of the Holocaust. The Jewish minorities fleeing from the Arab world were taken in there.

Israel remains vulnerable, surrounded by 20 authoritarian states, which are for the most part highly armed with some 300 million inhabitants. In the Arabian area minorities like the Assyrian Chaldean Christians, Yezidi and Kurds in North Iraq, black Africans in South Sudan, the Nuba mountains and Darfur have been victims of genocide. Other ethnic and religious minorities must defend themselves against discrimination, suppression or persecution.

Peace in the "Holy Land”, in Israel and Palestine, the withdrawal of the Israeli troops and mutual recognition will only be possible with a determined peace offensive of the west, the USA and Europe. For this reason military guarantees of safety by the NATO, the USA and the UN are indispensable. But this also involves the demilitarisation of a future state of Palestine. Germany is under a particular obligation to prevent the destruction of Israel. Every German government must speak up in favour of Israel’s being taken into the European Union if an Israeli government should one day express this wish.