Will the IAEA act?

WAR crimes by the Zionists predate the founding of Israel. Names such as Deir Yassin, during the 1948-49 fighting, and Sabra-Chatila, Jenin and Qana I and II, after Israel came into being, have gone into in history as symbols of the brutality perpetrated on the Palestinian people. Against this background, one shouldn’t be surprised if Arab governments have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that in Gaza the Israeli Defence Forces used depleted uranium on civilian targets. Western news agencies informing us of the Arab move were quick to reassure the world that the depleted uranium wasn’t something very dangerous and that some industrial processes used chemicals which were far more deadly than DU. Logically, then, one must also write off such war crimes as the use of tungsten powder and phosphorus which the Israeli artillery poured on the Gaza strip virtually non-stop for three weeks to massacre more than 1,300 people, 40 per cent of them women and children.Will the IAEA act? Its initial reaction was that the nuclear watchdog body would investigate the matter “to the extent of our ability”. That ability stands voids, for if the IAEA had teeth it should have succeeded in forcing Israel to open its nuclear installations to inspections, and Mohammad ElBaradei would have something more concrete to show than the Nobel peace prize conferred on him by those happy with his non-proliferation efforts that focused on Iran and North Korea. Even less is expected of the UN, for even though Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was heartbroken by what he saw in Gaza he advertised his sense of justice when he blamed both Israel and Hamas for the excessive use of force. That should make clear what chance we have of the world body setting up a war crimes tribunal for trying Israeli criminals.Israel seems to enjoy a carte blanche from America and possibly even the European Union. While isolated groups and human rights bodies do manage to expose Israeli excesses, the world got to know how governments on both sides of the Atlantic kowtow to Israel when the Israeli prime minister went public with how he humiliated the president and the secretary of state of the sole superpower. The moral of the story: given the powerlessness of the Arab Islamic world Israel will hold on to the occupied territories and continue its war on the Palestinian people with cold-bloodedness.