Forty Years Later
Disu Kamor
 For forty years now, i.e. since 1967, the state of Israel has perpetrated some of the worst crimes against humanity post-WWII, in the sham doctrines of ‘choseness and exceptionalism’. The Zionists that came to Palestine in 1948, most of whom were secular, envisioned a powerful Jewish nation in revival of the Jewish memories of Davidic splendor drawing heavily from the empathy created by the tragedy of the 2nd World War where close to 60 million people perished. These doctrines, in arrogant tyranny, were used to displace nearly 800,000 Palestinians to allow for the creation of “Der Judenstaat”, The Jew’s State: a state that is characterized by settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and racist discrimination. Around 600,000 of the expelled native Palestinians, according to internal documents of the Israeli Defense Force, were expelled forcibly from their homes to create this state. At the time, these native Palestinians, most of whose families had been living on the land for centuries, constituted two-thirds of the population and owned 90% of the land. According to historian Ilan Pappe; "In a matter of seven months, five hundred and thirty one villages were destroyed and eleven urban neighborhoods emptied. The mass expulsion was accompanied by massacres, rape and the imprisonment of men in labour camps for periods of over a year." In an address to the General Staff in May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, founding PM of Israel set out what had to be done: "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
The fact that the West Bank was home to the major biblical sites—the old city of Jerusalem, the tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron , Rachel's tomb in Bethlehem —added fervours to the Zionists’ search for the divine actualization of the dream of a land for the Chosen. Israel’s present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank – biblical Judea and Samaria – so Israel will become Greater Israel, and also that the territory will be dismembered to prevent eventual establishment of a Palestinian state over these lands. This is the reason why international peace initiative designed to put an end to the conflict, in the words of the Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, "passes through three stages (in Tel Aviv): denial, misrepresentation, liquidation.” Also, the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality. Although a minority in Israel , they are committed, aggressive, and influential. Because of deep religious conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood on any part of the West Bank .
Throughout its years of occupation and use of lethal violence, Israel continues to stand in violation of dozens of international laws and scores of UN resolutions. And the international community bears much of the responsibility for those violations and abuses;
* For 40 years Israel has constructed illegal settlements on expropriated Palestinian land. For 40 years Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians, demolished over 12,000 Palestinian homes, arrested more than 650,000 Palestinians, and destroyed more than a million Palestinian olive trees. The Occupation has created serious poverty for the Palestinians, as well as severe human rights violations.
* Since 2002 the Apartheid Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory aims to encircle the Palestinian population, squeezing Palestinians into truncated Bantustans and cementing Israeli expansionism. The Wall divides farmers from their land, students from their schools, workers from their jobs, and people from their communities. Despite the International Court of Justice ruling it illegal, the Wall now encircles Palestinian towns and cities in the most massive land-grab in 40 years.
* The spiritual, cultural and economic links between Bethlehem and Jerusalem , located just a few kilometers away, are nearly severed due to the construction of Israeli settlements around the city. Israel has erected physical barriers, restricted travel on roads to Israelis only, and has intensified its policy of restricting the movement of Palestinian civilians. This policy of occupation and settlement has finally been seen by the Israelis themselves for the folly that it was. At no point has Israel 's occupation or dispossession of Palestinians enhanced security. For all the innocent Palestinians who suffered physically, emotionally, financially, or otherwise, while Israel learned this lesson, this is cold comfort.
* Despite international regulations requiring Israel to ensure access to Christian and Muslim holy places that are under its control, for over 10 years, Christians in Palestine have been prevented from freely entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for worship, and during Christmas, many in Bethlehem are prevented from travelling to Jerusalem. This policy denies the Palestinian people their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination, the right to return and the right to establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian State with its capital in Jerusalem .
* For 40 years of occupation Israel has continued to deny Palestinians in the occupied territories their internationally guaranteed human rights to food, water, education, livelihood, and health care; imposes a system of checkpoints, closures, military fences, sieges and curfews that deny Palestinians freedom of movement within and between their own communities; and, again in violation of the Geneva Conventions, Israel imposes collective punishments on the entire Palestinian population.
* In December 1948, Resolution 194 was passed by the UN confirming the refugees’ legal right to return to their homes and land, two years later Israel 's response was to legalize the criminal expropriation of Palestinian property by passing the Absentee Property Law providing for the confiscation of the property and land left behind by fleeing Palestinians, the so-called "absentees". The United Nations asserted the refugees' right to return home in 1948, but Israel has refused to allow this. Meanwhile the refugee population has grown to over four million, one of the largest in the world, many of whom live in camps waiting for international law to be upheld.
Gaza currently faces another deadly Israeli military onslaught to stop the firing of Kassam rockets by Palestinian resistance fighters into Israel spoiling a ‘calm period’ heralded by the 2006 ceasefire that saw more than 650 Palestinian killed in several Israeli targeted assassinations and incursions. This period was probably described as a calm period because there was no suicide bombing in Israel throughout the period! Speaking in the same tone as David Ben-Gurion did exactly 59 years ago, the Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday ("Eliyahu Advocates Carpet Bombing Gaza" The Jerusalem Post, 30 May, 2007) that Israel's former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu- one of the most senior theocrats in the Jewish State ruled- in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert citing biblical authority-that there was "absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings". The letter was published in a weekly journal distributed in synagogues throughout Israel . The report further states: "According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza , the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets." This, it should be remembered, was the same man that claimed that the Asian victims of the tsunami were suffering divine retribution for supporting disengagement from Gaza by PM Ariel Sharon in 2005. This type of open and genocidal hatred expressed against the Palestinian people and call for collective punishment continue to drive most of the policies of the Zionist state in the conflict. This call is neither strange nor unexpected. What is strange is the deafening silence of world leaders and well-oiled media machines that are adjudicating in the conflict. The same backers that normally express outrage whenever any scholar or critic condemn Israeli policies in the occupied territories, its internal racist policies and its political ideology. Would we have seen similar silence if an Islamic scholar or any religious figure in the Middle East had so brazenly called for the destruction of the whole Jewish people living in Israel for the actions of the Zionist government or the terrorist actions of the militant idealists that were settled on expropriated lands? Of course we know how most leaders of the developed world literally queued up to condemn in most unequivocal terms the alleged statements of President Ahmedinejad calling for the elimination of Israel. It remains to be seen if these leaders will demand that Olmert publicly repudiate the letter he received.
Britain bears a particular responsibility for the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. From 1917 to 1948 Britain controlled Palestine and it gave out the land it did not own to people that were not living there while the land was under its mandate. The British and US governments, along with many EU countries, are today involved in a close military, economic and political relationship with Israel; helping to perpetuate the status quo and failing to stand up for the rights of the Palestinian people that would enable them meet their aspirations of peace, dignity, independence, and sovereignty. The award winning writer, reporter and documentarist, John Pilger, describes in his latest powerful article for the British New Statesman, how Gaza in Palestine has come to symbolize the imposition of great power on the powerless, in the Middle East and all over the world, and how a vocabulary of double standard is employed to justify this epic tragedy.
We consistently read and hear that Hamas'- in particular- refusal to recognize the state of Israel and 'renounce terrorism' are blockage to getting onto the path to the roadmap to final settlement as proposed by the Quartet. This is the singular lame excuse that has been overused by the Zionists and their supporters to de-legitimize the struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people leading to imposition of stangulating santions and boycott on the people, its democratically elected government and institutions. The renewed ultimatum given to the Palestinian resistance fighters to recognize Israel's right to exist flies in the face of elementary democratic values regarding human equality and human rights. Has anyone ever asked the Catholics of Ireland to recognize the right of Ulster, or Northern Ireland, to exist as a Protestant State? Or has the First Nation, the aboriginal people of Canada, ever been asked, as a precondition to any political engagement or final status discussions, to first recognize the legitimacy of the Government of Canada or the right of the state of Canada to exist, which they vehemently reject? The First Nations say repeatedly that they are the ongoing victims of colonialism, and genocide. Despite this situation, representatives of First Nations negotiate as de facto parties to contract, and they sign treaties, and then they demand that the treaties be performed in good faith. Due largely to media bias, most of these facts are readily suppressed in the West and only a few EU and American citizens are aware of the scofflaw conducts of their governments. The media is generally playing ongoing crucial roles in misrepresenting the victims as aggressors. What we sometimes read in the Western papers today can only be likened to calling upon the "terrorist" ANC leadership to "control their own people" or stop them from resisting apartheid. Thank God the media acted differently then which aided the dismantling of the terrible policy and political ideology of apartheid. I call on these commentators to look up the cuttings of the apartheid era and remember when men were not without honour.
Disu Kamor
Director of Media & Communications
Muslim Public Affairs Centre, MPAC, Nigeria e-mail: kamor.disu@mpac-ng.org
website: www.mpac-ng.org.
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