Condemning Israel's Racist Occupation:
"Palestine Is Still the Issue"
17 March 2012
By Stephen Lendman
Ongoing nearly 45 years and counting. Crimes of war,
against humanity, and unspeakable atrocities define
it. Growing condemnation hastens ending it.
Israeli control represents the longest military
occupation in modern times. Palestinians are afforded
no rights. Daily terror defines their lives. Racist
policies persecute them.
It exceeds the worst of South African apartheid. It's
gone on longer than anyone should tolerate. Malcolm X
once asked: "What do you call a Black man with a PhD?
Nigger."
Jonathan Scott used Malcolm's quote in his article
titled, "The Niggerization of Palestine," saying:
Major media and political truth and full disclosure of
Israel's racist practices are excluded from public
discourse.
Edward Said called it "America's Last Taboo" in an
article he wrote shortly before his death. It was also
a chapter headling in John Pilger's book titled,
"Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire."
Said blamed the power of Zionism to inflict
unspeakable abuses on an entire people and get away
with it for so long. Pilger referred to a "five and a
half decade cover-up of Israel's oppression of the
Palestinians."
With US political and financial backing, they've
terrorized Palestinians with impunity. When victims
dare defend themselves, they're called terrorists.
Scoundrel media reports regurgitate the lie.
Human rights and other organizations, as well as
growing numbers of Palestinian supporters worldwide
speak freely. At a mid-March Geneva UN Human Rights
Council conference, about 300 international
organizations called on Israel to lift repressive
restrictions on Palestinians' free movement and other
discriminatory practices.
Observatory regional director Amani al-Sinwar
discussed grave Israeli human rights abuses, including
unjustifiable restrictions controlling their lives.
Separately, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Navanethem (Navi) Pillay said her visit to Occupied
Palestine "brought (her) face to face with many
large-scale human rights violations stemming from
Israel's occupation...."
Among others, she mentioned illegal Palestinian
transfers from their home areas, settlement
expansions, settler violence, excessive Israeli
security force abuses, and Gaza's suffocating siege.
Last summer, Haaretz writer Yitzhak Laor headlined his
article, "Siege of Gaza has become a moral blockade of
Israel." He called it "an international symbol of
cruelty (and) further proof of the stupidly of our
leaders."
Israel has become the symbol of racist crimes. "We are
no longer the embodiment of progress, as we were
trumpeted as being for a long time, but the exact
opposite."
A new UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD) report criticizes Israel harshly
for racially discriminating against Palestinians and
Arab citizens in virtually all aspects of their lives.
On March 9, its published findings called superiority
based on racial differentiation illegal,
scientifically wrong, morally reprehensible, socially
unjust and dangerous.
Israeli law includes no prohibition against
discrimination. CERD listed numerous abuses,
including:
•segregated Israeli communities;
•separate educational, health, and other systems;
•different local government practices for Jewish and
Arab communities;
•discrimination against Ethiopian Jews;
•denying Bedouin Arab citizens access to their land
and property;
•discriminatory Israeli laws, including denying family
reunifications;
•home demolitions, forced displacements, and land
seizures; and
•much more, denying Israeli Arabs and Palestinians
equal rights as Jews.
CERD refutes Israel's claim that the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination doesn't apply to Gaza, the West Bank,
and Golan.
Under military occupation, they're governed by an
entirely different legal system than Israel.
Institutionalized racism defines it. Justice is
systematically denied. The committee referred to "the
hermetic character of this segregation."
While settlements expand on stolen Palestinian land,
Palestinians are denied basic rights, especially
besieged Gazans. It urged immediately ending this
illegal blockade. It condemned Israel's practice of
arresting, brutalizing and imprisoning children.
It denounced its administrative detention practice
without charge, and indefinitely extending it
repeatedly for months or years.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)
presented CERD with an alternative report. It stressed
international legal obligations, including provisions
of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination.
Israeli refuses to comply. It spurns all international
laws with impunity. PCHR cites numerous abuses,
including discriminatory implementation of judicial
rights. Under military occupation, Palestinians are
denied equal treatment and legal protections. Racist
discrimination is systemic and extreme.
It's official state policy. Israel's High Court
enforces it. Israel's democracy is bogus and illusory.
Even most Jews are cheated. Israel is one of the most
unequal Western countries in terms of wealth and
available social benefits.
Of course, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs suffer most.
They're unwanted, discriminated against, persecuted,
at times killed, and suffer horrifically out of sight
and mind because world leaders don't care enough to
help.
Daily reports detail Israeli abuses. Palestinian
activists are imprisoned lawlessly, tortured, and
detained indefinitely. Nonviolent protesters are
attacked with tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades,
and at times live fire.
Pre-dawn incursions terrorize Palestinian communities
regularly. Soldiers target nonviolent men, women and
children. They're arrested, brutalized and detained.
Gaza's bombed days on end. Hamas political leader
Khaled Meshaal accused Israel of turning Gaza into a
test laboratory for new weapons, including illegal
ones.
He also said fabricated excuses are used to launch
preemptive attacks. Civilians are targeted like
resistance fighters. On Friday, Netanyahu warned
Gazans to stop retaliatory strikes or face expanded
IDF operations.
"We will strike at whoever intends to harm our
citizens," he said.
Ultranationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
said:
"As long as Hamas is in control of the Gaza Strip,
there is no chance that we will agree to a safe
passage, or unsafe passage, or elevated passage, or
underground passage or any passage whatsoever. The
Palestinians have condemned themselves to a separation
right now that looks like it will continue for
generations."
On Thursday, Hamas political leader Mahmoud Zahar
spoke for others, saying resistance is strong, solid,
ongoing, and determined to continue defending
Palestine until liberation's achieved.
He also thanked Iran for its "strong
support....without expecting anything in return."
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbhar Salehi said Tehran
fully supports their liberating struggle.
He added that "the Islamic awakening and the
developments in the Middle East and northern Africa
are boosting the resistance in Palestine, and
weakening the Zionist occupation."
He strongly denounced Israel's aggression, and said
supporting Palestinians and their resistance is
essential to assure Palestine one day is liberated.
In 1977, John Pilger titled his documentary "Palestine
Is Still the Issue." Thirty-five years later it still
is. It's one of the world's great injustices. What
changed then and continued is that Palestinians fought
back.
Without armies, tanks or planes, they're committed to
end Israel's ruthless occupation with or without
outside help. Pilger's film was about people
struggling to be free. It's the oldest human struggle.
Those in it are societies' most courageous.
Palestinians are some of the best and most
long-suffering. They deserve our support and then
some!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog
site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to
cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on
the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive
Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and
Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are
archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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