Holocaust Envelops Palestinians: Through Repression, Institutionalized Discrimination, Murder And Systematic Abuse
16 February 2018By Tariq A. Al-Maeena
It has been more than 50 years since the unlawful Israeli occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. These are Palestinian lands the Israelis control
through repression, institutionalized discrimination, murder and systematic
abuse of the Palestinian population's rights.
Human rights organizations have periodically highlighted major violations of
international human rights laws and humanitarian laws that illustrate the
occupation: unlawful killings; forced displacement; abusive detention; the
closure of the Gaza Strip and other unjustified restrictions on movement; and
the development of settlements, along with the accompanying discriminatory
policies that disadvantage Palestinians.
Israel always explains away its abusive practices in the name of security.
"Whether it's a child imprisoned by a military court or shot unjustifiably, or
a house demolished for lack of an elusive permit, or checkpoints where only
settlers are allowed to pass, few Palestinians have escaped serious rights
abuses during this 50-year occupation," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East
director at Human Rights Watch. "Israel today maintains an entrenched system
of institutionalized discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied
territory - repression that extends far beyond any security rationale."
The Israelis have killed more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians in the last
three Gaza conflicts alone. Mind you, these were civilians whose only crime
was living peacefully on their land. In the West Bank, the Israelis routinely
use "excessive force in policing situations, killing or grievously wounding
thousands of demonstrators, rock-throwers, suspected assailants, and others
with live ammunition when lesser means could have averted a threat or
maintained order." When called to investigate what amounts to crimes against
humanity, Israeli officials have failed to hold the abusers accountable, with
rare exceptions.
Since 1967, the Israeli government has been sanctioning the illegal
settlements that have sprouted on Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank,
including East Jerusalem, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In
1967, Israel established two settlements in the West Bank: by 2017, Israel had
established 237 settlements there, housing approximately 580,000 settlers, all
of them illegal by international codes. Israel applies Israeli civil law to
settlers, affording them legal protections, rights, and benefits that are not
extended to Palestinians living in the same territory who are subjected to
Israeli military law. "Israel provides settlers with infrastructure, services
and subsidies that it denies to Palestinians, creating and sustaining a
separate and unequal system of law, rules and services."
Over the years, Israeli authorities have illegally expropriated thousands of
acres of Palestinian land for settlements. Discriminatory burdens, including
making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in
East Jerusalem and in the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli
control (Area C), have effectively forced Palestinians to leave their homes or
to build at the risk of seeing their "unauthorized" structures bulldozed. For
decades, Israeli authorities have demolished homes on the grounds that they
lacked permits, even though the law of occupation prohibits destruction of
property except for military necessity, or punitively as collective punishment
against families of Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis.
Israel has also arbitrarily prevented hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
from living in and traveling from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has also
revoked the residency of over 130,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and 14,565
in East Jerusalem since 1967, largely on the basis that they have been away
too long.
In perhaps the most glaring example of crimes against humanity, for the past
25 years, Israel has tightened restrictions on the movement of people and
goods to and from the Gaza Strip in ways that far exceed any conceivable
requirement of Israeli security. These restrictions affect nearly every aspect
of everyday life, separating families, restricting access to medical care and
educational and economic opportunities, and perpetuating unemployment and
poverty.
Israeli authorities have imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
since 1967, the majority after trials in military courts, where the verdict is
known before the trial begins, and conviction is the order of the day.
Moreover, hundreds every year have been placed in administrative detention
based on trumped up or undisclosed evidence without charge or trial. Some have
been detained or imprisoned for engaging in nonviolent resistance to the
Israeli appetite for illegal encroachment. Israel also jails West Bank and
Gaza Palestinian detainees inside Israel, creating near impossible
restrictions on family visits and violating international law requiring that
they be held within the occupied territory. Many detainees, including
children, face harsh conditions and mistreatment.
In recent times, Palestinian children, some not more than 10 years old, have
become the tragic target on a daily basis of armed Israeli settlers who have
shown no remorse in killing children in cold blood. It is said that this
philosophy of targeting defenseless Palestinian women and children is to break
the will of the resistance to their occupation.
Human rights organizations have been pressing governments to "use their
leverage to press Israel to end the generalized travel ban on Palestinians
from Gaza and permit the free movement of people and goods to and from Gaza,
subject to individualized security screenings and physical inspection." These
apartheid and racist policies are reminiscent of what the Nazis exercised in
the last century.
In a region awash with tensions, with Arabs killing Arabs and Muslims turning
on Muslims, Palestine has unfortunately become a victim.
— The author can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
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