Historic Injustice: The Shameful Abdication of Moral Responsibility
Part 1
It is not complicated. It is an illegal military occupation enacting genocide, continuing a 75 year history of violence, displacement and land theft. Aid and abetted by western powers and their respective media outlets.
A zionist state created on top of an existing population. Inflicting brutality, oppression, deliberate murder and expulsion of its indigenous people which is what Israel has done and continues to do to today is by definition Terrorism. Lets start there and reclaim the term that has long since been hijacked from the English language, indoctrination and weaponized to serve Israel’s one true cause. Complete genocide and eradication of the Palestinian people. Denote, genocide is all about intent. A prime objective of forced displacement in order to annex, seize, and absorb the occupied land of Palestinians in its entirety into the illegal state of Israel. Make no mistake, that is the thinly veiled truth. Everything else is static noise designed to divert your gaze, manipulate and confuse.
History did not begin with October 7th. That is the reality, as hard as they try to convince you otherwise. Every single day since has been a breach of international law and every single day prior to October 7th the Israeli government has breached international law. They occupied Palestinian land in contravention of international law. They have blockaded Palestinian territory in contravention of International law, they have built and enlarged settlements in contravention of International law. Enforced an apartheid system that strips Palestinians of the most basic civic and human rights not to mention dignity. They targeted and killed civilians on a mass scale for decades. It is the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st centuries and still ongoing. The people of Gaza are the direct children or grandchildren of the people that were expressed from the occupied land of Palestine called “Israel” or what is not Israel.
One of the countless examples of unalloyed evil perpetrated by the illegal state of Israel took place on 27 September 2008. At 11:25 a.m. Israel began carpet bombing Gaza. The first day of a 21 day slaughter where they dropped 100 tons of bombs. For point of reference, one ton bomb will decimate an entire city block. 800,000 children lived in Gaza at the time. 11:25 am is the exact time when the morning school shift and the afternoon school shift change. So, all the children were on the streets at that time. That was the very moment Israel decided to begin a massacre that had absolutely no justification. If that is not terrorism then what is?
Israel calls it “mowing the lawn” by which they mean the mass murder of Palestinian civilians and children. Another example, was when Israel killed 20,000 Lebanese civilians in 1982 using illegal weapons like cluster bombs in war that had no justification. Similar to the phosphorus launched on the Palestine civilians today and in the past. So on and so forth to paint a wider picture.
“The right of Israel to defend itself” is a brazen statement, and an absurd notion. One that they keep repeating over and over again till we are too numb to question it. For the sake of argument, defend itself against whom? one might ask.. Against the people occupied by Israel itself. Against people who have been blockaded for 16 years in a concentration camp, the world’s largest open air prison. Refugees under a starvation siege. Israel can’t be both the oppressor and the victim in the same breath, it is simply nonsensical.
The right for Palestinians to resist occupation even by armed forces is not only recognised but specifically endorsed in accordance with international humanitarian law. Consistent with the Geneva Conventions of 1949. As a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere, this is the legal fact. So where is this so-called legal right of an occupation to defend against the resistance, one that is legally approved by international law? Where is the right to defend occupation?? How do marauding American forces and Israeli occupiers have the right to defend themselves against legal resistance? Amongst a sea of verbal postmortem, this surely must be contested.
Hamas is an islamic organisation. It was originally encouraged, supported and funded by Israel as a counterweight to the secular Palestine liberation organisation. Which Israel wanted to dismantle from the inside out by dividing the people of Palestine.
The occupation is 75 years old, Hamas is 33 years old. Long before Hamas came into being Palestinians were occupied by a settler colony whose existence is built on the extermination of Palestinians. These are facts the American administration and its allies keep suppressing, purposefully ignoring from the narrative as a means to justify their actions. Simultaneously, and in an appalling manner Palestinians are constantly asked to present their moral credentials.
“If we struggle in military form we are described as terrorists. If we struggle in a nonviolent way we are described as violent. If we even resist with words we are described as provocators. If you support Palestinians and you are a foreigner they describe you as an anti-semite. If you are a Jewish person, and there are many of those who support the Palestinian cause, they call them self hating Jews.This should end it makes no sense” – Mustafa Barghouti; Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council
The moment you label a resistance against occupation “terrorism” and say occupiers have a right to defend their occupation against resistance you are declaring yourself to be lawless. In complete contradiction to international law. The law that the super powers claim to be supreme in the world. Israel is an outlaw state and the United States is an outlaw country. The U.S. is consistent in its contempt for international law. The U.S. upholds the right of those who are breaking the law to defend themselves against those who are following and enforcing the law. In accordance to western laws this is a crime.The American investment in genocide is unretractable.
There have been 72 interventions by the United States since 1945. They have directly or indirectly overthrown governments, manipulated elections and attacked popular movements. ”War on terror” is just another brand name to serve as a justification for systematic aggression, seldom reported in the west as a war of terror.
“There is no repentance, there is no contrition, there is no moral improvement. The same people who whipped out the native Americans, are the same people who regard africans as subhumans. The same people who murdered hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in a matter of seconds in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are the very same people who dropped Napalm on civilian villages in Vietnam on and on and nothing exposes this more than their stance on Palestine.” – Shahid Bolsen; geopolitical analyst.
While we are dealing out humanitarian atrocities on a grand scale. One historic injustice pertinent to the issue on hand is the signing of the Balfour declaration on 2 November 1917, Great Britain’s shameful abdication of moral responsibility. A historical promise by Britain to hand over Palestinian land that they did not own. Laying the foundation for the settler colonial state of Israel. Its unceremonious contribution unleashed the brutal, bloodthirsty, racist, lying and land-thieving, ethnocratic ethnostate of Israel.
The holocaust happened in Europe but somehow they blame the Muslims for being anti-semetic.The Jewish communities that lived in the Middle East including Palestine under Ottoman rule were never killed or under threat. In fact lived in complete harmony with their Muslim and Christian counterparts. Those jews living in Palestine made around 2% of the population at the time and held palestinian citizenships, they were proud to be Palestinians. Under British rule, European jews grouped together in Palestine raising the population to 27.8%. Somehow and over time misdirected blame, venom and aggression got aimed at the very people who welcomed them with open arms when no one else wanted them.
All what the state of Israel stands for is in total contradiction and violation of International Humanitarian Law and of Jewish teachings. Killing and stealing, occupying another’s land, oppression of people is forbidden according to Judisim. The concept of building a sovereign homeland for jews is in contrast of jewish beliefs. According to Judaism, jewish people are in exile and forbidden to end their exile by any physical means. So let’s take religion out of the mix once and for all. To conflate Judaism and Jewishness with Zionism is a falsity. Judaism and Zionism are not synonymous nor are they mutually exclusive. To imperialists nothing is sacred, religion is merely a tool of imperialism. Religion here is used for evil but not the source of evil. When you mix religion and an evil agenda it becomes combustible.
Around 3 million Palestinians living in the west bank and around 2.3 million in the Gaza Strip prior to the atrocity we are currently witnessing. In both those areas Palestinians can not vote in the state that rules their lives. Israel rules over them under a military occupation that controls every aspect of their lives. Banning them access to their land, forcibly evicting them from their homes. Telling them when and where they can travel and so on. A further 1.6 million Palestinians live in what is widely known as Israel.
Palestinians living in Israeli controlled territory live under a system of Apartheid according to U.N. experts and both Israeli and international human rights organisations. Meaning they live under a system that discriminates against them just because they were born Palestinians. The people forcibly evicted from this land to make way for Israel’s existence.
“As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions
of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.” – former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak 2010
Ehud Barak’s sentiment was that a Zionist project of a state of Jewish supremacy that rules all of the land between the river and the sea, can never be a democracy. Why you might ask? Because if in the apartheid state that Israel has created, those 7 million Palestinians living under Israeli rule got equal rights and votes, well the Israel’s Jewish supremacist system will be democratically ended.
Hence why Israel will not allow banished Palestinians from around the world their legal right to return to their homeland. A further violation of the solid foundation of international law. Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states,”Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the chant heard around the world is not an attack on Jews. It’s an attack on apartheid. A demand for equality to give Palestinians their basic human rights.
Palestine is food-insecure, last report from the World Food Bank stated less than 5 days of food rations are left when you read this they will have none. They have no electricity, no internet, no gas, no fuel, no running water and when they had running water in Gaza 97% was undrinkable.
Over 10,000 civilians have been killed in the past weeks alone and the numbers are climbing, 70% of whom are women and children. On 1 November 2023, Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan a Paediatric Intensive Care Doctor for Doctors Without Borders had a lot to say: “Israel has launched an avalanche of human suffering of unprecedented proportions. The entire hospital healthcare system collapsed over a week ago. Israel targeted healthcare facilities, ambulances, churches, mosques, schools, and densely populated refugee camps. Wiping out entire multi-generation, extended families in a second.. At least 1000 families in the Gaza Strip have at least two members of their family killed in the last three weeks. There are almost 4,000 children who have been killed and identified, excluding almost a 1000 children whose bodies are still trapped under the rubble. Some of them may be alive for long periods where they ultimately die under the rubble. I think it’s important that I paint a picture, particularly when I’m following a news narrative that almost dismisses this avalanche of suffering that is unprecedented in modern times.”
‘There is an acronym that is unique to the Gaza Strip, WCNSF: Wounded child no surviving family’. – Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan; Paediatric Intensive Care Doctor for Doctors Without Borders
Coined in the last three weeks. She further tells the story of a little girl who came in wounded and she had a piece of paper in her pocket that she handed to a doctor. It had 27 names on it, and said ‘ these are the members of my family that were with me in my home. Please look for them. Look for them under the rubble. Don’t look for this one and she points to the name of her sister. I know she is already dead.’ This is a 10-year old little girl.
Dr Haj-Hassan goes on to say “Wounded child no surviving family should not exist as an acronym. And to follow President Biden as he continues to justify and to warmonger, all I have to say is this has to stop. It’s a collective stain on our collective humanity.”
Israel discriminates against all. 36 journalists have been murdered in the past 4 weeks alone. Families of countless Journalists have been targeted and murdered. A reported 90 UN staff members were murdered. They are killing healthworks, they are killing activists all in an effort to block the truth from coming out and as a collective punishment.
In its 35th day of the Gaza slaughter, Israel has murdered 11,025 Palestinians. 4506 of the children. An additional 2,700 remain trapped under rubble. Destroyed 270,00 Palestinian homes and intentionally displaced 1.6 out of 2.2 million people, 70% rendered homeless. Meanwhile Palestinian detainees face torture and degredation amid spike in arbitary arrests. This is not a two sided aggression it is an occupation and Israeli is the last colonial power that we know of in our time and age.
To Be Continued…
