Friday, 16 February 2024

Israel is a problem: Let’s acknowledge it

 

I know the things I’m about to say in this piece will get me branded as an anti-Semite but some things need to be said. We all know what happened on October 7 when Israel was attacked by the forces of Hamas and like the rest of the world at the time, I also stood in full solidarity with Israel in its dark hour. But the response of Israel since then has caused me take a very different view of the Jewish state. As we speak, the Israeli Defence Force acting on orders from Zionist-in-Chief Netanyahu has been on a mission to clean out the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian presence. The mission, ostensibly, is to get rid of Hamas once and for all. But as the world knows by now, Hamas fighters are not the ones really being harmed. The bulk of those killed are innocent civilians and those whose lives are not taken, still have their livelihoods destroyed by the indiscriminate bombing of the IDF.

Yes, you read that correct, indiscriminate. Contrary to the lies put out by Israel, there has been no real effort to limit civilian casualties even as the world continues to stand by. A fact made crystal clear to all when South Africa boldly called out Israel for genocide and took them to the International Court of Justice. Instead of ruling decisively, the UN took the middle ground by trying to appease everyone but they failed to address the most important point by ordering a ceasefire, instead making the case that Israel was possibly guilty of genocide while not saying anything definitive. This ruling while celebrated in many quarters ultimately meant nothing because there is no point in telling Israel to “limit casualties” without telling them to cease hostilities entirely. It is little wonder that the utility of the United Nations is being questioned when it is clear that they are entirely toothless, gutless and spineless displaying cowardice in the face of this affront to humanity by the State of Israel who continues to operate an apartheid regime.



And speaking of Apartheid, I must question why does the “international community” stand by and allow Israel to commit such wanton violation of international law that they would never excuse if it were any other country? All we hear Israel’s apologists talk about is Israel’s right to exist and Israel’s right to defend itself. But what about Palestine’s right to exist? what about Palestine’s right to defend itself? We often hear that it is anti-Semitic” to utter the “from the River to the Sea” chant but somehow when Benjamin Netanyahu literally uses that very phrase to explain his plan for ethnic cleansing of Gaza, no one bats an eyelid.

I hate to break it to the Zionist supporters out there but the purpose of the state is to serve the welfare of all its people and any state that only serves one class of its citizens at the expense of others, does NOT have the right to exist. There is no justification for the creation and perpetuation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land when that state is based on the idea that European descended Jews have a God-given right to the land whereas African descended Jews from Ethiopia and Eritrea are sterilized to prevent them from procreating. A better solution would have been the creation of secular state where Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians could live side by side in peace. Interestingly enough, King Hussein of Jordan had once made that very proposal once only to be rebuffed, perhaps it would have been wiser to listen to the late Arab monarch but in the light of strong Zionist ambition to claim everything “from the River to the Sea”, this was not meant to be.



The Western world, particularly the US continues to bandy the idea about of a two-state solution to solve the problem, but this, like the ICJ ruling is an empty gesture because Israel has made it clear that they have no intention of allowing the Palestinians the dignity of establishing their own sovereign state. In any other scenario, when faced with opposition to their foreign policy goals, the US would often resort to harsher methods of negotiation in order achieve their objective. What has the US done in response to this defiance by Israel? Have they tried anything to get Israel to change course as they would in any other case? Not at all, they gave them full backing to continue assaulting Gaza, a policy that has been supported by the majority of both Democrats and Republicans with those opposing it being branded as either far left (Democrats) or far right (Republicans). I would posit however that it is the anti-war extremists in both parties and are correct while the mainstream alliance of neo-liberal and neo-conservative war hawks that are the problem. And then to compound this, when Houthis from Yemen proceeded to block sea lanes to prevent Israel from being rearmed to commit more genocide, the US and its NATO allies proceeded to bomb Yemen (a poor country with limited resources) in order to strong-arm the Houthis to break the blockade. By doing so, the message of NATO was clear, shipping routes matter more to them than the lives of innocents being slaughtered by the score and all this to protect Israel’s “right” to commit more human rights violations. It should be noted that it would not have taken much for the US to get Israel to change course, all they would have to do is cut both financial and military aid to Israel until they comply. After all, since they were willing to use force to get the Houthis to break the blockade, then they can very well use sanctions to get the Zionist to break the siege and thus the failure of the Biden admin to do so, renders them complicit.




Israel has long hidden behind the Holocaust as a shield to justify their crimes, but anyone paying attention should realise that what Israel is doing is NOT self-defence, the UN charter in Article 2iv and Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter sets out clear rules for which use of force can be justified and what the Zionist state is doing has gone well beyond that. It is high time that the world treat Israel as the pariah that it is. Israel is NOT special (bear in mind that the 1948 Zionist state is not the same as the Davidic Kingdom of the Old Testament) and Israel is NOT above the law of nations. Every nation is obliged to abide the rules and norms of International law such as the UN Charter and as long as the Zionist state continues to act with impunity the world should not coddle them but acknowledge in clear and no uncertain terms that Israel is a problem.

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