By Seevali Abeysekera*
LONDON | 28 October 2023 (IDN) — The barbaric murderous attack on Israel by HAMAS and the equally barbaric, callous and murderous response by Israel has made the world recoil in horror at the complete disregard for innocent human lives by both Hamas and Israel.
HAMAS is a brutal Islamist organisation, if not created, then certainly maintained by Israel as an extremist alternative to the more secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) which, in order to unite the various Palestinian factions merged with multiple Palestinian parties to become a confederation.
That HAMAS is maintained by Israel is not conjecture but fact as there is plenty of evidence available on-line, including that of Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli Prime Minister actively encouraging the funding of HAMAS in order to further Israeli interests.
For all the bile directed by both HAMAS and Israel towards each other, they actually work with each other. One of the largest employers of the Gazan work force was Israel and the supply of electricity and the vast majority of fuel in Gaza is controlled by Israel. Without Israel and HAMAS working together, Gaza would have come to a complete standstill.
The reality is that it was in Israel’s long-term strategic interests to have an extreme organisation like HAMAS in charge of Gaza because of their ability to control the population with their medieval practices and brutality and thus prevent a united Palestinian voice and vision.
For all the nonsense articulated by those in Israel and their supporters about Gaza no longer being occupied by Israel since 2006, the opposite is the case.
Yes, there were no Israeli troops within Gaza. However, Gaza has little or no ability to be self-sufficient due to the severe restrictions imposed by Israel.
Little or no industry existed in Gaza. Israel controlled and supplied the electricity. Israel did not give Gaza any control over its territorial waters. Israel did not allow Gaza to have its own airport.
Israel controlled the amount of construction materials permitted to enter Gaza. Repairs to the dilapidated civil infrastructure was limited or non-existent due Israeli restrictions or HAMAS diverting what little resources are available for its own use.
Israel controlled the amount of medicines allowed into Gaza. No high-tech medical equipment was imported into Gaza without Israel’s permission. Anyone needing treatment not available in Gaza required permission from Israel to seek the treatment in Israel.
Any Gazan wanting to travel overseas could not do so via the Israeli border but had to make the long trek to Egypt via the Sinai
This was the reality on the ground for the population of Gaza – ruled by a terrorist organisation enabled and funded by Israel and suffocated by an economic blockade imposed by Israel.
Genocide
This hell on earth has now been turned into a rubble strewn crematory where millions are being made homeless, thousands being decapitated, murdered and obliterated by Israeli bombs and missiles including phosphorous munitions being dropped on them by American made F16’s flown by Israeli airmen.
2.5 million people in Gaza, living on a densely populated strip of land, a mere 125 miles by 15 miles, being reduced to ashes by a country whose actions are more in line with the actions of the 3rd Reich—collective indiscriminate murder of a complete population with no compassion nor mercy.
This genocide, however, will not result in Nuremberg style trials for the architects, enablers and those responsible. Those responsible for the genocide in Gaza will be protected by the enablers who reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10 Downing Street and the European Parliament.
The terrible sin committed by the people of Gaza is to be born Palestinian, to be brutalised, oppressed, and now finally being slaughtered by Israel, egged on by the West.
One of the more grotesque aspects of Israeli (Zionist) behaviour has always been their arrogant entitlement narrative that they project towards the Palestinians and their desire to accuse anyone who finds fault with their behaviour of being ” antisemitic “.
This is classic deflection as any questions about Zionism and its entitlement narrative is immediately conflated with anti semitism. This deliberate strategy is designed to shut down any meaningful conversation about Zionism, its impact on the Palestinian population of Israel, the occupied territories and Gaza.
The mainstream media will not allow for objective analysis of Zionism and its impact on the Palestinians whose land has been forcibly taken over in order to build the ” Jewish homeland “.
The “only Jewish state in the world” narrative is the mantra used by Zionists and their supporters to justify Israel’s brutal actions against the Palestinians, which, had they been repeated by any other country in the world would have resulted in multiple economic sanctions or worse.
Imagine the British government deciding to reduce Belfast to rubble due to the IRA murdering innocent people in England?
Imagine the Sri Lankan government deciding to reduce Jaffna to rubble due to the Tamil Tigers murdering hundreds of civilians in Colombo?
The only countries that employ the concept of collective punishment in the world are the USA and Israel—so called bastions of civilised behaviour and democracy!
Masquerading as a secular democracy
The question, therefore, is how and why does Israel get away with apartheid, occupation, oppression, racism and state terrorism whilst masquerading as a secular democracy. The answer lies in the great art of news management and manipulation together with affluence and influence in the highest echelons of commerce and politics.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, named after the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour , was a letter to Lord Rothschild stating that the British government had agreed to the creation ” of a Jewish homeland ” in Palestine. Note ” a Jewish homeland ” and not “the Jewish homeland “. The letter, the Balfour Declaration, also stated that “it is clearly understood that nothing may be done which will prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.
This highlights two obvious truths –
Colonial Britain decided what countries they carved up, created, destroyed and who would benefit or be disenfranchised.
The enormous influence and power the Rothschild family had at the time.
The Rothschild family are an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Frankfurt whose wealth creation started by establishing a banking business in the 1760’s and who in the 19th century, possessed the largest private fortune in the world. To give an example of their wealth, from 1895 to 1907, the Rothschild family loaned $450 million (equivalent to $14 Trillion today) to various European governments for infrastructure projects.
This information is important to understand the context of how the Zionist narrative is promoted to this day and the vast influence it has within business, mainstream media and politics in the West.
Since the creation of modern-day Israel in 1948, the Zionist narrative has always been that the Palestinians (or Arabs as the Zionists deliberately prefer to call them as that description removes their ethnic identity) rejected a two-state solution at the time. The truth, as always, is somewhat different.
80 percent of Palestine was carved up as the Jewish state of Israel and 800,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands in order to make way for Jewish settlers mainly from Central and Eastern Europe. This forced displacement of the Palestinian population is referred to as the Nakba.
The vast majority of them ended up in Gaza having now grown to 2.5 million. Some fled to the the West Bank and others ended up as refugees in Jordan, Syrian and Lebanon where they still remain—as landless people with no right of return to their homes.
The West Bank has been under occupation since 1967 and life for those living under occupation is akin to being treated like “human animals”—a term often used by Israeli politicians to describe Palestinians.
Palestinians living under occupation have to contend with the IDF entering their homes at will, holding them captive and hostage at any time. A practice called “straw widow” by the IDF.
Palestinians living under occupation could find themselves evicted by newly arrived Jewish settlers from America or Eastern Europe who can confiscate their property. This brazen theft is allowed by the Israeli government and the IDF.
Palestinians living under occupation could have their homes demolished by the IDF to make way for Jewish only roads or new illegal settlements. Israel, therefore, for all its protestations of being a secular democracy is anything but.
Listed below is further proof that Israel is an apartheid racist state masquerading a secular democracy.
Under Israeli law, any Jew, born anywhere in the world has automatic rights to Israeli citizenship. That is a law based on an ethno-religious qualification that does not exist anywhere else in the world.
As a British citizen, born in London but of Sri Lankan heritage, am I entitled to automatic Sri Lankan citizenship? No! However, had I been a Jew, I am entitled to automatic Israeli citizenship and to serve in the IDF.
However, Palestinians displaced by the Nakba have no rights of return to their homes or lands. [IDN-InDepthNews]
*The writer is a retired British businessman who writes a blog on current affairs—www.seevaliabeysekera.wordpress.com
Photo: © WFP | Destroyed buildings in Abu Al-Kass, Gaza.
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