By Seevali Abeysekera
LONDON | 28 October 2023 (IDN) — Basic Law, also known as Nations Law—this apartheid law states that national rights in Israel belongs ONLY to the Jewish people. This was in effect the founding principle in which “the Jewish state” was established.
Military law applies to Palestinians living in the occupied territories whilst civil law applies to Jewish settlers living in the same territory. The practical application of this is that ANY Palestinian household can be forcibly occupied by the Israeli military without a reason and the occupants banished. It also means that Palestinian properties can be demolished by the military, Palestinians be arrested and held indefinitely in detention without trial.
Hence, why there are more than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,000 children, rotting away in Israeli jails without charge, without trial and without release?
When mainstream media reports Israel abducting Palestinian civilians off the streets, it is referred to as “arresting militants”, but when HAMAS abducts Israeli civilians off the streets, it is called hostage-taking!
Such is the duplicity and double standards that makes up most of the mainstream media and leadership in the West.
Apartheid checkpoints, roads and roadblocks. In certain parts of Israel and in the occupied territories, Palestinians have to endure the daily harassment and humiliation of being held up for hours at Israeli checkpoints and not permitted to use the same roads as Jews.
Israel is not a secular democracy as claimed but an ethno-religious supremacist state which acts like a medieval kingdom where some of the laws are not universal and where brutal actions by its military against the Palestinians is a daily occurrence.
The above are facts which the West and the Arab world, turns a blind eye to for its own self interests.
The SOP utilized by those whose primary objective is to defend Israel / Zionism at all costs against any criticism is to smear anyone daring to question the Israeli narrative as “anti-semitic”. This technique of deflection and forcing those who question the Israeli narrative to defend themselves against the ludicrous and scurrilous charge of “anti-semitism” is a very effective method to negate any meaningful dialogue about how Israel acts towards the Palestinians.
Any observations that Zionist laws are in effect no different to apartheid laws are immediately conflated with anti-semitism, which once again shuts down any conversation and dialogue.
Systematic cultivation of world opinion
Where Israel has been incredibly clever at has been the systematic cultivation of world opinion through its various diplomatic channels and multiple lobby groups in America, the UK and Europe. These groups are highly influential in financial, media and political arenas and thus able to frame the narrative based on the Israeli perspective where they are the metaphorical David against the Arab Goliath.
It is important to note that for most Israeli’s and Zionists, Palestinians are also referred to as Arabs for a very deliberate reason. By doing so Israel and Zionists are essentially attempting to erase their identity as a people indigenous to Palestine. This is a very deliberate attempt to convince the world that the Palestinians do not belong in Palestine but could belong to any neighbouring Arab country such as Jordan, Lebanon or Syria.
This is akin to saying that an English person is French because the person is European!
Ironically, the call for a two states solution, a sham concept because Israel will never agree to a fully independent Palestinian country on its border, is in reality a clear admission that Israel is not a secular nation where both Jews and Palestinians can live as equals within a unitary state.
Judging by the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Israeli civilians, HAMAS are indeed callous barbaric murderers. They are however aided and funded by the Israeli government for their own self-interests and if the murderous attack on 7 Oct against Israeli civilians turns out to the ultimate false flag operation, then one needs to consider what the ultimate objective was.
Discontent with neo-fascist policies
From a political perspective, Israel was in considerable chaos with civil society angry with the extreme policies being practised by the right-wing fascist coalition led by Netanyahu. Even those within the military were showing discontentment with the neo-fascist policies. Israel was close to serious civil unrest with society potentially fragmenting and imploding from within.
Under these circumstances, what logic was there for HAMAS to conduct such a barbarous suicide operation, which they knew would have cataclysmic consequences for Gaza and would also unite Israelis on all sides of the political divide?
However, if one were to flip this on its head, who stands to gain from such a murderous incursion into Israel by HAMAS?
Certainly not the millions of Palestinians living in the world’s largest open-air prison, now fast turning into a death camp where thousands of innocent people are being slaughtered like animals, not in gas chambers but from munitions dropped from the sky including white phosphorous, a chemical agent that burns humans alive.
Those who do benefit from the slaughter are —
Israel, as this new Nakba will in effect reduce Gaza to an uninhabitable rubble strewn wasteland without a people and in their place will arrive Jewish settlers backed by American and European funds who will make it part of greater Israel. Perhaps those innocent Israeli’s butchered by HAMAS and the thousands of Palestinians being butchered by the IDF were expendable human collateral to achieve a much larger objective – the ethnic cleaning of Gaza of Palestinians?
The oil producing countries in the Gulf and Iran — The assumption that Iran, Saudi Arabia and the gulf states are in any way concerned about the welfare of the Palestinian people is almost as laughable as claiming Israel is a civilised secular democracy. The gulf states and Iran will not even shed any crocodile tears for the Palestinians. Their sole concerns are their own geopolitical interests and wealth creation through the increase in energy prices during conflicts. HAMAS and Hezbollah in Lebanon are simply proxies of Israel and Iran who in reality have no concern for the people they claim to represent.
America and the West — Americans and the Western world has always considered the Palestinians to be expendable human collateral and their reactions to the brutality of the atrocities committed by HAMAS has been to encourage, even implore, Israel to inflict even more brutal crimes against the Palestinian people. This will ” eliminate the Palestinian problem ” for the West.
Israel’s desire for blood thirsty revenge is no surprise—their President Isaac Hertzog stating that “Palestinians are collectively responsible” (collective punishment is what the Nazi’s called the mass murder of innocent civilians), an ex-Prime Minister of Israel, Neftali Bennett stating that Palestinians are “human animals”, a MP of the Likud party calling for a new Nakba that would overshadow the Nakba of 1948, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle in the UK stating that “much of the Muslim culture is in the grip of a death cult”.
Nothing short of grotesque
The comments and reactions of Western politicians, however, have been nothing short of grotesque.
A US Senator, Lindsey Graham, calling for the wholesale destruction of Gaza and imploring that Israel razes Gaza to the ground.
Nikki Haley, a GOP candidate for President and Donald Trump’s Ambassador to the UN, calling on Netanyahu to ” finish them off ” in reference to Gaza.
Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the UK, and Kier Starmer, Leader of the Opposition, agreeing and supporting Israel’s decision to cut off the supply of electricity, food, fuel and medicines to Gaza. This is in effect aiding and abetting war crimes as defined by the Geneva Convention.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, giving unconditional support for ANY Israeli action including the mass starvation of the population and the near biblical destruction of Gaza. The same Ursula von der Leyen who just a year previously had accused Russia of war crimes for cutting off the electricity and gas supply to Ukraine!
All of these morally reprehensible repugnant sanctimonious hypocrites are happy to encourage the mass murder of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the systematic destruction of Gaza as a human habitation on the grounds of “Israel has a right to defend itself”.
However, despite all the evidence that points out that Israel is an apartheid racist state that has hoodwinked the world that it is a secular democracy, the shameless hypocrites in the West that have control over the levers of authority and power are willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians, and to justify the ethnic cleansing and potential genocide being perpetrated by the state of Israel.
Such is the remarkable desire and need to align the West with Israel and Zionism.
The staggering irony being that a race who were subjected to pogroms and were themselves the innocent victims of a genocide less than ninety years ago are now willing to embark on the ethnic cleaning and potential genocide of another! [IDN-InDepthNews]
*The writer is a retired British businessman who writes a blog on current affairs – www.seevaliabeysekera.wordpress.com
Photo: Protest against Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Tel Aviv, 11 August 2018.
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