Sept. 7, 2014 (TSR) – Much to the surprise of no one, Israel has announced that it will steal about a thousand more acres from Palestine. This will accelerate the building of a new illegal settlement near Bitar Ilit, one that currently exists.
There are many interesting aspects to this story.
First, the story as reported on CNN had this headline: ‘Israel slammed for West Bank land expropriation.’ A quick online search for the definition of ‘expropriate’ yields this: “To take possession of, especially for public use by the right of eminent domain, thus divesting the title of the private owner.” So, if one considers the fact that the United Nations and all its members, including the Israeli puppet, the United States, consider this a violation of international law, it can hardly be described as ‘expropriation’. Is it land theft, pure and simple.
The second item of note is the United Nations, United States and United Kingdom’s response to this announcement.
- “The seizure of such a large swathe of land risks paving the way for further settlement activity, which — as the United Nations has reiterated on many occasions — is illegal under international law and runs totally counter to the pursuit of a two-state solution,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement Monday. This isn’t terribly surprising, since the U.N. has always ineffectually condemned Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank.
- The U.S. response, not reported in the original CNN article, was equally tepid: “’We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision,’ a State Department official said in Washington, calling the move ‘counterproductive’ to efforts to achieve a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
- But the most striking comments may have come from UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. Said he: “This is a particularly ill-judged decision that comes at a time when the priority must be to build on the cease-fire in Gaza. It will do serious damage to Israel’s standing in the international community. Our position on settlements is clear: they are illegal under international law, present an obstacle to peace and take us further away from a two state solution at a time when negotiations to achieve this objective urgently need to be resumed.” (Emphasis added).
- This seems to be part of the ever-widening crack in Israel’s mythical reputation. For so long Israel did as it pleased, killing Palestinians, bombing them, arresting adults and children, harassing them with endless checkpoints, bulldozing their homes and stealing their land, all in the name of national security. And, for the most part, the world did little more than say it shouldn’t do these things, and then turn a blind eye.
What has changed? Why has the U.K., almost (but not quite) as subservient to Israel as is the U.S., commented on the risk to Israel’s reputation? The most recent, and barely ended, genocidal episode against the Palestinians by Israel has exposed that apartheid regime to world criticism in a way not seen previously. While most of the news media parroted Israel’s line about threats to its ‘national security’, people using social media saw something quite different. The horrors of a major world power indiscriminately bombing residences, hospitals, universities, elementary school and even U.N.-run refugee centers might have been ignored or glossed over by the news media, but tens of millions of people saw it nonetheless. While seeing mangled, bloody bodies of children, including infants, may not have appeared much on the six o’clock news, such images were widely seen on social media.
This writer has commented before on the lack of many governments, including the U.S., receptivity to the wishes its citizens. For more years than one wants to count, the U.S. continued its murderous assault on the people of Vietnam, all for the most dubious of reasons, to prevent that beleaguered nation from reuniting under a Communist government. The U.S. also turned a blind eye to the apartheid regime of South Africa, as horrendous human rights abuses were perpetrated on the African majority population.
Palestinians, like the Vietnamese and South Africans a generation ago, know better than to expect any redress from the oppressive Israeli regime to originate from the U.S. Global citizens, too, know that the U.S.’s hypocritical words about human rights only apply if those rights don’t offend a powerful lobby within the U.S., and the Israeli lobby holds great influence over U.S. politicians, due to its financial generosity to their re-election campaigns. What students and other activists taking to the streets in the U.S. and around the world accomplished in 1975, by bringing an end to the Vietnam War, and what a boycott, divest and sanction movement accomplished for South Africa in the early 1990s, citizens throughout the world now seek to accomplish for Palestine, using Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.
Israel has run roughshod over the international community for decades, with impunity. It appears that, finally, the day of reckoning is at hand. Its crimes, while ignored by the news media, are now being exposed in homes throughout the world, on laptops, cell phones and other devices that so much of the world has at its fingertips. As a result, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is gaining strength, and some governments are restricting trade with Israeli companies operating in the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu seems to believe, as has his predecessors, that when it comes to land theft, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Having installed nearly half a million Israelis illegally on Palestinian territory, Israel appears to think there will be no question as to ownership. The current world view, far less myopic that Israel’s, seems to belie that belief; Israel may have bombed the Gaza Strip one time too many; it may have arrested one too many children in the West Bank, and it may have flouted the United Nations one too many times for the world to continue to ignore its crimes.
Palestinian suffering at present may be at a peak; murder, genocide and oppression in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank seem to be at a fever pitch, but Israel may have grossly miscalculated world opinion. One does not wish to be overly optimistic or naive, but Israel’s most recent crimes may mark the beginning of the end of its long bloody road of oppression.
