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WHY PALESTINIANS NEED OUR SOLIDARITY
by
Roland G. Simbulan
2009 opened with the salvo
of horrific bombings by the Israeli Army against Palestinian refugees in
a concentrated settlement referred to as the GAZA STRIP. These murderous
attacks, though they have been condemned universally by almost all
mainstream peoples, governments and international humanitarian
organizations worldwide, still do not reflect the wider context of why
Palestinians have become refugees in their own lands in such settlements
like the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. As U.S.-supplied Israeli rocket
shells, missiles and bombs wreak havoc on Gaza and its Palestinian
inhabitants in a one-sided war, we would do well to reflect on what this
conflict is all about.
The humanitarian and human
rights aspect of the conflict has been emphasized in the media,
including the blockade of vital medical supplies, food, water and fuel
going to Gaza. But why are Palestinians in Gaza (Strip) as well as in
the West Bank, and why are they segregated from what is now Israel? This
was exactly the way the Black African majority were segregated from the
white minority in Apartheid South Africa before 1992.
According to Robert Fisk,
a British correspondent for the paper, The Independent and who has
covered the Middle East for the past thirty years, 80 per cent of the
residents of Gaza were the original owners of the lands which are now
occupied by the State of Israel. Palestinians were forcibly relocated to
the Gaza settlements as their lands were occupied and annexed by the
powerful militarist-capitalist Jewish Zionists which created Israel.
This was after World War II,
when the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Europe where 6 million
Jews were killed by the Nazis before and during the reign of
Hitler. Wealthy Jewish bankers, businessmen and militarists sought
to lay claim to their Biblical homeland that Abraham and Moses promised.
The problem was that this land was already occupied by Palestinian
Arabs.
The 1948 creation of the
State of Israel was founded on the land grab of Palestinian land where
the Israeli Zionists drove 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and
relocated them to Gaza and the West Bank. Under the aegis of the
Zionists' "Plan D", a systematic program of the ethnic cleansing of
Palestinian Arabs from their villages to drive them out, Israel was
created. All of this was backed up by the United States, the British and
other Western powers. Many more Palestinians who lost their lands
and survived the massacres of genocidal proportions against them, fled
and became refugees and exiles in neighboring Arab countries like Syria,
Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, etc..This is the historical basis of the
Palestinian people's struggles against Israeli occupation, which Zionism
has attempted to erase from the public mind and memory.
As if all this was not
enough, Israel has continued the expulsion, assassinations, and
dispossession of all Palestinians from their lands, uprooting them
from their own remaining land in shrinking Palestinian territories, and
bulldozing Palestinian homes. This is in the pretext that there
are hidden tunnels. Israel recently engaged in the construction of an
"Apartheid Wall" to segregate Palestinians and keep them caged in from
Jews "as a military precaution versus future terrorism by the
Palestinians."
The Palestinian people, --unlike
Israel occupiers -- having no army, no navy , no tanks, no helicopter
gunships, no F-16 Fighter planes, no naval vessels, in their struggle
for social justice, have resorted to political, diplomatic, initiatives
and desperate measures such as guerrilla warfare, the Intifada Uprising,
and suicide attacks. Overall, Palestinian outrage against the
annexation and cantonization of their valuable land and resources like
water, have generally been in the form of civil disobedience, or "human
shields" by the general Palestinian population.
In the past decades, the
Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO under Yasser Arafat, led the
Palestinian people's struggle for their occupied lands. Lately, the
Palestinian people democratically elected an Islamic political party,
HAMAS to lead them in the struggle to defend their rights and advance
their struggle for social justice.
Operating against any form
of Palestinian resistance to occupation is the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF), one of the most modern armies of the world, which does not
only produce and export its weapons; MOSSAD, Israel's intelligence and
security agency, is considered one of the most ruthless intelligence
organizations in the world, having assassinated many Palestinian
resistance fighters in many parts of the world. All forms of
resistance by Palestinians to occupation inside and outside of Israel
have been branded as "terrorism" by both Israel and the United States.
Israel is even
supported and armed to the teeth by the United States which has provided
it with vital tanks, missiles and logistics, including intelligence.
All of Israel's political and diplomatic initiatives in the United
Nations have been supported almost automatically by the United States.
The U.S. and Israel have always voted together trying to block
United Nations Resolutions related to the welfare of the Palestinian
peoples. Some of these examples of the U.S.and Israel voting together in
isolation are the following:
In Dec. 18, 1978, the
United Nation General Assembly passed Resolution 33/75, ON THE LIVING
CONDITIONS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE, with 110 YES VOTES. There were
only 2 NO VOTES, by Israel and the United States;
In Dec. 14, 1979, the
United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 34/100, AGAINST
SUPPORT FOR INTERVENTION IN THE INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OF STATES,
with 104 YES VOTES; There were only 2 votes by Israel and the United
States.
In Dec. 17, 1979, the
United Nations General Assembly pased Resolution 34/158 , PREPARATIONS
AND CARRYING OUT OF THE UN CONFERENCE ON WOMEN, with 121 YES VOTES; only
two voted NO, the United States and Israel, because they did not want
the Palestinian people to be represented in the UN Conference.
In Dec. 18, 1983, the
General Assembly approved Resolution 39/232 , Support for the UN
Industrial Development Organization, with 118 YES VOTES, and 2 NO VOTES
by the United States and Israel.
In Dec. 13, 1985, the UN General
Assembly passed Resolution 40/48 MEASURES TO BE TAKEN AGAINST NAZI,
FASCIST AND NEO FASCIST ACTIVITIES, with 121 YES VOTES, as against 2 NO
VOTES by Israel and the United States;
In Oct. 15, 1987, the UN General
Assembly pased Res. 42/5 ON COOPERATION BETWEEN THE UNITED NATIONS AND
THE LEAGUE OF ARAB STATES. This was approved with 153 YES VOTES as
against 2 NO VOTES by Israel and the United States.
In Nov. 12, 1987, the UN
General Assembly approved Resolution 42/18 ON THE NEED FOR COMPLIANCE IN
THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE CONCERNING MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY
ACTIVITIES AGAINST NICARAGUA, which was approved by 94 YES VOTES, as
against 2 NO VOTES by Israel and the United States;
Finally, in Dec. 17, 1987,
the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 42/159 MEASURES TO PREVENT
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, STUDY THE UNDERLYING POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
CAUSES OF TERRORISM, CONVENE A CONFERENCE TO DEFINE TERRORISM AND TO
DIFFERENTIATE IT FROM THE STRUGGLE OF PEOPLE FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION,
which was approved with 153 YES VOTES as against 2 NO VOTES by Israel
and the United States.
As if the U.S. and Israel
tandem in diplomacy was not enough, the United States also provides most
of the vital military logistics and intelligence, especially technical,
to Israel.
Let me highlight the context of
the Palestinian question with the following important points:
1. Since World War II, U.S. priorities in the
Middle East focused on assuring access of U.S. and Western oil companies
to oil in the Middle East. This was why the creation of Israel by
Zionists in 1948 was backed up to the hilt by British and U.S. armaments
and diplomacy. Palestinians lost their entire homeland in the process
and were placed in containment areas like the GAZA STRIP and WEST BANK.
2. The 1958 Eisenhower Doctrine allowed U.S.
intervention in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to defend U.S. and
western interests. This was a go-signal for the CIA-initiated military
coup detat in Iran against the Iranian head of state and nationalist
Mossadegh after he tried to nationalize Western oil companies in Iran;
the pro-US Shah of Iran was installed as gate keeper of Western
interests in Iran.
3. After 1958, U.S. Middle East policy expanded to
include the objective of defending Israel, where US took over British to
defend Zionism.
4. Israel today depends on continuing vital U.S.
military and economic aid and unswerving political and diplomatic
support. In turn, the U.S. counts on Israel to act as a reliable
collaborator in strategic political, military, economic goals. Israel is
the NO. 1 recipient of U.S. military assistance to the Middle East, with
Egypt, Turkey and Jordan following behind.
5. The United States has been accused of double
standards in its Middle East Policy and with Israel along the following
lines, and this is why it has lost credibility among many people of the
Middle East. Examples are the following:
A. U.S. ignores and even
supports human rights violations by its allies like Israel(against
Palestinians), Saudi Arabia, etc.but viciously criticizes human rights
violations against countries which are not friendly to it as it did
against Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
B. The U.S. allows the
nuclear arsenal buildup of allies like Israel, but raises hell on the
same issue about other countries not friendly to it. The US and Israel
cooperated on military research and development and shared advanced
technology for the development of the 200+ nuclear bombs at Israel's
DIMONA plant , which neither the U.S. nor Israel has acknowledged.
C. The U.S. ignores
fundamental justice of the Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinian
lands, continued settlement expansion, closing Palestinian territories,
and liquidation of Palestinian rights to due process. But it raises the
same issues against its enemies in the Middle East.
The fundamental question is, can
there be peace and justice under Israeli occupation of Palestinian
lands, and the inhuman treatment of Palestinians whose liberties are
systematically corroded? This is not anti-Semitism, but social
justice. The real source of strife in the Middle East has always
revolved around the Palestinian question since 1948. The abduction,
murder and systematic torture of Palestinians in their own lands, make
it an imperative for the Palestinians to defend themselves. A 2-state
one system settlement has been proposed in the past, but this has been
overshadowed by Israel's continued cantonization( or even racial and
religious apartheid) and maltreatment of Palestinians in their remaining
but shrinking territories.
Israel has been carved out
like a U.S. military base in the Middle East. The United States uses
Israel to lay its claim over vital oilfields for U.S. and other Western
companies. In other words, Israel's role as an imperial base of
the United States must provide the context of any discussion of the Gaza
and Palestinian question. The Gaza carnage and attacks,
Palestinian Arab and Middle East attitudes towards Israel and th United
States can never be understood from a colonialist perspective.
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Note on sources: British journalist Robert Fisk is
probably the best source on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and
probably on the Middle East. He is the author of the book, The Great War
for Civilization (The Conquest of the Middle East), and Pity the Nation:
The Abduction of Lebanon. He has covered and lived in the Middle
East for the past 30 years as a correspondent for the British newspaper,
THE INDEPENDENT.
* Article by Roland G Simbulan - For a full
professional background of Professor Roland G. Simbulan (Click
Here)
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