Israel's Reign of Terror on Palestine

by Stephen Lendman

Israel's sordid history is blood-drenched. Unmatched in modern times along with America.

The late Edward Said called conditions "a disheartening bloody impasse." Blind destructiveness. State-sponsored terrorism. Viciousness writ large.

Palestine is an isolated prison, he said. An entire population being suffocated out of existence.

For decades, Palestinians endured every imaginable indignity, degradation, and crime against humanity.

They're assaulted, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, humiliated, and otherwise abused.

By Israel's vicious, unrelenting killing machine. State terror genocidal agenda. Premeditated wars of aggression.

Unending cycle of violence. Slow-motion extermination. So-called Israeli "pacification" reflects mass slaughter and destruction.

Brutalizing militarized occupation harshness. Persecuting and terrorizing Palestinians for not being Jews.

Depriving them of fundamental rights everyone deserves. With full US support and encouragement.

Both nations partner in each other's high crimes against peace. Their killing machines show no mercy.

Targeting non-combatant civilians as legitimate targets. In violation of core international humanitarian and human rights laws.

Francis Boyle calls Palestinians "victims of genocide." As defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Reflecting Zionism's "final solution." Its "very essence…has always been genocide, whether slow-motion or in bloodthirsty spurts of violence."

Israel and its "Zionist agencies, forces and terrorist gangs ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, religious, economic, and cultural campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious group (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) constituting the Palestinian people."

"This Zionist/Israeli campaign has consisted of killing members of the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(a)."

Causing "serious bodily and mental harm to the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(b)."

Deliberately and maliciously "inflict(ing) on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in substantial part in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention."

Historian Ilan Pappe accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Years earlier, he said "(a)n average of eight Palestinians die daily (from) Israeli attacks on the Strip."

Including women and children. "Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed."

"The inhuman living conditions in the most dense area in the world, and one of the poorest human spaces in the northern hemisphere, disables the people who live it to reconcile with the imprisonment Israel had imposed on them ever since 1967."

During Israel's December 2008/January 2009 Cast Lead war, Professor Jeremy Salt  wrote a message to brave Israeli airmen. His comments apply to Operation Protective Edge. What's ongoing now.

What’s it like firing missiles at people you can’t see, he asked?

Does it help being unable to see who you're killing?

Is your conscience eased by inflicting disproportionate force on people unable to fight back?

Are you comfortable about slaughtering civilian men, women, children, infants, the elderly and infirm?

Does it weigh on your conscience doing so? Or are you at ease?

Do you sleep well or have nightmares about non-threatening civilians you killed at home, in beds, kitchens, living rooms, schools, mosques, at work, or at play?

Do farmers in their fields, mothers with children, teachers in classrooms, imams in mosques, children at play, the elderly, frail or disabled threaten your security?

Do you ever question what you’ve done and why?

Have you no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right and wrong?

Do you know core humanitarian and human rights laws? The laws of war.

If so, why do you violate them? Doing so makes you complicit in high crimes of war and against humanity?  

Do you blindly follow orders or have a mind of your own? Have you murdered civilians before?

Will you do it again if ordered? Will you keep following orders blindly or do the right thing?

"Brave" Israeli airmen, soldiers, sailors, and other security force personnel are cowards. Acting lawlessly for decades.

Inflicting horrific crimes on Palestinians daily. Unsure each day if they'll live or die. Remain safe or be brutalized. Stay free or be imprisoned.

Imagine young children growing up this way. Traumatized early in life. Internalizing justifiable rage.

Deserving fundamental rights Israel forbids. A killing machine. An unconscionable human rights abuser.

Professor William Cook's book "The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction" explains "methodical genocide in Palestine (since) the 1940s."

James Petras addressed "Israeli genocide and its willing accomplices." Washington. Complicit Western partners. Rogue Arab states. The "major Zionist organizations."

"Moral precepts become debased and supplanted by the ethics of mass murder."

"Moralists, rabbis and ethical philosophers all join to bless the bombs dropped on hospitals and schools and homes and all living things – even the dead and buried do not rest in peace when the cemeteries are bombed."

Professor Richard Falk asked if it's "irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with (Nazi Germany's) collective atrocity? I think not," he said.

At the same time, Western leaders watch "the ugly spectacle unfold while some of (their most) influential members actively encourage and assist" Israel's genocidal campaign.

Mainly America. Partnering in Israeli high crimes. Complicit in genocidal slaughter. For the third time since 2008.

Meeting "calls for restraint…with contempt." Extremists like Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon calling for "total destruction."

Genocidal slaughter. With impunity. With full US support and encouragement. With other Western leaders turning a blind eye.

Making peace, equity and justice four-letter words. Convenient illusions. Blaming Palestinians for Israel's worst crimes.

Holding them hostage in the world's largest open-air prison. In cantonized/isolated West Bank communities. In Palestine's East Jerusalem capital.

Israeli "state terrorism" is the main culprit, says Falk. Throughout Occupied Palestine.

British MP George Galloway calls Israel "an illegal, savage and barbarous state." A "hateful and oppressive regime." Lawless by any standard.

Using its killing machine to murder Palestinians. "(I)llegally grab(ing) land and persecut(ing) their rightful owners."

Galloway urges a total boycott of Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists.

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees everyone "the right to life, liberty and security of person."

Article 6 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) says every "human being has the inherent right to life."

Israel systematically denies it to Palestinians. Throughout Occupied Palestine. Especially Gazans under siege.

Showing contempt for law and human life. Netanyahu committed to genocidal slaughter. To achieve his degenerate aims.

Ten years after Israel murdered Yasser Arafat, things are much worse than ever.

Under brutalizing militarized occupation. Lawless by any standard. Barbarous. Ruthless.

Isolating Palestinians in cantonized communities. Fragmenting them by Separation Wall oppression.

Dispossessing and displacing them. Ethnically cleansing them from their own land. Stealing it for Jews only.

Murdering resisters. Imprisoning others. Treating young children like adults.

Enacting legislation to imprison them up to 20 years for stone-throwing. Brutalizing nonviolent public protesters.

Prohibiting free expression and movement. Criminalizing wanting to live free on land rightfully theirs.

Corrupted PA officials acting as convenient Israeli stooges. Brutalizing their own people. Serving as Israeli enforcers. For special benefits they derive.

Mocking legitimate governance. Lawless by any standard. Amira Hass quoted sociologist Hunaida Ghanem describing PA hierarchical structure as follows:

"There is a small (entrenched) elite…(T)here are those who got rich from the Oslo process."

"There is the middle class of Ramallah, who live in a bubble and in an illusion that their situation is good because they live on bank loans."

"And there is the majority of the people, who don't live in a bubble and suffer from the existing reality."

"The middle class chases personal security and car loans. Not even in Tel Aviv and New York do you see cars like the ones here in Ramallah."

"This is a middle class under occupation that lives in nonprofits, academia, the schools, the government ministries."

"It used to be the avant-garde of national action, of resistance and the national project."

"Now it is busy with repaying debts. Those who work in nonprofit organizations are busy with pleasing the donors."

"During Arafat's time, when people said 'peace process,' people trusted in his ability to lead to a breakthrough."

Despite his irresponsible Oslo surrender. Achieving nothing for renouncing armed struggle.

Palestinians believed things would improve. They worsened. Degenerated more than ever. Without Arafat, "Palestinian society has lost its hope and horizon," said Hass.

Nothing in prospect looks promising. Corrupted PA leadership remains entrenched.

On the one hand, Israeli occupation harshness "provides all the objective and unifying conditions for a third intifada," says Hass.

On the other, "Oslo…created subjective conditions of social stratification, economic disparities and discipline-imposing security agencies that are subject to the will of the donor countries."

"All this prevents or delays the next uprising." It remains to be seen for how long.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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