Ignored Palestinian Persecution on Election Day in Israel

by Stephen Lendman

Previous articles stressed no matter who wins Israeli elections, Palestinians lose.

Nightmarish militarized occupation harshness continues. Israeli Arab citizens face apartheid conditions.

Western and Israeli media scoundrels ignore abuses demanding daily headlines. Arab political parties alone discuss them.

Gazan conditions are worst of all - devastated by last summer's Israeli aggression. A humanitarian disaster worsens daily.

Horserace journalism drowned out what's ongoing. He said, she said, who's ahead, who's behind discourse substituted for explaining it.

Daily horrors throughout Occupied Palestine don't matter - disgracefully airbrushed from media reports.

B'Tselem discussed Gaza pre-election saying "after a national trauma like (like Operation Protective Edge, you'd think) at least some politicians" would address it.

How can murdering over 2,000 Palestinians in cold blood, injuring over 11,000 more, maiming countless hundreds, and turning large parts of Gaza to rubble go unaddressed?

How can undelivered promised aid preventing rebuilding go unmentioned? How can one of history great crimes be ignored?

How can Israelis trust anyone "planning (more death and destruction in) the next war in two years' time," asked B'Tselem?

"How many dead are planned for the summer of 2016?"

How can "eternal closure" inflicting extreme "poverty and anguish" on 1.8 million human beings get no pre-election coverage?

"Gaza (was) the most silenced issue in this election, and the silence speaks volumes," B'Tselem stressed.

Israeli inflicted human misery this great exposes its sham democracy. It shows no matter what coalition triumphs on Tuesday, Palestinian suffering remains unabated.

B'Tselem is right. It's just a matter of time before Israel's next genocidal war - wrongfully blamed on Palestinian victims like always.

They have no political representation. Israel maintains total control over their lives.

Abbas-led Palestinian officials serve as Israel's enforcer. They have no control over borders, coastal waters, air space, natural resources, or other issues most affecting Palestinian lives and welfare.

They're puppets serving Israeli interests - benefitting at the expense of their own people.

They're increasingly isolated with no rights whatever. Powerless Israeli Arab politicians alone campaigned against this injustice.

Israeli media largely ignore it. In urging voters to oust Netanyahu, Haaretz editors said nothing about new leadership assuring no change whatever for Palestinians.

Not Israeli Arabs. Not Occupied Palestinians. Not millions of human beings denied fundamental  rights reserved solely for (increasingly fewer numbers of) Jews - in one of the developed world's most unequal societies.

"Election Day is an opportunity to settle accounts with Netanyahu," said Haaretz editors. "The time has come to offer new hope to Israelis."

How when Zionist Union and Likud are virtually two sides of the same coin? Rhetoric and style alone separate them on issues mattering most.

How when millions of Palestinians are entirely ignored, ruthlessly persecuted, isolated, and murdered in cold blood at the discretion of whatever coalition rules Israel?

State terror is official policy. Democracy is pure fantasy. Occupation harshness reflects it.

So does governance serving monied interests at the expense of popular ones.

Besieged Gazans living in rubble in the world's largest open-air prison is one of history's great crimes - attacked and murdered at Israel's discretion.

It wasn't important enough to address during campaigning. Arab lives and welfare don't matter.

Overnight Monday before polls opened, Israeli goon squads conducted West Bank terror raids.

Two dozen Palestinians were lawlessly arrested - including seven children.

Birzeit and an-Najah university students were attacked. So were other Palestinians detained overnight.

On election day, Israeli soldiers opened fire on defenseless Gazans threatening no one.

Area families were terrorized. Two Palestinian youths were kidnapped.

Joint List Arab MK Hanin Zoabi wrote on her Facebook page:

"We are the Palestinian citizens. We are part of the Palestinian people who stayed in their homes upon which ruins the 'Jewish State' was built."

"We demand to be recognized and to remove all the racist laws and systems. We want all our rights, including out right to belong."

On the 12th anniversary of Rachel Corrie's murder (March 16, 2003), her parents released a statement, saying in part:

"Rachel was crushed to death March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military, US-funded, Caterpillar D9R bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, while nonviolently protesting the impending demolition of the home of a Palestinian family."

No one was held accountable for willful, cold-blooded murder. Justice remains denied. Rachel's family sued Israel and its Defense Ministry in vain.

Last month, its Supreme Court "upheld a lower court ruling saying Rachel was killed in a 'war activity' for which the state bears no liability under Israeli law."

Israel's highest court considers demolishing privately owned Palestinian homes to make way for exclusive Jewish development a legitimate "war activity."

Rachel's family's "legal options in Israel are nearly exhausted…" Try imagining 12 long years of injustice.

Imaginine decades of Israeli ruthlessness affecting millions of Palestinians. They deserve better. So do Rachel's parents.

"The failure of the Israeli court system to hold its soldiers, officers, and government accountable does not represent a failure on our part," they said.

"Rachel, herself, went to Rafah looking for justice - a forward looking justice in which all people in the region would enjoy the freedoms, rights, opportunities, and obligations that we each demand for ourselves."

"The facts uncovered in our legal effort in Israel, and the clear evidence of the Israeli court’s complicity in the occupation revealed in the outcome, lay important legal groundwork for the future."

"As our family continues our journey for justice, we thank those across the US, the world, and in Palestine and Israel who travel with us."

"Together, we will find justice for Rachel - both the justice she deserves and the justice for which she stood."

The Corrie Family

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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