1 June 2021

How Palestinian Resistance Altered the Equation

by Ramzy Baroud

Photograph Source: Neil Ward – CC BY 2.0

The ceasefire on May 21 has, for now, brought the Israeli war on Gaza to an end. However, this ceasefire is not permanent and constant Israeli provocations anywhere in Palestine could reignite the bloody cycle all over again. Moreover, the Israeli siege on Gaza remains in place, as well as the Israeli military occupation and the rooted system of apartheid that exists all over Palestine.

This, however, does not preclude the fact that the 11-day Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip has fundamentally altered some elements about Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, especially the Palestinian Resistance, in all of its manifestations.

Let us examine the main actors in the latest confrontation and briefly discuss the impact of the Israeli war and the determined Palestinian resistance on their respective positions.

‘Mowing the Grass’ No More

‘Mowing the grass’ is an Israeli term used with reference to the habitual Israeli attacks and war on besieged Gaza, aimed at delineating the need for Israel to routinely eradicate or degrade the capabilities of the various Palestinian resistance groups on the street.

‘Mowing the grass’ also has political benefits, as it often neatly fit into Israel’s political agendas – for example, the need to distract from one political crisis or another in Israel or to solidify Israeli society around its leadership.

May 2021 will be remembered as the time that ‘mowing the grass’ can no longer be easily invoked as a military and political strategy by the Israeli government, as the Gaza resistance and the popular rebellion that was ignited throughout all of Palestine has raised the price by several-fold that Israel paid for its violent provocations.

While Israeli military and political strategists want to convince us, and themselves, that their relationship with Gaza and the Palestinian Resistance has not changed, it actually has and, arguably, irreversibly so.

The Altered Equation

The Palestinian fight for freedom has also been fundamentally altered, not only because of the unprecedented resilience of Palestinian resistance, but the unity of the Palestinian people, and the rise of a post-Oslo/peace process Palestinian nation that is united around a new popular discourse, one which does not differentiate between Palestinians in Jerusalem, Gaza, or anywhere else.

Palestinian unity around resistance, not peace process, is placing Israel in a new kind of quandary. For the first time in its history, Israel cannot win the war on the Palestinians. Neither can it lose the war, because conceding essentially means that Israel is ready to offer compromises – end its occupation, dismantle apartheid, and so on. This is why Israel opted for a one-sided ceasefire. Though humiliating, it preferred over-reaching a negotiated agreement, thus sending a message that the Palestinian Resistance works.

Still, the May war demonstrated that Israel is no longer the only party that sets the rules of the game. Palestinians are finally able to make an impact and force Israel to abandon its illusions that Palestinians are passive victims and that resistance is futile.

Equally important, we can no longer discuss popular resistance and armed resistance as if they are two separate notions or strategies. It would have been impossible for the armed resistance to be sustained, especially under the shocking amount of Israeli firepower, without the support of Palestinians at every level of society and regardless of their political and ideological differences.

Facing a single enemy that did not differentiate between civilians and fighters, between a Hamas or a Fatah supporter, the Palestinian people throughout Palestine moved past all of their political divisions and factional squabbles. Palestinian youth coined new terminologies, ones that were centered around resistance, liberation, solidarity and so on. This shift in the popular discourse will have important consequences that have the potential of cementing Palestinian unity for many years to come.

Israel’s Allies Not Ready to Change

The popular revolt in Palestine has taken many by surprise, including Israel’s allies. Historically, Israel’s Western supporters have proven to be morally bankrupt, but the latest war has proved them to be politically bankrupt as well.

Throughout the war, Washington and other Western capitals parroted the same old line about Israel’s right to defend itself, Israel’s security and the need to return to the negotiation table. This is an archaic and useless position because it did not add anything new to the old, empty discourse. If anything, it merely demonstrates their inability to evolve politically and to match the dramatic changes underway in occupied Palestine.

Needless to say, the new US Administration of Joe Biden, in particular, has missed a crucial opportunity to prove that it was different from that of the previous Donald Trump Administration. Despite, at times, guarded language and a few nuances, Biden behaved precisely as Trump would have if he was still President.

What ‘Palestinian leadership’?

The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and his circle of supporters represent a bygone era. While they are happy to claim a large share of whatever international financial support that could pour in to rebuild Gaza, they do not represent any political trend in Palestine at the moment.

Abbas’s decision to cancel Palestine’s elections scheduled for May and July left him more isolated. Palestinians are ready to look past him; in fact, they already have. This so-called leadership will not be able to galvanize upon this historic moment built on Palestinian unity and resistance.

The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and dispensable. Worse, it is an obstacle in the way of Palestinian freedom. Palestine needs a leadership that represents all Palestinian people everywhere, one that is truly capable of leading the people as they attempt to chart a clear path to their coveted freedom. Expanding the Circle of Solidarity The incredible amount of global solidarity which made headline news all over the world was a clear indication that the many years of preparedness at a grassroots level have paid off. Aside from the numerous expressions of solidarity, one particular aspect deserves further analysis: the geographic diversity of this solidarity which is no longer confined to a few cities in a few countries.

Pro-Palestine solidarity protests, vigils, conferences, webinars, art, music, poetry and many more such expressions were manifest from Kenya to South Africa, to Pakistan to the UK and dozens of countries around the world. The demographics, too, have changed, with minorities and people of color either leading or taking center stage of many of these protests, a phenomenon indicative of the rising intersectionality between Palestinians and numerous oppressed groups around the globe.

A critical fight ahead for Palestinians is the fight of delegitimizing and exposing Israeli colonialism, racism and apartheid. This fight can be won at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), UNESCO and numerous international and regional organizations, in addition to the countless civil society groups and community centers the world over.

For this to happen, every voice matters, every vote counts, from India to Brazil, from Portugal to South Africa, from China to New Zealand, and so on. Israel understands this perfectly, thus the global charm offensive that right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been leading for years. It is essential that we, too, understand this, and reach out to each UN member as part of a larger strategy to deservingly isolate Israel for ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

January 12, 2021

Defending Apartheid

by Lawrence Davidson
12 January 2021

In 2017 the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) issued a report on the conditions of Palestinians under Israeli rule. The report covered the situations of both Palestinian citizens of Israel and the subject population in the Occupied Territories. The report concluded “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

Though U.S. and Israeli pressure managed to suppress the report, evidence for this charge of apartheid is clear-cut. More recently, the facts have been brought together in a succinct presentation by the noted journalist Jonathan Cook. In a 2018 issue of The Link, a publication of Americans for Middle East Understanding, he wrote an expose` entitled “Apartheid Israel.” Some of the particulars Cook looks at are citizenship inequality, nationality inequality, marriage inequality, legal inequality, and residential inequality. The predictable Palestinian struggle seeking equality and the end of apartheid is seen as a subversive movement by both Israel’s Jewish majority and its increasingly rightwing governments.

Of course, some Israeli Jews do understand that the country has a serious problem with racism. For instance, this comes through in the June 2020 Haaretz report that indicates that as “world sensitivity to racism and oppression” increases “historical injustice in Israel is … only getting worse.”

The “Nation-State” Law

One of the ways things are getting worse in Israel is through the enshrining of Zionist-inspired apartheid in law. On 18 July 2018 the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) enacted a “Nation-State” Law. It defines the State of Israel as the nation-state “of the Jewish people only.” In other words, only Jews can hold “nationality rights” in Israel.

MK (member of the Knesset) Yariv Levin dubbed the law “Zionism’s flagship bill … that will put Israel back on the right path. A country that is different from all others in one way, that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people.” MK Amir Ohana, who chaired the special committee that shaped the bill, stated: “This is the law of all laws. It is the most important law in the history of the State of Israel, which says that everyone has human rights, but national rights in Israel belong only to the Jewish people.” The absurdity of this proposition is exposed by the fact that the Palestinian minority has been denied significant aspects of its human rights for over 70 years. As it turns out, the two categories of rights, national and human, have been interdependent ever since the development of the sovereign state.

Hannah Arendt’s Insight

Acting on the claim that one can separate out human rights, much less civil rights, from “national rights” has proven disastrous in the modern political era. Significantly, it was a brilliant Jewish intellectual, Hannah Arendt, who pointed this out following the horror of the Holocaust and on the occasion of the U.N. pronouncement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Arendt pointed out that, in the era of the nation-state, rights are defined and enforced within state entities claiming sovereignty over both territory and population. If a state decides that for racial, ethnic, religious, or any other reason, that only one portion of its population is worthy of first-class citizenship, it can proceed to deny to all those who do not qualify any and all rights. This is, of course, what the Nazis did to the Jews, and more recently is reflected in how Myanmar treats its ethnic minorities, how China treats its Uyghur population, and Saudi Arabia discriminates against its Shia religious minority, and so.

The United Nations has proven unable to effectively challenge this perversion of sovereignty. Keep in mind that the United Nations is itself made up of nation-states which reserve the power to discriminate as a consequence of sovereignty. This has made it difficult for the U.N., as an organization, to enforce a “universal” and “inalienable” conception of rights. In truth, the only way to achieve universal rights is to replace the nation-state’s claim that its sovereignty allows it alone to grant rights—replace it with enforceable international law that assures equitable application of rights.

Israel’s High Court of Justice Defends Apartheid

Israel is now acting out the scenario Arendt identified. There were many complaints against the nation-state bill, coming not only from the Palestinian Arabs, but also from the Druze community and even elements of the Mizrachi Jewish population. Thus, on 22 December 2020, fully two and a half years after the passage of the bill, the High Court of Justice held a public review of the law.

Two sections of the law drew particular objection from those appearing before the court. First was the objection to the bill’s official designation of “Jewish settlement as a value that the state is obligated to promote.” Considering the fact that such settlements most often lead to eviction of Palestinians from their land and homes, and the steady segregation of populations based on ethnicity and religion, it can’t help but be seen as an important historical factor in Zionist apartheid. The second was the law’s purposeful demotion of Arabic—it will no longer be an official language of Israel. The implication here is that loss of recognition of the language spoken by the Palestinians, Druze, and at least the first generation of Mizrachi Jews is equivalent to their loss of equal social and political status with those who speak Hebrew.

Throughout the ensuing debate the eleven High Court judges could not, or would not, recognize that giving elite legal and social status in law to one group of religiously identified citizens must have detrimental legal consequences for other non-elite citizens and subjects. That it would was a point made by Attorney Hassan Jabareen, the director of Adalah—the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights.

The rejoinder of the judges made in reference to the emphasis on “Jewish settlement” was that “the fact that Jewish settlement is perceived as a national value does not mean that there should be no equal allocation and legitimate civil rights for others.” As observers noted, this reply is ahistorical. It simply ignores Israel’s history of “over 70 years of discrimination, in which hundreds of towns, cities, and villages were established for Jews while not a single new locale was built for Palestinian citizens. As if Palestinian land was not expropriated for constructing Jewish communities.”

The same obtuseness was displayed when it came to the demotion of the Arabic language. The judges just could not see why losing its status as an official language was so painful for Arabic speakers. They were not moved when one of the plaintiffs pointed out, “there is a violation of convention here. The rules of the game have changed. My language, at least formally, has maintained its status from the time of the Ottomans until the 20th Knesset. Language was the only collective right [afforded to] the indigenous minority in its homeland.”

The cultural divide between Jews and non-Jews in Israel/Palestine that has been evolving into apartheid since before 1948 reached a tragic legal climax in the decision-making of these eleven judges. They confirmed in law a process that condemns non-Jews to a legal no-man’s-land. As the Druze lawyer told the court, “There is not a word on minority rights; it is a badge of shame for the State of Israel. … It is doubtful whether Jewish students who are educated on this law will be willing to accept Arab citizens at all in the future.”

“The Desired Reality”

Why were the eleven Israeli High Court judges so obtuse? Perhaps it is because they have been acculturated to see Zionist Israel as an exceptional place—a justification unto itself. As Yariv Levin described it above, Israel is “a country that is different from all others in one way, that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people.” This exclusiveness is the raison d’être of the Zionist project—it is its ultimate “noble” goal. For those within the exclusive Zionist tent, assigning the term apartheid to their accomplishment is to judge a special case by supposedly non-applicable generic rules. To persist in doing so is regarded as a sign of anti-Semitism rather than facing the facts.

This situation has been addressed by the Haaretz journalist Amira Haas. Haas is “the daughter of Holocaust survivors and resides in Ramallah, where she is the only Jewish Israeli journalist living in the West Bank.” She was in the United States in June 2019 and gave an interview to Mari Cohen for the publication Jewish Currents.

Haas explains the current situation this way: “The current reality is actually one state, which is an apartheid state. This means there are two separate laws: one for Palestinians and one for Israeli Jews. The Palestinian population is subdivided into groups and subgroups like the nonwhite population of [former apartheid] South Africa. They’re disconnected from each other. They are treated differently by Israel, while Israeli Jews live in the entire country, like one people, with full rights.”

The apartheid nature of Israel is a developmental plan of the state. Haas explains that Israel’s main goal is “to get more land, and to manipulate the Palestinian demography. … You see that this is really a plan. [Israeli leaders] sit and they think about how to implement it, and what regulations will achieve this goal. … One by one, step by step.” And, one has to conclude after seventy years that Israeli apartheid is sustainable because most of the world’s governments accept it. That, of course, could change, but there is no sign that it will in the near future.

It is also sustainable because it is what Israeli Jews want. “For Israel, this is the desired reality: that Palestinians live in their enclaves, deprived of any ability to develop their economy, and that the world gives them donations so that they can sustain themselves. And that’s it. There is no desire on the part of Israel to reach a different reality. There has been a kind of an illusion among Jews [in the diaspora] that Israel wants a solution. But [Israeli Jews] don’t see that this is a problem.”

Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Religious fanaticism can make it worse. Haas goes on to explain, “The question is, will the Israeli messianic religious right-wing segment of the population that has gained a lot of power in Israeli politics—will it succeed in accomplishing its aims: the mass expulsion of Palestinians and annexation of the great majority of the West Bank? It’s not enough for them to have Palestinians living in enclaves. They want more.”

It is this overall attitude that explains the ability of Israeli Jews to feel little or no obligation to help Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to maintain their health care systems or provide Covid-19 vaccinations. The act of official segregation has not diminished Israeli control, only any acceptance of Israeli responsibility.

Conclusion

History is full of tragic irony. At the end of the 19th century Germany was considered one of the most civilized nations on the planet. One world war and a Great Depression later, many Germans were electing Nazis and gearing up for the Holocaust. Up until the mid-20th century, the Jewish people were considered peace-loving and a reservoir of brilliant minds. One Holocaust later, many of them, both survivors and those in the diaspora, had joined a Zionist movement determined to create a racist warrior state.

Over time we become products of our local environment. That environment narrows our range of thought and choice. When the environment changes, those who endure change with it, not always for the best. The Holocaust traumatized its survivors, and some of them went on to produce “a nation-state for the Jewish people.” They might have pulled this off benignly if they had done so on some unpopulated planet. However, they chose Palestine in an allusion to biblical Israel—a disingenuous choice given that most Zionists were atheists. Palestine was not an unpopulated place, and thus, today, over 20 percent of Israel’s population is not Jewish.

The fact that Palestinians have no nationality rights means, historically, that their possession of any other sort of rights is precarious. They are like the Jews in any number of anti-Semitic historical circumstances—a fact that seems to have escaped our modern-day Hebrews.

It didn’t have to be this way. As a species we have a very wide range of experience, and with the proper historical awareness we can broaden out our current decision-making beyond the dictates of our local environment. In fact, after World War II some Jews tried to do just this. Even through the trauma of the Holocaust, they could see that the goal of a Jewish state in Palestine meant war with the indigenous population. Their own sense of the Jewish past told them that there were alternatives. These people were known as “cultural Zionists,” and they sought a democratic, equalitarian Palestine as a shared, multicultural home that guaranteed the protection and continuing development of Jewish cultural heritage, alongside those of Muslims and Christians. Palestine could have become a “spiritual” home for the Jews, with generous though controlled immigration opportunities. It was a possible peaceful route to Jewish recovery after the Holocaust.

Whatever one might think of this alternative, it was never seriously considered by those “political” Zionists convinced by persistent anti-Semitism that the survival of the Jews could only come through having their own nation-state. This path combined an evolving Jewish nationalism with a racist exclusiveness (the “chosen people” claim) that also ran through Jewish history. Zionists ignored that part of their historical reality, and today’s Apartheid Israel, along with its insistence that Judaism and Zionism are synonymous, is the result. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA.

ASYLUM SEEKER CONCENTRATION CAMP IN PRESTON - AND OTHER CONCENTRATION CAMPS AROUNDTHE WORLD

Photo on front page of Preston Leader (now closed down) on 10 MARCH 2020

Hotel hell for refugees

No freedom in sight for asylum seekers at Mantra Bell City

By Richard Pearce, Preston Leader, 10 March 2020

The 55 asylum seekers detained in Preston’s Mantra Bell City for 7 months have had no sign of impending freedom, despite increasing public support for their release.

The men were brought to Australia from Manus Island and Nauru, some having spent up to six years offshore.

But seven months later there is no sign they will be returned or released, leaving them in permanent purgatory inside the 4-star hotel.

The men have received great community backing, with more than 100 people turning up to Bell Mantra on 29 February to show their support, holding signs calling for compassion and their immediate release. The refugees are being housed in 27 rooms, taking up an entire floor of one wing of the hotel.

The Leader has estimated the cost over 223 days, at $160 a night, to be $963,360.

Social media posts have also detailed an extensive guard presence, with rooms checked about three times a day.

The asylum seekers were brought here under the Medevac Bill, a piece of legislation allowing refugees access to healthcare as long as they had recommendations from two Australian doctors.

They would have been released into the community after treatment but that legislation was repealed in December last year, leaving their fate in the hands of the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton.

Refugee Action Collective spokesman Chris Breen said while the idea of staying in a hotel might seem like a holiday, there was no mistaking the men were prisoners.

“It’s become a place of torture”, he said.

“They can’t open the windows to get air. They’re stuck inside 19 hours a day.”

“The only way they can get exercise at all is if they request to go back to Broadmeadows Detention Centre.”

Some of the men have used social media to seek support for their cause.

“We have been locked up in hotels by the Australian Government,” Kurdish musician Moz Azimi wrote on Twitter.

An Australian Border Force spokesperson said detainees transferred to Australia for medical treatment were expected to be returned afterwards.

The spokesperson said decisions to place detainees in hotels or other forms of accommodation were determined case-by-case.

They refused to answer when the asylum seekers would be released.

The Department for Home Affairs and Bell City Mantra were contacted for comment.

This photo was provided by Gary Jaynes on 30 JUNE 2020 and the middle column of the wall obliterates the bottom word on the banner. The banner reads:

"FREE REFUGEES FROM MANTRA THEY ARE NOT CRIMINALS"

Demonstration in Bell Street, Preston, outside Mantra Hotel in support of Asylum Seekers incarcerated in one of the concentration camps in Australia

Photos by Gary Jaynes 4 JULY 2020

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My Article submitted to Overland, but not accepted for publication

18 March 2020
SOUTH AFRICA - APARTHEID POLICE STATE; AUSTRALIA - APARTHEID POLICE STATE; ISRAEL - APARTHEID POLICE STATE
"HOTEL HELL FOR REFUGEES" Headline on front page of Preston Leader on Tuesday 10 March 2020 (This is a Murdoch paper!!! )

Whatever happened to our so-called democracies?

Starting with South Africa, the world waited with bated breath for dramatic changes when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of a united South Africa and possibly the end of apartheid - and the police state.

Mandela retired after his first and only 5-year term as president - he was, of course, quite elderly by then and after the criminally hard life he had had in South Africa's infamously dreadful prison on Robben Island, he rightly thought a younger generation should govern for South Africa.

He wrongly favoured Thabo Mbeki who was disastrous during his periods as president because he was an AIDS denier to the extent that even today, a few presidents later, HIV/AIDS still presents a major health challenge for the South African people.

A little later Jacob Zuma became president and corruption set in, with disastrous results for the economy and all other facets of South African life.

One of the disasters of this period was the Marikana massacre of many miners who had gone on strike because of the murderous mismanagement of the company owning certain mines.

The person who is now the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was apparently the person who ordered the police and the army to open fire on the miners. In an earlier incarnation he had been the president of the organisation Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Then he became a business man and also very rich.

Disaster all the way, and the rich got richer and the poor poorer - if possble - and South Africa still remains a mess - in 2020.

I arrived in Australia from South Africa in 1978, hoping apartheid and police state would not be as bad as in South Africa.

Idle hope! After all, apartheid started in Australia on 26 January 1788 and the nature of the British colonisation of Australia was that it was already a police state. Instead of improving over the years, the police state has intensified to the extent that asylum seekers managing to get to Australia - escaping mostly from brutal regimes around the world and arriving here to ask for asylum, hoping to have peace in their lives, are locked up in concentration camps from which escape is virtually impossible.

Some slightly more humanitarian politicians - and they are few and far between in Australia - managed to pass legislation to bring refugees to Australia from the concentration camps on Manus and Nauru for medical treatment. This legislation was overturned by the government as soon as it was possible, and 55 asylum seekers have been locked up in a Mantra Hotel in Preston in Melbourne for the last 8 months with no chance of any relief in sight and no hope of change from a government and opposition determined to follow a police state mentality of locking people in concentration camps and throwing away the keys.

What is mostly ignored by most white Australians and many migrants in the last 200 years or so is that the indigenous inhabitants of this ancient country are still treated like savages in their own land and they are imprisoned at alarming rates where they are also suffering deaths in custody by a brutal police regime determinedly maintained by the police state governments of the country.

Some of those of us who have experienced the 'joys' of living in a police state despair of any changes in Australia because so many people behave like sheep and also can - or won't be bothered with making any sorts of protests and leaving the rest of us with that hopeless feeling that there is never going to be any changes - ever!

At the age of 93 I thought I had seen and experienced most of the worst aspects of human nature but the longer I live the worse it gets - and I haven't spoken about Israel yet.

Israel is not only a police state, but one with fascist tendencies. Israelis resent being compared to the Nazis but most of what they are doing to keep the Palestinians under control is to keep them incarcerated in their concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank on land stolen from them by the zionist settlers. Even those Palestinians who were and are in Israel as citizens of their own land are treated like second or third class citizens without full citizens' rights because the zionist project is to occupy the rest of Palestine which has some old Jewish names - Judea and Samaria - for them called after some of the old tribal groups of a few thousand years ago.

Israel wants a Jewish state and if that is what they want, Israel under no circumstances can be called a democracy - it hasn't been that for most of its existence - but a theocracy similar to Iran and other similar religious states.

.........and Israel is the propagator of much of the anti-semitism in the world in the 21st century.
Posted by Mannie De Saxe at 4:12 PM
Labels: anti-semitism, apartheid, apartheid South Africa, Australia, democracy, Israel, police states, South Africa, theocracy

04/05/2020 (2 months ago)

SOUTH AFRICA - APARTHEID POLICE STATE; AUSTRALIA - APARTHEID POLICE STATE; ISRAEL - APARTHEID POLICE STATE

HOTEL HELL FOR REFUGEES

Headline on front page of Preston Leader on Tuesday 10 March 2020 (This is a Murdoch paper!!! )

Whatever happened to our so-called democracies?

Starting with South Africa, the world waited with bated breath for dramatic changes when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of a united South Africa and possibly the end of apartheid - and the police state.

Mandela retired after his first and only 5-year term as president - he was, of course, quite elderly by then and after the criminally hard life he had had in South Africa's infamously dreadful prison on Robben Island, he rightly thought a younger generation should govern for South Africa.

He  wrongly favoured Thabo Mbeki who was disastrous during his periods as president because he was an AIDS denier to the extent that even today, a few presidents later, HIV/AIDS still presents a major health challenge for the South African people.

A little later Jacob Zuma became president and corruption set in, with disastrous results for the economy and all other facets of South African life.

One of the disasters of this period was the Marikana massacre of many miners who had gone on strike because of the murderous mismanagement of the company owning certain mines.

The person who is now the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was apparently the person who ordered the police and the army to open fire on the miners. In an earlier incarnation he had been the president of the organisation Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Then he became a business man and also very rich.

Disaster all the way, and the rich got richer and the poor poorer - if possble -  and South Africa still remains a mess - in 2020.

I arrived in Australia from South Africa in 1978, hoping apartheid and police state would not be as bad as in South Africa.

Idle hope! After all, apartheid started in Australia on 26 January 1788 and the nature of the British colonisation of Australia was that it was already a police state. Instead of improving over the years, the police state has intensified to the extent that asylum seekers managing to get to Australia - escaping mostly from brutal regimes around the world and arriving here to ask for asylum, hoping to have peace in their lives, are locked up in concentration camps from which escape is virtually impossible.

Some slightly more humanitarian politicians - and they are few and far between in Australia - managed to pass legislation to bring refugees to Australia from the concentration camps on Manus and Nauru for medical treatment.   This legislation was overturned by the government as soon as it was possible, and 55 asylum seekers have been locked up in a Mantra Hotel in Preston in Melbourne for the last 8 months with no chance of any relief in sight and no hope of change from a government and opposition determined to follow a police state mentality of locking people in concentration camps and throwing away the keys.

What is mostly ignored by most white Australians and many migrants in the last 200 years or so is that the indigenous inhabitants of this ancient country are still treated like savages in their own land and they are imprisoned at alarming rates where they are also suffering deaths in custody by a brutal police regime determinedly maintained by the police state governments of the country.

Some of those of us who have experienced the "joys" of living in a police state despair of any changes in Australia because so many people behave like sheep and also can - or won't be bothered with making any sorts of protests and leaving the rest of us with that hopeless feeling that there is never going to be any changes - ever!

At the age of 93 I thought I had seen and experienced most of the worst aspects of human nature but the longer I live the worse it gets - and I haven't spoken about Israel yet.

Israel is not only a police state, but one with fascist tendencies. Israelis resent being compared to the Nazis but most of what they are doing to keep the Palestinians under control is to keep them incarcerated in their concentration camps in Gaza and the West Bank on land stolen from them by the zionist settlers. Even those Palestinians who were and are in Israel as citizens of their own land are treated like second or third class citizens without full citizens' rights because the zionist project is to occupy the rest of Palestine which has some old Jewish names - Judea and Samaria - for them called after some of the old tribal groups of a few thousand years ago.

Israel wants a Jewish state and if that is what they want, Israel under no circumstances can be called a democracy - it hasn't been that for most of its existence - but a theocracy similar to Iran and other  similar religious states.

.........and Israel is the propagator of much of the anti-semitism in the world in the 21st century.

Op-Ed

South Africa, Apartheid, Crimes against humanity and the Rule of Law: Quo Vadis?

By Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh• 21 February 2020

Former president FW de Klerk looks on as the EFF raises points of order in Parliament during President Cyril Ramaphosa's State of the Nation Address. The EFF demanded that de Klerk be removed from the national assembly before allowing Ramaphosa to continue with his address. 13 February 2020. (Photo: Leila Dougan) Less

South Africa is a young democracy, but the unfinished business of apartheid remains a pressing priority for the state. South Africa’s embarrassing and often unlawful stance on international crimes has received worldwide attention.

Apartheid (Afrikaans for “separateness”) describes the system that committed acts of racial discrimination, oppression, mass violence and murder in order to protect the white supremacy in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with former President Nelson Mandela made an unfortunate appearance on TV where he stated that apartheid was not a crime against humanity. While the damage had already been done, the FW de Klerk Foundation further amplified this with a statement on 14 February stating that the idea that apartheid was a crime against humanity was an idea propagated by communist political propaganda. 

As a result of the brouhaha, the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) seek to rescind the Nobel Peace Prize from De Klerk. Interestingly, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has never considered rescinding the prize from any Nobel Laureate. Even though both statements were subsequently retracted, questions remain about where South Africa stands in terms of its fight against impunity for international crimes and on reconciliation.

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) stands with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in its declaration that it is irresponsible for the FW De Klerk Foundation to debate the degree of the awfulness of apartheid. We recognise that the offending statement has been withdrawn, but such offensive sentiments have no place in democratic South Africa. We question the relevance and utility of the FW de Klerk Foundation as a nation-building entity. 

Apartheid is a Crime against Humanity

The crime of “crimes against humanity” covers various offences including murder, enslavement, rape as well as the crime of apartheid. The fact of those offences having a connection to a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population is what makes them a crime against humanity. Not only does apartheid constitute a separate offence under the crime of “crimes against humantity; but also a brutal system of oppression that qualifies as a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population. International law recognised apartheid as a crime against humanity from the mid-1950s onwards. The United Nations General Assembly regularly condemned apartheid as contrary to the Charter of the United Nations from 1952 until 1990; and it was regularly condemned by the United Nations Security Council after 1960. In 1966, the UN General Assembly labelled apartheid as a crime against humanity, condemning the policies of apartheid practised by the Government of South Africa as a crime against humanity which was later endorsed by Security Council.

In 1973, The Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid was adopted and codified that apartheid was not only unlawful because it violated the Charter of the United Nations but also declared apartheid to be criminal. Today, apartheid constitutes a separate crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. South Africa implemented the Rome Statute by passing domestic legislation with The Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act which came into effect on 16 August 2002. This long-standing history of the recognition of crimes against humanity and the crime of apartheid in international law serve as the legal basis to prosecute crimes committed by the apartheid system in the 1970s and 1980s and beyond.

Why does the characterisation of Apartheid as Crime against Humanity matter?

Ahmed Timol, Steve Biko and Neil Aggett are the well known names of persons that died in police custody during apartheid. There are many more who were persecuted, discriminated against, abducted, disappeared and tortured. Ahmed Timol’s murder took place 48 years ago. This long duration of time is one of the reasons why a characterisation of apartheid as a crime against humanity is so crucial. The recognition of apartheid as crime against humanity allows the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to initiate investigations and prosecutions into alleged crimes that were conducted as part of the apartheid system such as the persecution of black people or the torture of anti-apartheid activists in detention. The South African Criminal Procedure Act explicitly states that there is no time limitation to initiate prosecutions for crimes against humanity. Even a single murder can suffice to meet the legal requirements of a crime against humanity. 

Another aspect of the importance to characterise apartheid as a crime against humanity is to show the systematic and/or widespread nature of this system that negatively affected the lives of thousands of South Africans. While crimes against humanity do entail an individual criminal liability, the nexus to a widespread and/or systematic attack against any civilian population shows that the alleged offence was not only the wrongdoing of one individual person but rather by a comprehensive system. In pursuit of truth and national healing, we need to see justice and accountability for all the people murdered, tortured and disappeared by the apartheid government. Prosecutions play a significant role in the healing process of a nation. Catergorising  apartheid as a criminal system of oppression and discrimination is not only important for the current discourse, but also for future generations who might not have the benefit of contemporary witnesses and testimony.

How does South Africa enforce its international obligations in respect of crimes against humanity and other international crimes ? 

South Africa is a young democracy, but the unfinished business of apartheid remains a pressing priority for the state. South Africa’s embarrassing and often unlawful stance on international crimes has received worldwide attention. While the NPA starts investigating and prosecuting cases like the disappearance of anti-apartheid activist Nokuthula Simelane (trial to commence in October 2020), Ahmed Timol or Neil Aggett, there is still a long way to go in order to fight against impunity of individuals in the former security branch of the apartheid system. With regards to the persons who are charged with or have been convicted of international crimes, the South African government has shown an unwillingness  to either prosecute domestically or arrest for hand over to other states or the International Criminal Court for prosecutions. South Africa’s refusal in 2015 to arrest former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during his attendance of an African Union Summit in Johannesburg is a stark reminder of the country’s willingness to facilitate impunity and disrespect for the rule of law. Al Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The case of the former head of Rwandan intelligence, Kayumba Nyamwasa, from June 2010 is another situation where South Africa shielded a person implicated in the commission of egregious crimes and is the subject of various extradition requests by granting him refugee status. Nyamwasa continues to reside in South Africa. Dutch war criminal Guus Kouwenhoven has been convicted for complicity in war crimes during the presidency of Charles Taylor in Liberia. The Netherlands requested Kouwenhoven’s extradition in December 2017 so that he can serve his 19-year sentence. South Africa issued him with a visa and he continues to reside in Cape Town. 

The fight against impunity for international crimes requires a solid legal basis. In the case of apartheid, this foundation has been prepared by a long history of international condemnation, codification and classification as crime against humanity. However, this foundation is only the first step.

The inaction of the NPA to pursue individuals who were not granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is unfortunate. The South African government’s resistance and reluctance to prosecute or extradite international criminals illustrates how crucial the implementation and application of existing domestic and international law continues to be. South Africa’s ongoing attempts to withdraw from the International Criminal Court is a display of contempt for accountability and the rule of law. This points to a catastrophic failure of leadership. DM

Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh is Executive Director, Southern Africa Litigation Centre

From the Daily Maverick - Imraan Buccus • 2 February 2020

Remembering Neil Aggett – and others who fought apartheid from outside the ANC

 

The inquest into the death of Neil Aggett is, as with the previous inquest into the death of Ahmed Timol, a most welcome development. This is not just because it raises the possibility of justice for Timol, Aggett and the many others who lost their lives under a brutal state. The renewed attention on Aggett, as we approach the anniversary of his death, is also welcome because it brings forms of leftism and anti-apartheid commitment outside of the ANC to public attention.

 

For a long time, the history of resistance to apartheid was told as if the ANC had liberated South Africa on its own. There was a particular focus on the Robben Islanders and the more or less completely failed attempt to organise a military strategy from exile. The history of the trade unions and the United Democratic Front (UDF) was constantly pushed to the margins. The same marginalisation was true of other liberation movements, such as the Pan African Congress and Azapo.

 From time to time, as we witness the descent into kleptocracy, it is suggested that we replace the figure of Nelson Mandela with Steve Biko or Robert Sobukwe. Biko and Sobukwe are certainly giants in our history and there is much to learn from them.

But there are also many other figures who have not been given their historical due. Harris Dousemetzis’s fascinating 2018 book, The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas, has an unfortunately overblown title. But it’s a work of impressive research that shows Tsafendas has had a raw deal from our written history and needs to be given a comprehensive reassessment.
The 2012 republication of Emma Mashinini’s autobiography brought another marginal figure to the centre of public attention. Mashinini, who died in 2017, was an important trade unionist and deserves much more consistent public attention.

There are also plenty of important struggle veterans who have not received the biography that they deserve. Phyllis Naidoo, who spent her life in the ANC, Richard Turner, the academic and trade unionist, Victoria Mxenge, the UDF lawyer, and Alfred Temba Qabulua, the poet and trade unionist, were all towering figures in Durban and richly deserve proper biographical attention. In Johannesburg, names such as Abu Baker Asvat, who was known as “the people’s doctor”, David Webster, the academic, and Mthuli ka Shezi, the playwright, immediately come to mind. In Cape Town, figures such as UDF leader Johnny Issel and Mama Yanta, the first chairperson of the Crossroads Women’s Committee of the 1970s, come to mind.

If we had a much richer sense of our history and of some of the personalities who rose up to challenge apartheid we’d also have a much richer history of ideas. That would give us a lot more space and freedom, as well as more tools, to debate the present.

We’ve slipped into a dangerous situation in which the struggle against apartheid, and the left more broadly, are both associated with an organisation that is in profound moral and political crisis. It is often assumed that the rot in the ANC has delegitimised all forms of progressive politics and that the only alternative to the ANC’s kleptocracy is full-throttle neoliberalism.

But if we had a better awareness of the history of the progressive movement in our country, and the ideas of intellectuals such as Neville Alexander, Richard Turner and many others who worked outside the ANC, we’d know that the progressive movement is far bigger and richer than the history of the ANC in prison and in exile. It would then be easy to oppose both the kleptocratic and the neoliberal elements in the ANC and to offer viable solutions for moving beyond this narrow binary.

When it comes to Neil Aggett, we’ve been particularly well-served by Beverley Naidoo’s extraordinarily accomplished 2012 biography. Naidoo’s beautifully written biography of Aggett is, in terms of its sheer literary quality, up there with Mark Gevisser’s biography of Thabo Mbeki as a truly great work.

Naidoo gives a real sense of Aggett as a person, of the radical milieu in which he moved with people such as Emma Mashanini and Johnny Clegg, as well as the politics of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

 In the wake of the Durban strikes in 1973, many young intellectuals joined the growing trade union movement. Aggett began his professional life as a doctor, working in Soweto and Tembisa, and learning some Zulu. But at the same time, he began working to support the trade union movement and by 1981 was a trusted and respected figure in the Food and Canning Workers’ Union.

Like many of the intellectuals who joined the trade union movement, Aggett was inspired by the ideas of the anti-Stalinist new left, kept some autonomy from the ANC, and had a vision of a future society in which the black working class was not simply instrumentalised by the elites in the national liberation movements, but sustained its own independent power.

At the time there were brutal debates between people who took this position, often labelled as “workerists”, and others, who were often described as “populists”, who thought that all the organs of popular power should be subordinated to the ANC. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it is now obvious that the so-called workerists were correct and that vesting all power in the ruling party was a road to disaster. The trade unions should have retained some independence from the ANC and the UDF should have done the same.

Famously, the mass protest after Aggett’s death in detention was the first time that all the black trade unions came out together and laid the basis for the solidarity that would later be formalised with the launch of Cosatu in 1985. To this day, in Cosatu and in Saftu, Aggett’s name is revered by the progressives in the trade union movement and he continues to serve as a model for how a principled middle-class activist can commit to working to build popular democratic power among the oppressed.

Aggett’s patient, self-denying and democratic form of activism is a world apart from the frequently nauseating self-promotion on social media that so often passes for activism these days. We have much to learn from him and have been very well served by Naidoo’s superb biography. Hopefully, other figures from whom we also have a lot to learn, people such as Abu Baker Asvat, Johnny Issel, Alfred Temba Qabula and many others will also come to be remembered with the same care.

And hopefully, all the other activists whose deaths were never properly investigated will, finally, also get some sort of justice.  

DM

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A STUDY OF GENOCIDE, LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE. YOU WILL LEARN ENOUGH TO BE AWARDED A DOCTORATE AT MOST OF THE UNIVERSITIES AROUND THE WORLD!

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From CounterPunch  17 January  2020

Sealed Off and Forgotten: What You Should Know about Israel’s ‘Firing Zones’ in the West Bank

by Ramzy Baroud

Photograph Source: Soman – CC BY 2.5

A seemingly ordinary news story, published in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on January 7, shed light on a long-forgotten, yet crucial, subject: Israel’s so-called “firing zones” in the West Bank.

“Israel has impounded the only vehicle available to a medical team that provides assistance to 1,500 Palestinians living inside an Israeli military firing zone in the West Bank,” according to Haaretz.

The Palestinian community that was denied its only access to medical services is Masafer Yatta, a tiny Palestinian village located in the South Hebron hills.

Masafer Yatta, which exists in complete and utter isolation from the rest of the occupied West Bank, is located in ‘Area C’, which constitutes the larger territorial chunk, about 60%, of the West Bank.

This means that the village, along with many Palestinian towns, villages and small, isolated communities, is under total Israeli military control.

Do not let the confusing logic of the Oslo Accords fool you; all Palestinians, in all parts of the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the besieged Gaza Strip, are under Israeli military control as well.

Unfortunately for Masafer Yatta, and those living in ‘Area C’, however, the degree of control is so suffocating that every aspect of Palestinian life – freedom of movement, education, access to clean water, and so on – is controlled by a complex system of Israeli military ordinances that have no regard whatsoever for the well-being of the beleaguered communities.

It is no surprise, then, that Masafer Yatta’s only vehicle, a desperate attempt at fashioning a mobile clinic, was confiscated in the past as well, and was only retrieved after the impoverished residents were forced to pay a fine to Israeli soldiers.

There is no military logic in the world that could rationally justify the barring of medical access to an isolated community, especially when an Occupying Power like Israel is legally obligated under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure medical access to civilians living in an Occupied Territory.

It is only natural that Masafer Yatta, like all Palestinians in ‘Area C’ and the larger West Bank, feel neglected – and outright betrayed – by the international community as well as their own quisling leadership.

But there is more that makes Masafer Yatta even more unique, qualifying it for the unfortunate designation of being a Bantustan within a Bantustan, as it subsists in a far more complex system of control, compared to the one imposed on black South Africa during the Apartheid regime era.

Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, it devised a long-term stratagem aimed at the permanent control of the newly-occupied territories. While it designated some areas for the future relocation of its own citizens – who now make up the extremist illegal Jewish settler population in the West Bank – it also set aside large swathes of the Occupied Territories as security and buffer zones.

What is far less known is that, throughout the 1970s, the Israeli military declared roughly 18% of the West Bank as “firing zones”.

These “firing zones” were supposedly meant as training grounds for the Israeli occupation army soldiers – although Palestinians trapped in these regions often report that little or no military training takes place within “firing zones”.

According to the Office for the UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine, there are around 5,000 Palestinians, divided among 38 communities that still live, under most dire circumstances, within the so-called “firing zones”.

The 1967 occupation led to a massive wave of ethnic cleansing that saw the forced removal of approximately 300,000 Palestinians from the newly-conquered territory. Many of the vulnerable communities that were ethnically cleansed included Palestinian Bedouins, who continue to pay the price for Israel’s colonial designs in the Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and other parts of occupied Palestine.

This vulnerability is compounded by the fact that the Palestinian Authority (PA) acts with little regards to Palestinians living in ‘Area C’, who are left to withstand and resist Israeli pressures alone, often resorting to Israel’s own unfair judicial system, to win back some of their basic rights.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli government, divided the West Bank into three regions: ‘Area A’, theoretically under autonomous Palestinian control and consisting of 17.7% of the overall size of the West Bank; ‘Area B’, 21%, and under shared Israeli-PA control and ‘Area C’, the remainder of the West Bank, and under total Israeli control.

This arrangement was meant to be temporary, set to conclude in 1999 once the “final status negotiations” were concluded and a comprehensive peace accord was signed. Instead, it became the status quo ante.

As unfortunate as the Palestinians living in ‘Area C’ are, those living in the “firing zone” within ‘Area C’ are enduring the most hardship. According to the United Nations, their hardship includes “the confiscation of property, settler violence, harassment by soldiers, access and movement restrictions and/or water scarcity.”

Expectedly, many illegal Jewish settlements sprang up in these “firing zones” over the years, a clear indication that these areas have no military purpose whatsoever, but were meant to provide an Israeli legal justification to confiscate nearly a fifth of the West Bank for future colonial expansion.

Throughout the years, Israel ethnically cleansed all remaining Palestinians in these “firing zones”, leaving behind merely 5,000, who are likely to suffer the same fate should the Israeli occupation continue on the same violent trajectory.

This makes the story of Masafer Yatta a microcosm of the tragic and larger story of all Palestinians. It is also a reflection of the sinister nature of Israeli colonialism and military occupation, where occupied Palestinians lose their land, their water, their freedom of movement and eventually, even the most basic medical care.

These harsh “conditions contribute to a coercive environment that creates pressure on Palestinian communities to leave these areas,” according to the United Nations. In other words, ethnic cleansing, which has been Israel’s strategic goal all along.

More articles by:Ramzy Baroud

 

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.

BDS = BOYCOTT DIVESTMENT SANCTIONS

Boycott, Divestment,Sanctions - BDS - these were amongst the most useful tools in bringing down the South African apartheid police state in 1994.

South Africa saw the installation of that country's first black president in 1994 after a few hundred years of apartheid, and unfortunately much of South Africa's governance has gone downhill since Mandela retired in 1999.

Corruption, mismanagement, managerial appointment inadequacies, and ineptness, many of South Africa's problems in the year 2020 will have been because of unsatisfactory mis-direction. With all its problems, the country's post-apartheid constitution is one of the most progressive in the western world, and gives hope for the country to be able to progress beyond the disasters of the past 20 years.

So many other parts of the world have disastrous governments, or dictators or corrupt politicians that BDS could well be applied to them to help bring about change. Israel's apartheid military control over Palestine and the Palestinians has seen the Palestinians endeavours to obtain help from the rest of the world with BDS as their most useful tool to date.

Now contemplate if BDS were used against 3 of those who are Israel's greatest supporters in maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israelis - the UK, the USA and Australia - or to put it another way - Boris, Donald, Scott, or BDS.

David Everett (1770-1813) wrote:

"Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow (Lines written for a School Declamation)"

This is how to bring about change in countries around the world.

From CounterPunch 27 July 2018

Ocasio-Cortez, Palestine and Occupation

by Robert Fantina

Photo by young shanahan | CC BY 2.0

A slight glimmer of hope appeared on the dismal Democratic Party horizon in June when newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term Congressman Joe Crowley in New York’s fourteenth Congressional district. Outspent but not out-maneuvered, Ocasio-Cortez won the primary in a landslide.

Unlike her AIPAC (American Israel Political Affairs Committee)-owned primary opponent, Ocasio-Cortez has been critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestine and Palestinians. For generations this has been a complete no-no within Democratic Party circles (as unqualified support for that apartheid nations remains an article of faith for the Republican Party), but the last several months have seen cracks in the Israeli veneer. Yet Ocasio-Cortez has been the strongest in her condemnation.

In an interview following her victory, Ocasio-Cortez was taken to task for referring to the situation in Palestine as an occupation. Her questioner demanded to know just what she meant. Admitting that she wasn’t an expert on the topic, she referred to the illegal settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Well! One would think she committed the worst kind of blasphemy known to man. Zionists everywhere are condemning her use of the vile word ‘occupation’ to describe Israel’s actions in Palestine. She is being pilloried for conceding that she wasn’t an expert on every topic under the sun, unlike so many politicians who are willing to wax eloquently and endlessly on topics about which they know nothing. And this very topic, the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel, is one on which many of them know very little, their knowledge colored by how much AIPAC donates to them, and about which they feel free to speak.

It seems that Israel and its many Zionist (read: racist) followers are now trying to deny reality; this isn’t surprising, since U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are best buds, and Trump barely has a nodding acquaintance with reality, and Netanyahu is happy to take whatever advantage he can of Trump and the U.S. It seems that now Israel is denying that it occupies Palestine.

Let us look at the situation in the context of international law. Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations states the following: “a territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.”

Now we will look at the situation in Palestine. Israel’s army controls every aspect of life in the West Bank. Palestinians have their movements restricted; they cannot farm their fields without Israel permission, go to work without Israeli permission, attend school, visit family or friends, or generally move about without Israeli permission. Palestinians are subject to arrest and detention without charge at the whim of Israel soldiers/terrorists.

The Gaza Strip, separated from the West Bank, is completely controlled by the hostile Israeli army. It is blockaded on all sides by land, sea and air. Imports and exports are heavily restricted by Israel. It is extremely rare for a resident of Gaza to be able to leave the strip, even to visit family or friends in the West Bank.

Does this not, even to the untrained eye, look like occupation?

As long as we are looking at ugly concepts, let’s chat for a moment about apartheid. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid describes these conditions as constituting that particular crime: “… inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” We will look at some of the specifics from the International Convention, and comment on them in relation to Israel and Palestine. While this is only a partial list, a review of the complete list would only enhance one’s belief that Israel is an apartheid regime.

“Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of Person.”

Israeli soldiers and settlers, living illegally on stolen Palestinian land, routinely kill Palestinians. Palestinians have been shot in the back, run over by vehicles, shot while attending the wounded or reporting on Israel’s actions. Palestinians are routinely arrested and held indefinitely, often without charge.

“By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Where does one start? Palestinian children report physical and sexual abuse in Israel’s prisons, where they should never be in the first place. Farmers are often only granted permission to plant or harvest crops, long after the season for planting or harvesting has passed. Palestinian homes in the West Bank are raided in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers, with the houses ransacked, valuable goods within them stolen, and any and all males over the age of 12 taken in to custody.

“Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part.”

In the West Bank, Palestinians are driven from their homes to make room for illegal, Israeli-only housing settlements. In the Gaza Strip, food is restricted such that Palestinians live just above starvation. Import and export restrictions cause severe unemployment, and lack of medical supplies. Periodic bombing of the Gaza Strip leaves tens of thousands of people homeless, and Israel forbids the importing of construction materials, so Palestinians are unable to rebuild.

“Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country.”

Israel recently passed a law declaring it a Jewish state; proposals to ensure equal rights for others living within its borders were defeated. Arabs and people of African descent living within Jerusalem are discriminated against in housing, education and employment.

“The deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”

Most of these have been covered earlier, but we will comment here on “the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association”. Starting in March, Palestinians peacefully protested at Israel’s border, demanding the internationally-granted right of return. Hundreds of demonstrators, including medics and members of the press, have been killed by Israeli snipers.

Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez isn’t an expert on the situation in Palestine, but that need not prevent her from speaking out against the injustices that she clearly sees. Neither should it prevent anyone from opposing arbitrary arrests of men, women and children without charge; land theft; killing with impunity and the many other crimes against humanity of which Israel is guilty.

As more and more organizations, including churches, businesses and labor unions, shun dealing with Israel; as more nations take action against its crimes, and as the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) movement chalks up success after success, Israel and its Zionist supports are desperate to retake the narrative that they controlled for so long. It isn’t working. Truth, justice, international law and human rights have been ignored by Israel and its U.S. sponsor for too long. The ‘alternate facts’ that Trump, Netanyahu and others of their ilk would have us hear are simply no longer acceptable.

More articles by:Robert Fantina

 

Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Pill Press).

DUTTON AND ABBOTT ON THE WARPATH - INVASION OF SOUTH AFRICA IMMINENT?

Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott must be two of the most ignorant racists in Australia and it proves beyond doubt - not that there was very much doubt before - that the award of Rhodes scholarships is absolutely meaningless, much as many Nobel prizes are.

In their ignorance - and racism - they have absolutely no idea about life in South Africa, let alone white South African farmers and who do they think is going to support their hair-brained scheme to get white farmers out of South Africa  and bring them to Australia to resettle them here.

The genocide of Abbott and Dutton in Australia continues apace, and if they think they will be able to create genocidal conditions in South Africa, they should think again.

Dutton has already been given too much power by Turnbull, who has shown that he is just as racist as his colleagues but does it all in a more subdued and subtle way.

Apartheid has always been alive and  well in Australia, but Dutton and Abbott have just provided it with a new layer - interfering in the affairs of other countries.     South Africa is a very complex country with a very complex society, and both Dutton and Abbott will be in serious trouble if they start interfering in  the affairs of other countries.

Of course they are well practised with that as well, if you consider all the wars they have joined in where the affairs of other countries had nothing to do with Australia.

The cartoonist Zapiro in South Africa has cartoons regularly published in the online journal Daily Maverick from South Africa - an excellent paper actually - and some of Zapiro's cartoons over the years have been on a par with Tandberg's in Australia.

The cartoon below, by Zapiro, was published on 20 MARCH 2018 in the Daily Maverick and hits the jackpot:

The Peter Dutton one reads: "2018 Australia's PETER DUTTON - FAST TRACK VISAS FOR WHITE S.A. FARMERS".

AUSTRALIA AT WAR WITH SOUTH AFRICA? - IT'S NOT CRICKET!

Peter Dutton, as ever, doesn't know what he is talking about, and his racism does a great disservice to the government he is supposedly part of. I thought, in my innocence, that Julie Bishop was the foreign minister and Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister, and it was therefore their portfolios which dictated foreign policy.

Dutton, of course, knows nothing about South Africa and its history, and why should he anyway when he is a minister in a racist apartheid state anyway.

What is pathetic is that he is offering white South African farmers a haven in Australia - many white South African and Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) farmers came to live in Australia to escape their black countries and to live in apartheid Australia anyway.

It is rather pathetic at a time in world history where there is so much upheaval and we have so much room to give people sanctuary from murderous regimes that when some of these people fleeing manage to get to Australia, this government sends them back to the countries they escaped from where they are more than likely to lose their lives, because - and wait for it - they are black, or brown, or some other colour which is not white.

Apartheid is odious, and as a South African who grew up in apartheid South Africa, lived there for 51 years, and then came to live in apartheid Australia for the last 40 years, thinking I had escaped apartheid in South Africa, only to discover it was very much alive and well and living in Australia, and now at 91 I am too old to go anywhere.

Australia being an apartheid state supports other apartheid states such as Israel, the USA, the UK and others because they have to support white regimes.

Dutton wishes to control Australia and become a petty dictator, and it is time Malcolm Turnbull shut him up. He is divisive and cruel and does harm at every turn. He needs to be removed from his position in the cabinet instead of having his portfolio going from strength to strength.

Enough is enough!

The following letters were in The Age newspaper on 16 March 2018:

Refugees: Tamils, living here as second-class citizens

Updated16 March 2018 

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has offered to "fast track" applications from white farmers in South Africa to resettle in Australia. This seems a generous act which recognises that they are being murdered at the rate of one a week and are in danger of having their land confiscated. But how do we explain Mr Dutton's feelings for these white South Africans compared with his feelings for the darker skinned, Sri Lankan Tamils who also face deprivation of their land, torture and murder? Members of this group live as second-class citizens in Australia, in daily fear of the "KGB-style", 5am knock on their doors, and forced repatriation at the hands of our government to whatever fate awaits them.

Geraldine Moore, Bayside Refugee Advocacy & Support Association, Hampton

Varying degrees of who deserves our protection

We keep asylum seekers languishing in offshore detention, turn a blind eye to Syrian refugees who are trapped in protracted unrest and fear, yet offer to fast track white, South African farmers. This is a new low for Peter Dutton and our standing as a society.

Lisa Blanch, North Balwyn

The Rohingya aren't white like the South Africans

Peter Dutton is keen to offer visas to white South African farmers who are facing violence and land seizures. What about the Rohingya farmers who also facing violence and land seizures? But they are not white, are they?

Tony Harris, Ocean Grove

Our double standard on who is an 'over stayer'

Let me get this right. A Tamil, asylum-seeking couple with two Australian-born children, residents for five years in a Queensland country town, are arrested in the dead of night and locked up to await forcible deportation, despite having received an assurance of renewed visas (Comment, 14/3). Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people on student and tourist visas "over stay" but are left in peace. It is gob-smacking. Bill Shorten, where are you?

Jill Sanguinetti, East Brunswick

Please, Minister, show us your human side for once

Dear Peter Dutton. With all respect, I must tell you that I am very worried about you. You must be extremely unhappy. Whenever you are plotting yet another drastic intervention, such as the one with the Tamil family this week, it must be so hard to sleep at night. Your actions, attitudes, and – here is that word again – values are disturbing and un-Australian. They are also inhumane. How these things must trouble you, as you reflect on the despair that you create in the lives of those who are already deeply traumatised.

I have an idea that might help you, sir. Did you know that a single act of compassion can put you in touch with your own humanity? No? Well, it really can. Many Australians yearn, indeed, pray for the day when you will try that simple thing. Just for once, show us the compassionate Peter Dutton.

Jacob de Ridder, Rosanna

Many of us will not look away from this cruelty

How did it come to this ("Family's treatment is our shame")? And who carries out these instructions from the government? Peter Dutton, how can you ask Australian citizens to behave in such cruel and insensitive ways? Thank you, Clementine Ford. We will not look away.

Geoff and Gillian Senior, Camperdown

Dutton's warped set of priorities

Peter Dutton offers white South Africans, who might lose their farms, safe haven, but blocks legitimate refugees who might lose their lives. It is good to see that he has his priorities sorted.

Jack Morris, Kennington

The more we hear about Israel, the more those of us who are South Africans and lived in that police state for many of the apartheid years see that not only is Israel an apartheid state, it is also guilty of one of the major genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Not a day passes than the Israelis are committing more crimes against humanity - human rights abuses which stir our memories of the apartheid years and their follow up by "the only democracy in the middle east"!

From CounterPunch: 2 March 2018

Netanyahu’s Corruption: How Israeli Journalists Project Israel’s Crimes Onto Palestinians

by Ramzy Baroud

In an article published in Al-Monitor without a single verifiable citation, Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, went to unprecedented lengths to divert attention from the corruption in his country.

He spoke of Palestinian journalists – all speaking on condition of anonymity – who ‘applauded’ and ‘admired’ Israeli media coverage of corruption scandals surrounding the country’s rightwing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Eldar’s approach is underhanded and journalistically unsound.

The Israeli media, which has largely supported Netanyahu’s devastating wars on Gaza, continues to relentlessly defend the illegal occupation of Palestine and to serve as a shield for Israel’s stained reputation on the international stage. It is hardly praiseworthy, even if it arguably provides decent coverage for the Netanyahu investigations.

For an Israeli journalist to handpick a few Palestinians who, allegedly, praised the war crimes-apologist Israeli media is a remarkable event that surely cannot be satisfactorily addressed in anonymity.

But Eldar’s journalism aside, one would think that seeking Palestinian admiration for Israeli media should be the least urgent question to address at this time. Others are far more pressing. For example:

Is corruption among Israel’s political elite symptomatic of greater moral and other forms of corruption that have afflicted the entire society?

And, why is it that, while Netanyahu is being indicted for bri
bery, no Israeli official is ever indicted for war crimes against Palestinians?
In fact, well before Netanyahu’s corruption scandals included more serious charges – for instance, quid pro quo deals in which his advisors tried to manipulate media coverage in his favor and offering high political positions in exchange for favors – it included bribes pertaining to fancy cigars and expensive drinks.

What Israelis are trying to tell us is that, despite all of its problems, Israel is a good, transparent, law-abiding and democratic society.

This is precisely why Eldar wrote his article. The outcome was a familiar act of intellectual hubris that we have grown familiar with.

Eldar even cites a supposedly former Palestinian prisoner who told Al-Monitor that, while in prison, “we learned how the democratic election process works in Israel. The prisoners adopted the system in order to elect their leadership in a totally democratic fashion, while ensuring freedom of choice.”

Others cited their favorite Israeli journalist, some of whom have served and continue to serve as mouthpieces for official Israeli hasbara (propaganda).

Many of Israel’s friends in western governments and corporate media have also contributed to this opportunistic style of journalism; they come to the rescue when times are hard, to find ways to praise Israel and to chastise Palestinians and Arabs, even if the latter are not relevant to the discussion, whatsoever.

Who could ever forget US Senator John McCain’s criticism of his country’s torture of prisoners at the height of the so-called ‘war on terror’? His rationale was that such a war can be won without torture, because Israel ‘doesn’t torture’ and yet it is capable of combating ‘Palestinian terrorism’.

Thousands of Palestinians have been tortured, and hundreds were killed under duress in Israeli prisons, the last of whom was Yaseen Omar on the day when this article was written. Moreover, according to the Palestinians Prisoners’ Club, 60% of Palestinian children arrested by Israel are also tortured.

If Israeli media was truly honest in its depiction of Netanyahu’s corruption, it would have made a point of highlighting the extent to which corruption goes well beyond the prime minister, his wife and a few close confidantes, but this would pierce through the entire legal, political and business establishment rendering the system itself as rotten and corrupt.

Instead, the heart of the discussion is relocated somewhere else entirely. In Eldar’s article, for example, he quotes the anonymous Palestinian who speaks about how Palestinians prisoners “rejected the political systems of Arab states and opted for the one they had absorbed from the ‘Israeli enemy’.”

This Israeli obsession of diverting from the discussion is an old tactic. Whenever Israel is in the dock for whatever problem it has invited upon others or itself, it immediately fashions an Arab enemy to beat down, chastise and blame.

In the final analysis, somehow Israel maintains the upper hand and self-granted moral ascendency.

This is also why Israelis refer to their country as “the only democracy in the Middle East”. It is a defense mechanism to divert from the fact that apartheid, racially-structured political systems are inherently undemocratic. So, Israel resorts to belittling its neighbors to confirm its own self-worth.

When Israel facilitated and helped carry out the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in Lebanon in September 1982, it used the same logic to defend itself against media outrage.

The then Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was quoted as saying “the goyim kill goyim, and they blame the Jews.” By ‘they’ he meant the media.
The bottom line is always this: Israel is blameless no matter the hideousness of the act; it is superior and more civilized, and, according to Eldar’s selective reporting, even Palestinians know it.

But where is the outrage by Eldar and his Israeli media champions as thousands of black men and women are being caged in by Israeli police, ready for deportation, for committing the mortal sin of daring to escape war in their countries and seeking refuge in Israel?

How about the millions of besieged and subjugated Palestinians living a bitter existence under an inhumane military occupation?

Should not the Israeli media be targeting the very legal and political structures in their country that makes it okay to imprison a whole nation in defiance of international and human rights law?

In some strange way, corruption is one of few things that is truly normal about Israel, for it is a shared quality with every single country in the world.

What is not normal, and should never be normalized, is that Israel is the only country in the world that continues to practice Apartheid, many years after it was disbanded in South Africa.

Israeli media would rather delay that discussion indefinitely, a cowardly act that is neither admirable nor praiseworthy.

More articles by:Ramzy Baroud

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London). His website is: ramzybaroud.net