The
Real Israel
By Ghali Hassan
15 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
For its entire existence, Israel
has been portrayed as a “civilised” society with Western
“liberal democratic principles”, defended by “heroic”
army. Western media coverage has been bluntly biased in favour of Israel
regardless of the enormity of Israel’s war crimes and Israel’s
violations of international law and civilised norms. This Israel, however,
is a fabricated subject, rather than a reality. It is built on a fiction.
Decades-long vilification
and dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims by Western governments, the
inherently racist media and the Zionist entertainment industry of Hollywood
have conditioned successive generations of Westerners (and non-Westerners)
to blind anti-Arabs/anti-Muslims racist stereotypes. From the U.S. to
Europe and to Australia, the increasing persecution and alienation of
Muslims and Arabs have been legitimised through governments’ introduced
new laws and legislations singling out Arabs and Muslims. In addition,
Western governments are using the event of 9/11 and the “threat”
of terrorism to instill fear, encourage Islamophobia and secure public
assent to perpetuate war against Muslim and Arab nations.
In the U.S., the Zionists
influence – led by the pro-Israel Jewish lobby and the Christian
Zionists – on the U.S. media, educational system, political institutions,
and national psyche is total. For example, the Palestinians “are
almost completely dehumanised”, wrote the late Edward Said. However,
all Muslims, regardless of nationality bear the brunt of today’s
racism. According to a Washington Post poll taken in March 2006, a majority
of American citizens believe that, “Muslims, are disproportionately
prone to violence”. And so, the killing of Muslims, and the destruction
of their countries become more acceptable to Western public and neutralise
anti-war sentiments [1]. In other words, racism mobilises the public
behind war. I recount this racism because once again we face the rising
threat of a new and more powerful clone of Fascism.
By contrast, the “Israelis”
– Jews who live in Israel – are portrayed as “civilised”
and “peace-loving” people. Israeli soldiers, who deliberately
train to kill Palestinian school children and women, and use Palestinians
as human shield, are portrayed as “heroes”. Israeli war
crimes and crimes against humanity are not only covered-up in Western
media but also justified as “self-defence” operations. The
so-called “Jewish State” where 25 per cent of the population
live below the poverty line and the highest child poverty rate in capitalist
countries is called the “shining light on the hill”. The
high levels of corruption among Israeli politicians and military elites,
and the massive military aid provided by Western governments are taboos
in Western media.
Based on its current ideology
of a “Jewish-only State” and its brutal treatment of Palestinians,
Israel is an Apartheid
state [3, 4]. Although anti-Palestinians and anti-Arabs racism is endemic
to the militarised “Israeli society”, Israeli laws also
discriminate against any non-Jews. Even Jews are classified according
to their ethnicity, and Americans – Israel’s unquestionable
supporters – are considered “unworthy Gentiles”. In
fact, Israel is the only state where racial contempt and the ethnic
cleansing of all Palestinians is an official ideology [5], and has been
Israel’s formidable tool of occupation and expansion. Israel is
doing everything to normalised and legitimise this Fascist ideology.
Like Germany under Adolf
Hitler, Israel is meticulously pursuing genocide in Palestine. Israel
treats Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general as Untermenschen
[subhumans]. Israeli leaders consider all Palestinians (men, women and
children) as legitimate targets, and justify the daily murder of defenceless
Palestinians as “militants” and “terrorists”.
As during Fascism, Western media – with relentless efforts –
have normalised and legitimise Israel’s terror and brutality in
Western conscience. The illegal Israeli occupation of Arab lands, the
daily murder of innocent Palestinian civilians by Israeli occupation
forces, the destruction of vital civilian infrastructures, and the illegal
kidnappings, imprisonment and torture of Arabs are not considered grounds
for legitimate resistance. There are at least 10,000 Arab prisoners
(mostly Palestinians and Lebanese) in Israeli prisons; including hundreds
of women and children. Israel – backed by the U.S. and Western
governments – has a total monopoly on violence in the region.
While Israel is portrayed
as a “democracy”, Israel denies basic human rights to more
than 1.2 million (20 % of Israel’s population) “Israeli
Arabs” – Palestinians who remained within Israel’s
created boarders in 1948. As a “Jewish-only State”, Israel
abnegates the right of the Palestinian minority to national equality
based on the formula of “democratic” principles. In addition,
Israel is systematically dividing its Palestinian minority into separate
ethnic entities in order to assimilate them into “Israel society”
and removes Palestinian national identity. Israeli leaders and a large
majority of “Israelis” are in favour of ethnic cleansing
(‘transfer’) all Palestinians. The criminal and illegal
policy is continuing in different parts of Palestine, including Jerusalem
where, until recently, Palestinians made up the majority of the population
[2].
Furthermore, following HAMAS
victory in the January Palestinian legislative elections, Israel, backed
by the U.S. and the EU, imposed collective punishments on the entire
Palestinian population (in Gaza and the West Bank) in order to coerce
the population and undermine the democratically-elected HAMAS government,
on the fabricated pretext that the resistance and political movement
must renounce violence and recognise Israel. But when have Israel recognised
the Palestinians and renounced violence?
As I write theses lines,
Gaza, the largest Concentration Camp in history, continues to be under
siege and constant bombardments by the Israeli army. At least 250 Palestinian
civilians, 65 of them children and at least 30 of them women were killed
by the Israeli army since June 25, 2006. The 1.4 million Palestinian
prisoners in the Camp are on the verge of mass starvation. The siege
is part of Western governments’ collective punishment of the Palestinians
for practicing their democratic rights.
In addition, Israel has been
assassinating and kidnapping the democratically-elected leadership of
HAMAS. The aim of these illegal and criminal policies is to bring-down
the HAMAS government and to destroy the democratic aspirations of the
Palestinians. Accordingly, Palestinians have only one choice; to submit
to Israel’s terror and brutal occupation or risk being terrorised
and starved to death by a brutal force.
On his visit to Israel on
August 30, 2006, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has for the first time
argued Israel to stop the daily killing of innocent Palestinian civilians,
and has called on Israel to stop the indiscriminate shelling and bombing
of Gaza. “Two hundred Palestinians have been killed since the
end of June … This must stop immediately”, Annan said. “The
closure of Gaza must be lifted; the crossing points must be opened”,
he added. It is encouraging, but it was also ineffective and deceptive.
It is important to remember that Kofi Annan was in the Middle East to
serve Israel-U.S. interests at the expense of the Palestinians, and
Arabs in general.
Meanwhile in New York, the
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan
Egeland told reporters; “Gaza is a ticking time-bomb
… You can not seal off an area which is a little bit bigger than
the city of Stockholm and have 1.4 million people, of whom 800,000 are
youth and children and then have 200 artillery shells a day going in
there, virtually every day, seal off the borders … for people
to live or even humanitarian supplies to get in”. Egeland stopped
short of condemning Israel’s terror against the Palestinians.
Gaza is a concentration camp, almost completely cut off from the outside
world. The only difference between Gaza and the Concentration Camps
is that the Camps had electricity and water, Gaza has none.
In Lebanon, in addition to
the massive and indiscriminate destruction of the economy and civilian
infrastructures, large number of civilians, mostly women and children
were massacred by the Israeli army. At least 1500 Lebanese civilians,
a third of them children were massacred during the Israeli aggression,
and several thousands injured. The Nazis-like criminal attacks were
designed to break the will of the Lebanese people resisting Israel’s
terror. The U.S.-UK governments openly supported Israel’s war
crimes and purposefully delayed an immediate “ceasefire”,
preferring more bloodshed and destruction.
Just as the aim of U.S.-Israel
is to destroy HAMAS and the Palestinian will to resist the Israeli occupation,
the aim of the U.S.-Israel war on Lebanon is the destruction of Hizbullah
as a political and resistance movement against Israel’s terror
and the control of Lebanon. This U.S.-Israel ideology is flawed and
failed because ideological aims are not achieved by violence and terrorism.
Like HAMAS, Hizbullah is a grassroots organisation and is deeply embedded
in the Lebanese society.
For 34 days, Israel indiscriminately
dropped tonnes of U.S.-made bombs on Lebanon. The U.S. not only backed
Israel’s terror but continued shipping more bombs to Israel and
allowed Israel to destroy as much of Lebanon infrastructure and economy
in flagrant violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
In several Israeli attacks on Lebanese villages on the border with Israel,
the Israeli army ordered the population to leave their villages. Once
the people gathered their belongings and started leaving in trucks,
minibuses and cars, they were cowardly attacked by Israel’s “heroic”
army on open roads. Western media were quick to cover-up the atrocities
calling these war crimes “daring operations” and “surgical
strikes”.
Israel used terrorism openly
and deliberately without being held accountable for its actions. When
asked to justify Israel’s war crimes against innocent civilians
in Lebanon and Gaza, Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN
Daniel Carmon said; “We cannot for sure prove that
all the civilians in southern Lebanon were purely innocent civilian
… There is hardly any distinction between Hezbollah and the civilian
population … This whole region was a region in which you could
not make the distinction between one and the other”. Carmon rightly
defined Israel as a terrorist sate when he said; “Terrorism deliberately,
deliberately targets civilians, innocent civilians”. This has
been part of Israel’s racist ideology since its inception in 1948
on Palestinian land.
Unashamedly, Western leaders
and the mass media called Israel’s aggression and war crimes,
“legitimate Israel’s self-defence”, deliberately contradicting
reports by the UN, the Human Rights Watch (HRW)
and Amnesty International showing that Israeli forces were violating
humanitarian laws and deliberately targeted civilians and hence committed
war crimes and crimes against humanity.
To shield Israel from the
responsibility of war crimes and remove Israel’s crimes from historical
memory, an immediate international “donors” conference held
in Sweden on August 31, 2006. The conference was nothing more and nothing
less than a shameful propaganda and had nothing to do with “aid”
to Lebanon. Its aim was the removal of the suffering of Lebanese from
Western conscience. The “erosion of historical memory” is
very important in time of ongoing propaganda campaign to prepare the
public for another war, probably against Iran.
After allowing Israel to
completely and indiscriminately destroy Lebanon, the rich West pledged
$347 million (the EU promised $117 million and the U.S. $230 million)
in “aid” to build Lebanon. It is estimated that the destruction
of Lebanon economy and infrastructure will need more than $15 billion
to repair and bring to a pre-war level. The Gulf Arab states will provide
the rest of the $950 million. It is suggested that the “aid”
is just part of war-profiteering. The conference naked hypocrisy was
summed-up in the Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson statement: “Our
message should be clear and firm: you are not alone … War may
be the business of some, but peace will always be our common duty”,
he declared. Switzerland was the only Western country to condemn Israel’s
war crimes against Lebanon.
Furthermore, it is true that
world public opinion has shifted in favour of resistance against Israel’s
terror, however, Jews remain silent. With the exception of a very few
individual Jews, the vast majority of Jews and major Jewish organisations
around the world unconditionally support Israel crimes against the Palestinian
civilians and Arab civilians in general. Recently, America’s main
organisation of Modern Orthodox rabbis (the Rabbinical Council of America)
called on the Israeli military to be less concerned with the defenceless
Lebanese civilians during Israel’s indiscriminate attacks against
civilians in Lebanon.
Jews around the world were
quick to condemn those who criticised Israel’s deliberate destruction
of Lebanon civilian infrastructure and Lebanon economy. Any criticism
of Israel is immediately linked to past crimes against Jews. The charge
of the so-called “anti-Semitism” is used as a tool to bully
and intimidate those who dare to criticise Israel’s terror and
war crimes in the Middle East. The charge proves to be a deadly tool
and has been used efficiently by Israel and Zionists around the world.
For example, when German Minister for Development Aid, Heidemarie Wieczoreck-Zeul
called for a UN probe into Israel’s indiscriminate use of cluster
bombs to attack population centres and innocent Lebanese civilians,
the Minister was accused of being “anti-Semitic” by the
president of the Central Council of German Jews. The same charge was
labelled against Ken Roth, the director of HRW for his very minor criticism
of Israel’s deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon.
In addition to this massive
and well-established propaganda campaign in favour of Israel, Western
governments continue arming Israel with nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons. For example, successive German governments supported Israel’s
terror and provided Israel with new weapons (such as nuclear submarines).
The justification in creating this excessively-armed and violent monster
is that Israel is under threat and that not arming Israel, Germany will
risk accused of being “anti-Semitic” and Germans’
image will be damage world-wide. Of course, these are falsehoods. Israel
was never under any threat and remains today. It is Israel who has never
stopped attacking its neighbours, and who has refused to live in peaceful
coexistence.
Under the UN fig-leaf, European
governments (the EU) were quick to provide the largest military force
masquerading as UN force to protect Israel from a devastated Lebanon.
The recent shameful and unjust UN Resolution (1701) – crafted
by the US, Israel and France – is just a case in point. Despite
the enormity of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity,
Israel is overwhelmingly supported by Western governments, despite Israel’s
ongoing occupation of Lebanese territory and the illegal holding of
Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.
The indiscriminate destruction
of Lebanon by Israel serves Europe strategic interests and provides
an “opportunity” for Europe to exert its old imperialist
role in the Middle East. For decades, Lebanese and Palestinian civilians
remain unprotected and subjected to daily Israel’s terror. As
in 1982, the UN force is on Lebanon soil to protect Israel and watch
Israel commits more war crimes against the civilian population. The
Israeli siege (blockade) of Lebanon has been passed to the EU forces
and Europeans may die protecting Israel-U.S. interests.
Just as Resolution 1701 was
announced, Israeli forces – used the occasion to avenge their
defeat in a cowardly fashion – raced into Lebanon and occupied
more Lebanese territory. Israeli warplanes indiscriminately dropped
thousands of cluster bombs on population centres. According to the UN,
there are “359 separate cluster bomb strike locations that are
contaminated with as many 100,000 unexploded bomblets”. Jan Egeland,
the UN Humanitarian Coordinator said; “Every day, people are maimed,
wounded; and are killed by these weapons – It shouldn’t
have happened … What's shocking and ... completely immoral, is
that 90 per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72
hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution”,
Egeland said. The reality was that Israeli was given time to commit
more crimes just after Resolution 1701 was announced. Egeland also failed
to condemn the ongoing Israel’s flagrant violations of the so-called
“ceasefire”.
Furthermore, the “Israelis”
have been killing and ethnic cleansing Palestinians for six decades,
often with UN complicity. Tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians,
mostly women and children have been needlessly murdered by the “Jewish
Sate” with full knowledge of the UN, and the U.S. Since 1948,
the UN has shown to be a tool for promoting U.S.-Zionist and Western
interests at the expense of the Palestinian people and against the vast
majority of world public population.
In all its wars against Arabs,
almost all Israeli attacks were premeditated acts of aggression deliberately
and indiscriminately targeted civilians. The so-called Israeli “heroic”
army is a myth fabricated by Israel and the West to promote the fabricated
Israel’s images. For six decades, Israeli soldiers are trained
to kill school children, women and unarmed demonstrators, and to assassinate
unarmed Palestinian men. The modern and expensive U.S.-supplied F-16s,
Apache and Cobra helicopters, and the Israeli Merkava tanks have terrorised
defenceless population by bombing schools, houses, hospitals and refugee
camps. It’s a different story when Israeli soldiers confronting
an enemy (like Hizbullah fighters) trained and prepared to fight back.
Israel has rarely fought a real war and won.
The “six-day”
war was a myth designed to enforce a fabricated image of Israeli military
superiority over the Arabs. It is “the myth of invincibility”.
In 1967 there was no “six-day” war when the Israeli army
– backed by Western forces – allegedly “defeated”
a “threat” by the “Arab armies”. It was premeditated
and pre-emptive act of aggression against Jordan, Syria and Egypt who
were armed with primitive second-hand Russian bric-a-brac. The heavy
air and land attacks were orchestrated by Western governments and Israel,
which saw Arab forces, retreated. A halt to Israel’s aggression
was enforced by Western powers and allowed Israel to expand by illegally
occupying Arab lands in Egypt, Syria and the Palestinian West Bank and
Gaza.
Whereas the pretext of WMD
was a fabricated lie to justify the Anglo-American aggression against
Iraq which needlessly destroyed the country and killed hundreds of thousands
of innocent Iraqi civilians, the fabricated “threat” used
to annex Arab land. In 1982, Menachem Begin admitted that Israel was
not threatened by the Egyptians, and that the “threat” was
a fabricated lie to justify attacks on the Arabs.
Although Israel withdraw
from Egyptian territory after signing a peace treaty with Egypt, Israel
still illegally occupy the Golan Height in Syria and the Palestinian
Territories, including Jerusalem. UN Resolution 242 called on Israel
to unconditionally withdraw from all occupied Arab land. In addition
to its non-compliance of Resolution 242, Israel is in violation of countless
UN Resolutions.
In recent time, the heavily-armed
Israeli army were unable to break the lightly-armed Palestinian Resistance
and occupy the Jenin Refugee Camp or the Gaza in six days. The recent
Israeli aggression against Lebanon is another example. Despite the enormity
of the war crimes committed against Lebanon, the Israeli army was defeated
on the border by the heroic Resistance of Hizbullah fighters.
Furthermore, very few people
know today that in 1973 Israel was defeated and the war against Egypt
marked a turning point in the course of history of the Middle East.
On October 06, 1973, Egyptian forces were able to cross the Suez Canal
– the largest water barrier ever crossed in the history of warfare
– and overcome Israel’s enormous fortified sand barriers,
and broke through Israel’s Bar Lev line. Israeli General Ishi
Javitch admitted on September 16, 1974 that; “The Arab armies
have achieved a major portion of their objectives. They proved that
they are able to overcome fear and to fight a war with unparallel valour.
They proved that they are able to cross the Suez Canal barrier. They
took the Canal by force”. The reality of the 1973 war is clearly
displayed at the Cairo’s Museum in Egypt.
Finally, since 1948, Israel
is perpetuating a myth that has led the world to believe that everything
“Israelis” do is heroic, peaceful and democratic and must
be supported. And so decades-long massive propaganda campaign and billions
of dollars – U.S. and European taxpayers – in aid have gone
to support this fabricated Israel at the expense of the native defenceless
Palestinian people. If the present Israel’s genocidal policies
continue to be tolerated, it would expand and initiate a Palestinian
holocaust.
It is therefore incumbent
upon all civilised peoples in the world not only to expose Israel as
a violent and racist “Jewish-only sate” in gross violation
of international law and civilised norms, but also must oppose with
all their might Israel’s militarism and occupation of Arab lands.
Most importantly, however,
Israel must be held accountable for committing war crimes and crimes
against humanity. Peace does not come with perpetual violence. Israel
must renounce violence and withdraw from occupied Arab lands, allow
the re-emergence of independent Palestine for all Palestinians to return
to.
Ghali Hassan live in Perth, Western Australia.
Footnotes:
[1] Rami El-Amine, Anti-Arab
Racism, Islam and the Left, Mrzine,
September, 2006.
[2] Elodie Guego, 'Quiet
transfer' in East Jerusalem nears completion, Forced
Migration Review, 06 September 2006.
[3] Uri Davies, Israel: An
Apartheid State. Zed Books: London (1987).
[4] Chris McGreal, Worlds
Apart, The
Guardian, 06 February, 2006.
[5] Gideon Levi (2006). One
Racist Nation, Ha’aretz,
27 March, 2006.