Openly flouting international law as ever, Israel announced earlier last week that it plans to build an additional 100 new colony homes in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as part of its Judaization and territorial expansion agenda.
While there is no denying that such a policy is inherently fraudulent, morally perverse and most importantly illegal, it is unlikely that Israel will suffer more than a slap on the wrist and a few well-placed political condemnations from world leaders.
Since Zionists’ self-declared creation of Israel in 1947, the United States of America has tried to make sure that whatever offence, war crimes or acts of barbarism that Zionists commit are brushed off under the rug and pinned down to their so-called right to self-preservation and self-defence at the expense of Palestinians being deprived of their legitimate rights.
Should Palestinians ever dare oppose illegal settlers, they will immediately be labeled terrorists or Islamic militants while extremist Jews will be hailed as pioneers and self-less defenders of Zion!
The hypocrisy and sheer legal asymmetry of such policies and political logic seem to have so far eluded the international community. If it weren’t for a very few brave souls, with Iran and Hezbollah in pole position, Palestine and its people would have been swallowed whole by the giant evil that is Israel.
At a time when Israel and Palestine have agreed to return to the drawing board as to negotiate an elusive peace treaty and land settlement, Tel Aviv chose to balance the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners from jail by supporting the construction of yet more illegal houses on Palestinian land.
Having Israeli officials claim they want to promote peace with one hand while holding a machete on the other, only proves that Israel is governed by clinically insane politicians with schizophrenic tendencies and a serious penchant for the complete obliteration of Palestine.
In an attempt to stand for his people’s rights and draw international support, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh al Maliki has denounced Israel’s plan, warning that he would pursue “international legal action” against the Zionist entity should Tel Aviv refuse to call off its bulldozers.
“The Foreign Ministry is seriously looking at turning immediately to international courts and organizations, and filing the necessary complaints in order to stop settlement building,” al Maliki told the press.
He slammed “plans approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for [colony] building, and Netanyahu’s attempts to link the issue [of building illegal settlements] with the prisoners’ issue.” The PLO was quick to support its officials’ stance by declaring, “The Palestinian leadership will take a number of steps in the next few days to face the [colonialist] offensive.”
The very idea that Israel would continue to blatantly defy international law and a flurry of UN resolutions for that matter, by promoting its expansionist agenda, has enraged Palestinians and their supporters across the board, both within and without the Arab world.
In good fashion, Israel has justified its move by asserting its right to do as it pleases. “Israel is honoring all the understandings reached prior to the opening of negotiations with the Palestinians,” a senior official told the press on Thursday. He added, “It was understood to all sides to the negotiations, it was clear from the beginning, that Israel was not taking upon itself any limitations in building or planning … Israel sees continuation of negotiation with the Palestinians as important.”
Palestinians are not holding their breath. After decades of occupation, chronic injustice and religious segregation, many Palestinians know only too well that the end of their suffering is unlikely to come by way of political negotiations.
Despots seldom do the honorable thing.
Obstruction to peace
Reacting to Israel’s decision to forward its illegal settlement plans, Irish MP Emer Costello labelled it, “the single biggest obstruction to peace. She added that Tel Aviv’s plans had resulted over the years to “the death of many communities.”
And in truth, what Israel has been all along planning and working toward is exactly that, the death of Palestine as an Arab state. If anyone had any doubt, one has only to look up Israel’s long list of human rights and international law violations to understand Israel’ systematic negation of Palestine as a state and a nation.
Costello commented that the rate at which Israeli settlements in Palestine were expanding was “alarming” and there was evidence of the “forcible displacement of entire communities”.
“There’s a more subtle type of displacement as well in that no development by Palestinians can take place, no expansion of their homes, they can’t put a nail in the wall without the authorities threatening to demolish,” she said.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that he has the right to build anywhere in Jerusalem, when from a purely legal stand-point he hasn’t, yet no power has challenged his scheme, not through any legal channels anyway.
As always the tragedy which Palestine has been force to endure is going unnoticed by the greater public.
Rachel O’Hanlon, a rights activist who has worked tirelessly to denounce Israel’s impudent breach of human rights in Palestine, recently recounted the story of a Palestinian family, the Mousas, whose tale of hardship and misfortune is sadly a common one.
She recalled, “Over two nights in March this year settlers destroyed between 150 and 200 young olive tree saplings in fields belonging to Ahmad NabhanMousa and his family. These trees were planted in 2012 with the help of the Joint Advocacy Initiative and YMCA. Ahmad NabhanMousa was too upset to meet with us, but his grandson Abu ZuheirMousa told us of the devastation for the family. He said: “It’s not just our income, it’s our life. The settlers make many problems for us, but the authorities never act. My grandfather cried for this.”
As noted by Bertrand Russel, “How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?”
Link:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/11/06/333261/zionists-continuing-expansionist-plan/
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