Sem 2 Wk 12 Asad Kasim-Khan These are the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in front of a nuclear weapons factory. Netanyahu has been a tireless invoker of the European Holocaust as a political weapon against those who oppose the illegal acts of Israel for his decade-long tenure. Meanwhile, he has embraced openly anti-Semitic governments as long as they accept Israel’s war crimes. Calling Israel racist is apparently anti-Semitic, yet he will happily absolve Poland of its Nazi crimes. Perhaps for the “only Middle Eastern democracy”, genocide is both an excuse for its policies and an economic opportunity. Israel knowingly supplied weapons to Myanmar during the Rohingya genocide, while helpfully ensuring that Burmese children will be learn about the Holocaust. It also profiteered from the Bosnian genocide during which 250,000 were murdered, and 60,000 women were raped.
After the European Holocaust, large-scale Jewish migration to Palestine, overwhelmingly from Europe, led to the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948. Subsequent ethnic cleansing, rape, massacre, and mass-mutilation resulted in the flight of 750,000 Palestinians. The first Israeli government then barred their return by appropriating their land for newly-arrived Jews. 500 villages were destroyed and 84% of Palestinians became refugees. Today, they and their descendants number around 5 million. Australians should be well-positioned to understand this conflict. The use of legal manoeuvres to cover-up atrocities and declare the land terra nullius, or in Zionist phrasing “a land without a people for a people without a land” is well-documented. Cities like Tel Aviv did not rise from wastelands – they were built on destroyed Palestinian villages. Importantly, nothing in Zionism or Jewish Orthodoxy necessitates a right to remove Palestinians. The Holocaust, among the most vile events in history, also does not give rise to any such right. No crime against humanity justifies other crimes against humanity. Instead of reckoning with its history, Israel has constitutionalised a ‘nation-state law’, expressly providing that “the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to the Jewish people” and “Jewish settlement [is] a national value… [and that the state] will labour to encourage and promote its establishment and development”. In September, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal to halt the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar, a village in the occupied West Bank, despite the UN saying it would constitute a war crime. The village is one of 18 at risk of demolition because they are on land designated for Israeli settlements. The settlements, the physical manifestation of Israel’s continuing colonisation, are illegal at international law. Further, despite apartheid being a recognised crime against humanity, this law merely formalises the de facto apartheid of Palestinians within Israel. The situation is worse in the Occupied Territories. Palestinians in Jerusalem experience ethnic discrimination in accessing basic services like healthcare, employment, and residency and building rights. The West Bank and Gaza, occupied for 50 years, are under martial law while Jewish settlements nearby enjoy civil law protections. Palestinians in these areas experience arbitrary detention (including of children), torture, collective punishment, and even murder by the Israeli Defence Force and Jewish settlers without accountability. Israel enforces abhorrent living conditions in these territories. Civilians entering the “no-go” zone and fishermen going beyond six nautical miles are shot. They have limited access to water, electricity and schools while next-door, these services are readily available to Jewish settlers. The destruction of thousands of homes has displaced Palestinians to make way for settlements. But never fear, Trump has a peace plan! This has included relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem to support Israel’s de facto annexation of the city, slashing the entire American budget of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency, which educates 500,000 children and gives healthcare to 9 million Palestinians. He also wants to “de-register” 90% of Palestinian refugees, thereby destroying their right to return. On the 70th anniversary of their ethnic cleansing, Palestinians held the Great March of Return. Israel responded by unlawfully massacring 204 protestors. and injuring 17,259 – including by exploding bullets which are banned under the 1899 Hague Convention. Children protesting for their most basic human rights have been killed lost limbs. Thanks to the efforts of First Nations Peoples, small parts of Australia have begun to grapple, albeit torpidly, with the genocidal horror of our history. Of course, this only being countenanced after Indigenous Australians were exterminated by Europeans and left as a tiny minority in their own lands. Perhaps it’s easy to recognise history when you think all you will have to do is say sorry. Australian racism has changed. While Australian policies lead to mass-incarceration, and state-sanctioned murder, no major party or politician openly calls for Indigenous Australians to be removed, killed, or rejects their indigneity. The Israeli government does. Israel and its supporters must recognise the full scale of its atrocities and reject ethno-nationalism. Food for thought while enjoying your Very Good Falafel.
Your best work
16/10/2018 07:43:56 pm
Asad I've disagreed with you often and think some of your views are misguided but not so here. Israel is absolutely a terrorist state.
Minor point
16/10/2018 08:01:18 pm
International Law does not exist.
History
16/10/2018 08:54:58 pm
Some critique of your selective use of facts and resources.
Huh
16/10/2018 10:13:52 pm
wtf is the go with this comment.
Hmm, really makes you think
16/10/2018 09:08:57 pm
"After the European Holocaust, large-scale Jewish migration to Palestine, overwhelmingly from Europe, led to the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948."
Life of Quirrell
16/10/2018 10:15:18 pm
Trolls go home
Thought you ought to know
16/10/2018 10:46:56 pm
One day you will learn that you will atually have to reason with arguments that you don't like as to why they are wrong, instead of lazily dismissing them as troll arguments.
YHWH (No. 2)
16/10/2018 09:25:20 pm
Jews first occupied the area interchangeably reffered to as Israel or Palestine nearly 2000 years before it was occupied by an Muslim, or before such a thing as Islam even existed. On that basis the regular champions of indigenous people and adherants to anticolonial movements should be celebrating the overthrow of the Islamic colonisation of Israel and its return to the control of the traditional owners of the land, being the Jewish people.
Religion, ethnicity and indigeneity
17/10/2018 01:34:45 am
Establishment of a religion constitutes the origin of an indigenous population? As if 'such a thing as Islam' brought with it an 'introduced' population.
Hair splitter
17/10/2018 07:39:44 am
Islam was carried in to Israel/Palestine by the Islamic conquests and by the gradual Arab colonisation that followed it, whose religion was Islam. Also it has been well recognised that ‘Jewish’ can denote both a religion and an ethnic group and the two almost always coincide.
DNA
19/10/2018 07:28:28 am
Actually DNA evidence shows conclusively that the Jews are an ethnic group
ty
16/10/2018 09:28:15 pm
thank you for writing this!
Question
16/10/2018 09:32:07 pm
There is a lot of food for thought in this article!
Laura
16/10/2018 10:51:07 pm
Ha. Probably both - one of the owners grew up in Israel.
Canaanites
16/10/2018 10:14:09 pm
The Canaanites were the true indigenous inhabitants of Israel.
Israel the only democracy in the Middle East
16/10/2018 11:39:30 pm
I’m glad you got to write this piece because as much as I don’t agree with it and think your sources are questionable and many important facts have been overlooked it demonstrates you value debate and arguement - something denied to those in many countries of the Middle East.
Asad Kasim-Khan
18/10/2018 02:49:50 pm
Your comment bizarrely suggests that my sources are questionable without actually substantiating that.
You’re article is full of misinformation.
+1
17/10/2018 08:46:18 am
Couldn’t have said it better myself. This entire piece is delusional in the sources it has used and conclusions drawn from those.
++1
17/10/2018 10:39:16 pm
Totally agree.I find the article itself to be a racist endeavour.
Asad Kasim-Khan
18/10/2018 02:44:48 pm
IF the article I linked to doesn't include mentions of rape and mutilation, I note that Israeli Jewish historians like Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe have both recorded that rape was a weapon used to remove Palestinians. I'm sure you have access to their books and to peer review articles that cite them and your comment is an attempt to slur me and detract from having to respond to the substance of my article. Such strategies may serve you well as a lawyer, but you are such a coward you cannot put your name to your comments while you justify murder, rape, and ethnic cleansing. I have no doubt also that you will suggest Pappe and Morris are somehow not good historians even though they draw on IDF sources. I refuse to be drawn into your ill informed attempts to discredit me and the Palestinians and I answer only so that others know that your comment is such an attempt.
Unsurprising
17/10/2018 09:00:32 am
"No crime against humanity justifies other crimes against humanity."
Asad Kasim-Khan
18/10/2018 02:55:02 pm
As above, I do not support any abrogation of human rights.
Double Standards
17/10/2018 02:22:50 pm
I'm almost in disbelief at your sheer arrogance in thinking you've added *anything* new to the discourse, when all you've done is parrot one-sided criticisms of Israel that were already repeated to death before you were old enough to know this debate even existed. Seriously, your article is little more than a list of curated news and opinion pieces — congrats on being the human equivalent of the Facebook newsfeed algorithm.
The Mûmakil in the room
17/10/2018 02:33:04 pm
I think we all know that the desire of the author and his fellow travelers if for Israel to cease to exist as a State and geopolitical entity. I would not even call that a 'barely concealed' goal, it is usually trumpeted quite loudly and proudly and is official government policy of about 95% of States with an Islamic majority. Its also a common refrain of feral leftists the world over. Whether they have thought about what would happen to the Jewish population after such an event is unclear.
Asad Kasim-Khan
18/10/2018 03:14:11 pm
Australia is a racist endeavour.
Double Standards
18/10/2018 05:59:02 pm
>‘I note that you haven’t included your name because you are unwilling to stand by your opinion.’
Double Standards (cont.)
18/10/2018 06:00:05 pm
(cont.)
I agree with this article and appreciate how well-written and researched it is. I also oppose ethno-nationalism of all kinds. However, I would dispute how you've constructed the relationship between "the right of return" and "the Holocaust". Comments are closed.
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