By Robert Fatina
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The savagery of the racist, apartheid Israeli regime continues to shock people with any sensitivity, despite its long record of brutality. The recent attack on the Gaza Strip, coming as a precursor to United States’ President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘deal of the century’, was no exception.
For reasons that defy any logic other than ugly racism, Israeli terrorist bombers targeted a private home resided in by a young family. Killed in the bomb were a one-year-old girl and her pregnant mother; two other children were seriously injured. That this is by design cannot be disputed. After the 2014 carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, what Israel calls ‘mowing the lawn’, some IDF soldier-terrorists wore shirts with the outline of a pregnant, Muslim woman on the front, in the crosshairs of a gun. The caption was: ‘One bullet, two kills’.
The U.S. has never been a friend to human rights anywhere, least of all to those of the Palestinians, and this situation has worsened under the cruel administration of Trump. He has cut funding for Palestinians, renounced international law that recognizes Jerusalem as a future, shared capital, and, like all his predecessors from Harry Trump to Barack Obama, finances and supports all Israel’s brutal, repressive actions, even those considered to be crimes against humanity. He apparently hopes that this will force the Palestinians to accept a ‘deal’ that gives Israel everything and Palestine nothing. The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Riyad Mansour, commented on this on May 7 at United Nations headquarters, when he said this: “Some in the (Trump) administration, they think: ‘Yes, what will help peace is break the legs of the Palestinians, break one arm and five teeth, and when they are on the ground they will come crawling to you for anything you offer them’. Those who think that way don’t know the Palestinians.”
Some details of the ‘deal’ – which is no ‘deal’ at all, since one of the main parties to it had no input into it – have been leaked. It allows Israel to keep all of the land it has stolen since 1967; prevents Palestine from having any military, and requires Gaza to disarm. The West Bank disarmed several years ago, and the result has been constant, violent repression by Israel. Additionally, Israel will be responsible for ‘security’. If ever there was a case of the fox being given responsibility for the security of the henhouse, this is it.
According to other details ‘leaked’, if either party rejects the deal, it will lose all U.S. funding. Currently, under Trump’s brutal, racist administration, Palestine gets no U.S. funding, so it has nothing to lose. It is highly unlikely that Israel would reject the ‘deal’, since it gets everything it wants from it. So the U.S. administration is setting up Palestine for catastrophic disaster, by doing all in its power to destroy it, and then offering permanent, second-class human status to Palestinians. Whether or not they accept the ‘deal’, their repression will continue. Either way, they will lose a significant part of the West Bank. Additionally, the internationally-guaranteed right of return is not mentioned at all.
However, it must be remembered that the U.S. is not the world government. It can propose any ‘deals’ it wants to. When Trump announced the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in violation of international law, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the move by an overwhelming margin. More recently, when the U.S. announced its support if Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric referred to the Security Council resolution of December, 1981, which called the Israeli annexation “null and void and without international legal effect”. He further said that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres adheres to all council resolutions, and that that position remains unchanged, despite any U.S. actions. The U.S. decreeing something doesn’t make it a fact.
The U.S. is, however, in a position to make things extremely difficult for the Palestinians, as it has thus far done. That will only worsen when this ‘deal’ is rejected by Palestine, as it is sure to be, if the information about it that has thus far been leaked is accurate. Israel will violently steal more land in the West Bank; it will react with brutal, deadly force to any resistance there or in Gaza, which often involves blatant violations of international law and crimes against humanity. The bombing of hospitals, homes, schools and United-Nations refugee centers, all crimes against humanity and all of which Israel routinely does, will continue and possibly increase. Israel will continue to withhold tax revenues that for some reason it is allowed to collect ‘on behalf’ of Palestine, causing the country to further cut the salaries of its employees.
There has been a major shift in the Democratic Party in the U.S. in the context of Palestine. Yes, Democratic Party officials still support Israel, proclaim it -bizarrely – to be a democracy, and talk about its right to exist. Yet they increasingly criticize its policies, something unheard of just a few short years ago. Two of the multitudinous candidates currently seeking to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2020 have actually called the brutal, murderous Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a racist. One freshman member of the House of Representatives has decried U.S. support for Israel that is based on political donations. These are conversations that weren’t being held until very recently.
Unfortunately, Trump still has two more years in office. And even should he be removed for any number of reasons, his vice president, Mike Pence, would only continue the U.S.’s fawning support for apartheid Israel. And to say that Netanyahu has been emboldened by Trump’s moves is an understatement; during his recent re-election campaign, he vowed to annex the West Bank.
It is not from the United States that justice for Palestinians will ever be established; the U.S. has never cared about human rights. The rest of the international community must act, before it is everlasting too late.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
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