GUEST BLOG: Leslie Bravery – Singling out Israel

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In a press release in New York on 12 March 2002, the Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on member states of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to reject what it called “one-sided condemnations” of Israel on the agenda at the 58th session of the Commission on 18 March. Glen A. Tobias, ADL National Chairman and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, complained: “We have grown increasingly alarmed by the blatant singling out of Israel for condemnation by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.” This implied acknowledgement of Israel’s inhumanities (‘it’s not only us’) demonstrates Zionism’s obsession with pursuing its objective, regardless of the injustices and suffering it entails. The notable walkout from the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva in April 2009 by the UK and other nations and the boycott of the conference by the US, Australia and New Zealand could also be seen as ‘singling out’ Israel in order to provide it with impunity.

On the other hand Israel, it seems, has no objection to being singled out when it is to its advantage. The Zionist state is, by far, the largest recipient of US military aid. The US gives taxpayer-funded military aid worth $8.5 million daily to Israel while, of course, contributing nothing at all to the defence of Palestine or the security of the Palestinian people.

While much is made by Israel and its allies of Iran’s alleged attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, Israel, the nation that introduced these weapons of mass destruction to the Middle East, continues to refuse to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) or to co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA). So, while the NPT has been signed by all the other Middle Eastern states, the world community obligingly singles out Israel by turning a blind eye to its clandestine nuclear arms capability. At his first press conference on 9 February 2009, President Barack Obama was asked by veteran White House journalist, Helen Thomas,“Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?” Obama, caught off guard, was clearly discomfited and sidestepped the question, replying, “With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don’t want to speculate. What I know is this: that if we see a nuclear arms race in a region as volatile as the Middle East, everybody will be in danger.” Obama’s unwillingness to answer a straight question is just one example of the extraordinary lengths to which world leaders will go to cover for Israel.

The exceptionalism granted Israel by the Western powers allows Israel’s nuclear arsenal to become a growing threat to global stability. On Tuesday, 11 May 2015, the Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon issued a chilling reference to nuclear weapons in response to a question about Iran. He implied that if Israel could not get its way by diplomatic means or by what he called “surgical operations” then the Zionist state might take “certain steps” such as the United States did in “Nagasaki and Hiroshima, causing at the end the fatalities of 200,000.” Such a threat, if uttered by the defence minister of any other UN member state, would have been universally condemned as lunatic and unacceptable. Yaalon’s remarks barely made it into the news.

Israel singles itself out by its behaviour – some examples:

Israeli Army ‘exercises’
Israeli Army ‘exercises‘ force families from their homes and destroy crops and farm produce. On 4 May 2015, the Israeli Army invaded the Ras Basilah, al-Sadoud, Ghabisha and al-Maksar areas of the North Jordan Valley, and set fire to large areas of wheat and other crops, justifying it as a military exercise. The Occupation forces then declared the area “a closed military zone” in order to prevent Palestinian Civil Defence from putting out the fires and salvaging any farm produce. On that same day, Israeli soldiers had raided the Bethlehem village of Husan and terrorised a five-year-old boy, Ali Hamara, seizing and holding him captive for an hour.

On 5 May 2015, Israeli forces destroyed crops as they conducted military exercises in the West Bank village of Khirbeit Yarza. The following day, raiding Israeli troops set fire to crops as part of a military training exercise around Bardala village and, on the same day, destroyed more crops while conducting military exercises in Khirbeit Yarza village. Also on 6 May, in the Hebron district, from 08:35-13:50, raiding Israeli forces bulldozed crops on Ithna village farmland and, in addition, destroyed a well and uprooted fruit trees. Israeli Army conduct has nothing whatsoever to do with defending Israel. The object of Israeli Army violence is to intimidate and terrorise the population that is forced to live under its control. What other nation carries out military exercises among civilians?

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Israeli Army disregard for civilian lives
Testimony collected from Israeli military personnel by the NGO Breaking the Silence, published 4 May 2015, in a 237-page report reveals a callous disregard for human life on the part of the Israeli military during Israel’s 2014 Gaza Offensive. The responsibility for this came from the very top command and thus, ultimately from the Zionist Government that the Israeli military serves. The report quotes one staff sergeant about the orders his unit was expected to obey “Whoever you spot — be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes — shoot to kill. It’s an explicit instruction.” A tank sergeant said, “We were firing purposelessly all day long. Hamas was nowhere to be seen.” Breaking the Silence offers the testimony contributed by more than 60 war veterans in the service of what should be an independent UN enquiry into the conduct of the Israeli military and the regime it serves. What has been the Israeli Army reaction to the release of the testimony? Benny Gantz, Israel’s armed forces chief during the blitz on Gaza unashamedly threatens more of the same but with increased barbarity: “Next time, it will be worse, because Israel has to constantly grapple with the moral dilemma, but we need to protect our country.”

Regarding Occupation brutality in the West Bank Israeli officials manifest the same attitude. Israel’sState Attorney’s Office recently belittled the murder of a Palestinian youngster, fatally shot in the back as he tried to flee from Occupation soldiers, as nothing more serious than a “reckless and negligent act”. Israel’s Defence Minister, Moshe Yaalon, epitomises the inhumanity of Zionism. During his address to the 2015 Shurat HaDin conference, Yaalon not only defended Israel’s massacres of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, but also promised that there would be worse to come. Yaalon said that next time “we are going to hurt Lebanese civilians to include kids of the family. We went through a very long deep discussion … we did it then, we did it in [the] Gaza Strip, we are going to do it in any round of hostilities in the future.”

Racist discrimination

Israel has admitted that its restrictions on Palestinian building permits are ‘political’. The admission came over a court case which seeks to challenge Israeli housing policy in Occupied Area C, which covers 60% of the Palestinian West Bank. Almost every Palestinian application for a building permit is rejected — only one was granted in 2014. In that same period, Israel destroyed 493 Palestinian homes, displacing 969 people. Palestinians are faced with either leaving or building illegally. COGAT, a unit in the Israeli Defence Ministry body to which the Occupation Civil Administration belongs, has admitted that planning required political approval. The words of the Orwellian statement were: “The Civil Administration’s planning committee examines and promotes construction plans equitably, dependant on the fact that these plans meet the relevant planning criteria and their promotion is approved by the political echelon.”

The world’s first military court for juveniles and other Israeli child abuse

The suffering of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli Army is particularly distressing. While no Jewish Israeli child would ever be brought before a military court, Palestinian children face that ordeal every day. A UNICEF report of February 2013 documents Israel’s discriminatory treatment of non-Jewish children. The in-depth UNICEF report states that, “Each year approximately 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17, the great majority of them boys, are arrested, interrogated and detained by Israeli army, police and security agents.” The report found that the Israeli military subjected Palestinian minors to the following abuses:

  • Restraint under very painful conditions;
  • Hooding under special conditions;
  • Threats, including even death;
  • Kicking, punching and — being beating with implements;
  • Excessive use of force employed by law enforcement personnel and the military;
  • Captivity incommunicado without even access to a lawyer or doctor or the ability to communicate with family members;
  • Solitary confinement;
  • Sensory deprivation;
  • Poor conditions of detention, including failure to provide food, water, heating in
    winter, proper washing facilities, overcrowding, lack of amenities, poor hygiene
    and insufficient clothing and medical care.

The UNICEF report examines in great detail the legal basis for its conclusions. It’s worth asking the question: how would the headlines and news media comment look if, instead of Palestinians, it were Jewish children that were being singled out for such inhuman and discriminatory abuse? The cruelties perpetrated by Israel contravene Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In September 2009, in response to documentation of the prosecution of children as young as 12 years in adult military courts, Israel established a juvenile military court. This is the first and only juvenile military court in operation in the world. In reality, the court uses the same facilities and court staff as the adult military court.

According to the report, once a child has been taken prisoner, “. . . he or she is hand-tied and blindfolded and led to a military vehicle for transfer to a place of interrogation. Children are frequently not allowed to say goodbye to their parents or even put on appropriate clothing for the journey. When children are not transferred directly to an interrogation centre, they are held in places such as West Bank Occupation settlements, where they may wait until the following day before continuing their journey. Many children suffer on the way, having to endure physical or verbal abuse; some suffer from painful restraints or from being forced to lie on the hard floor of the vehicle. In some cases there is prolonged exposure to the elements and a lack of water, food or toilet facilities.”

Gaza ceasefire violations
Since the beginning of 2015, as at 6 May, Israel has committed at least 265 violations of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, all of them against civilian targets, chiefly fishing boats and agriculture, some of which have resulted in death and injury. These continual attacks have added additional economic burdens to those that have resulted from Israel’s crushing blockade and the aftermath of intensive bombing. The Palestinian Resistance has retaliated just twice in the same period, targeting Israeli military vehicles, with no casualties.

The Israeli military Occupation of Palestine is the longest in modern history. That fact alone singles out Israel. The Balfour Declaration reflected the self-serving convictions of British colonialism and the assumption that the native people of Palestine had fewer rights than colonising Europeans. The world community has the responsibility both to defend the Palestinian people and to remedy a situation for which they bear no responsibility. As the Middle East descends into ever more widespread, irrational violence, the need to address the conflict at the epicentre is urgent. It is time to question the morality and rationality of political Zionism – “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16) – for we live today with the bitter, toxic after-taste.

Conclusion
The remedy? Sweet reason; take steps to re-unite the Holy Land and thereby bring an end to discrimination and division. Reconciliation, embodied in a single state with equal citizenship for all its people, can bring peace and harmony to Israel/Palestine. Such a solution could begin to transform the Middle East. The world community, through the Security Council, has the means and the authority to restrain Israel and lay the foundations for a more rational future. Which, among the UN member states, perhaps even a Security Council member, will be the first to step up and have the foresight and courage to witness for truth, putting humanity and the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention before ‘national interests’ and manic ideologies?

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Life under Israeli military occupation (7)
Home invasions and abductions of children and other youngsters
Israeli troops frequently invade Palestinian homes (often at dead of night) and abductions of Palestinian minors are commonplace. Israeli soldiers often vandalise the interiors of Palestinian homes being raided and frequently terrorise children and other minors with threats. Youngsters abducted by Israeli soldiers are often blindfolded and their wrists tied behind their backs. Many children are illegally taken to prison in Israel, where more terror is practised against them, such as solitary confinement and shackling in painful positions for long periods. The majority of these children are detained inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This inhumane treatment of children prompted an Investigation and Report by UNICEF in February 2013. The report found that each year approximately 700 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17, mainly boys, are arrested, interrogated and held captive by Israeli army, police and security agents. The majority are charged with throwing stones, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of 10 year’s imprisonment, or 20 years if thrown at a moving vehicle (six months maximum for a juvenile, 12-13 years). The usual process, as described in the UNICEF Report, is for the child to be aggressively wakened in the middle of the night by armed soldiers, and forcibly brought to an interrogation centre tied and blindfolded, sleep deprived and brought to a state of extreme fear. The transfer can take up to an entire day. Interrogation takes place in a police station (without a lawyer or family member present) using a mix of intimidation and threats.

Child prisoners have been threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and sexual assault, against themselves or a family member. Most children confess at the end of the such interrogation. Some children have been held in solitary confinement, for a period ranging from 2 days up to one month before the court hearing. Children are generally brought before a military court in leg chains and shackles, wearing prison uniform. Most see their lawyers for the first time when they are brought to the court. UNICEF found that the practices described are in violation of international law.[17]

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Yes..everything you say is true and your solution is the correct one – one state for all with Palestinians having Israeli passports. Can you honestly see that?
    I used to be outraged at the Israeli behaviour too but I have changed my mind recently with the rise of Islamic State. There is no voice of reason against them in the Middle East at present and no country that the West can rely on other than Israel. You forget why the state of Israel was set up – that Jews were ostracised all over the world and the collective guilt of Europe after the war, quite apart from events in Germany, was the reason for their existence now. So we are paying for the sins of our fathers.
    The fact that it probably should have been Manhattan island and not a strip of Palestine, is quite an important point, when understanding why the USA will always support Israel.

    If the Palestinians were taken in to Israel, and gained political power, what happens then? Syria is lost; Iraq is lost; Yemen is lost as is Libya and Tunisia is falling fast. Its a sad, sad situation and finger pointing at Israel is like the orchestra playing on the Titanic. Sounds good but will effect nothing useful in the current dreadful, horrific circumstances that we are shown everyday. We should be thankful for the state of Israel. I know that is very un-PC at present and I have to dig deep for some bravery when I express these views, but not supporting Israel is not an option at present.

    • Sandi, there is very little connection between Islamic State and the Palestinians. You can’t deny Palestinians freedom and independence because of IS – any more than you can disparage people in Europe just because of American adventurism in the Middle East.

      If Palestinians don’t deserve freedom and independence than neither do we. It’s as simple as that.

      • My point is, that the Palestinians wouldnt stand a hope in hell against IS, who just walk in and take over, by the looks of it. The Israelis are their only hope but how on earth that looks in reality, I dont know? If they could come together against a common enemy……

        • @ Sandi. Are you actually trying to make sense or are you just randomly pounding the keys in the hope that something might come of that ?

          Hahahahaaha aa a! Oh the irony.
          Only the Israelis can save Palestine from IS . I’d fuckin’ hate to be a Palestinian right now then , that’s all I can say .

          The only fault that the Arabs can be blamed for is that they live on all that Jewish/American oil.

          $8.5 Mil US a day huh ? Well I never…

          A conversation somewhere in Texas ?

          Tex
          ” Say Pete, what’s that there new 4×4 RV o’ yorn’ get to tha mile then?

          Pete.
          ” Aad say ‘ bout four, maybe five Palestinians to the mile ”

          Tex
          “Not bad, not bad at all . My old truck over there, I get maybe six adult Palestinians and a half childs to the mile. Maybe I should trade up ? If I throw in a can of dismembered old Palestinian people their pets and animals the 6 litre v8 has more pep on the hills “

          Laugh or cry ? That’s the question .

  2. Sandi you say “…… the Palestinians wouldnt stand a hope in hell against IS, who just walk in and take over, ” Do you not know that Israel HAS done just this? And they started seventy something years ago.
    Please read all of Lesley’s articles and get yourself a little better informed.
    Go to http://www.palestine.org.nz and read what is written there.
    Unless of course you know all this and have come to the conclusion that the Palestinians deserve to be brutalised by Israel for merely existing.
    I do not understand why you believe IS will treat the Palestinians any worse, or that they have any interest in Palestine

  3. Sandi seems to ignore the fact that ISIS has come about in countries that the u.s.a has laid waste to ……..

    There was no Isis in Iraq until the u.s.a and its coalition bombed, invaded and wrecked the country ………..

    The same goes with Libya and Syria where the u.s.a backed the terrorists with weapons and supplies…… look at how that’s turned out.

    If we go further back the u.s.a was backing the rebels/terrorists in Afghanistan when they were fighting the Russians …..

    Last year the Israelis killed more Palestinians than they had in in any of the previous 30 years ………….

    reprisal killings of woman and children and civilians is what Israel does ………

  4. The Palestinians could have had peace if they wanted it, but they have sabotaged every peace agreement offered to them. They could have become citizens of Israel, like the Israeli Arabs of whom there are plenty. But no, they want to “drive the Jews into the sea” in the words of Hamas, the terrorist organization they voted for.

    Palestinian leaders allied themselves with the Nazis in world War 2. Look that up, some interesting reading….

    • Harry – that has to be the dumbest thing I’ve read on the internet… for several hours. If that’s the best you can offer as a “pro-Israel” argument, then, mate, you’ve done their cause more harm than good.

      Seriously, get some education.

      • Get some education yourself. Some historical facts:

        Haj Amin al-Husseini, the most influential leader of Palestinian Arabs, lived in Germany during the Second World War. He met Hitler, Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders on various occasions and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies in the Middle East.

        Record of the Conversation between the Fuhrer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941, in the Presence of Reich Foreign Minister and Minister Grobba in Berlin.

        The Grand Mufti began by thanking the Fuhrer for the great honor he had bestowed by receiving him. He wished to seize the opportunity to convey to the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, admired by the entire Arab world, his thanks of the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially the Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches. The Arab countries were firmly convinced that Germany would win the war and that the Arab cause would then prosper. The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists. Therefore they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in the war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews. Furthermore, they had had close relations with all Moslem nations, of which they could make use in behalf of the common cause. The Arab Legion would be quite easy to raise. An appeal by the Mufti to the Arab countries and the prisoners of Arab, Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan nationality in Germany would produce a great number of volunteers eager to fight. Of Germany’s victory the Arab world was firmly convinced, not only because the Reich possessed a large army, brave soldiers, and military leaders of genius, but also because the Almighty could never award the victory to an unjust cause.

        In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and unity of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. They had the fullest confidence in the Fuhrer and looked to his hand for the balm on their wounds, which had been inflicted upon them by the enemies of Germany.

        The Mufti then mentioned the letter he had received from Germany, which stated that Germany was holding no Arab territories and understood and recognized the aspirations to independence and freedom of the Arabs, just as she supported the elimination of the Jewish national home.

        • Defenders of Israel and Zionism are on very shaky ground when it comes to accusing the ideology’s victims of affinity with Nazism or Fascism. The Palestinian people supported the Allied cause in the First World because they were promised self-determination in the event of an Allied Victory. In the event, the Palestinian people were betrayed by the pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration. That the defenceless, contemptuously treated Palestinians sought the support of Germany does not make them Nazis. And contemptuously treated they certainly were. Commenting on the Declaration in a letter to David Lloyd George in February 1919, Balfour admitted: “The weak point of our position is of course that in the case of Palestine we deliberately and rightly decline to accept the principle of self-determination”. Founded by Theodor Herzl in the late nineteenth century, Zionism holds that hostility to Jews is natural and inevitable and that Jews can only be secure through the creation of a Jewish state. The movement shared the outlook of European colonialism and most people would be astonished to learn of revisionist (as it became) Zionism’s affinity with the fascist movements of the early twentieth century and its betrayal to the Nazis of non-Zionist Jews (Righteous Victims, p.162).

          In his letter Herzl did at least admit that the Palestinian people existed. But a clear denial of the Palestinian people’s identity and, therefore, of their humanity, was made by one of the founders of the State of Israel, the Polish-born former Prime Minister Golda Meir, when she said: “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” That statement is a real insight into Zionist ideology. The state of Israel denies the United Nations-recognised right of return to their homes of ethnically-cleansed and dispossessed Palestinians on the grounds that they are not Jewish. The denial of the very existence of Palestinians as a people enables Zionists to convince themselves further that Palestinians (most often referred to simply as Arabs) are inferior to Jews. Golda Meir was not alone, or even a rare example of racist Zionism. Even before Menachem Begin became prime minister of Israel in 1977 his political philosophy had, in 1948, prompted the following in a warning letter to The New York Times signed by, among others, Albert Einstein:

          “Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.”

          The letter went on to describe just one of many Zionist attacks on Palestinian villages, the massacre in Deir Yassin carried out by the Zionist terrorist organisation the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang:

          “. . . terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants – 240 men, women, and children – and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed . . . the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicised it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.”

          Racist Zionism is, right now, desperately driving Israel to provoke the Gaza Resistance into firing more rockets towards Israel. This year alone, up to and including May 11, Israel has struck at Palestinian fishermen and farmers with at least 280 Gaza ceasefire violations. The violence has resulted in death, injuries and a terrible toll on Palestinian agriculture and fishing. What has been the Palestinian response? In the same period there have been just two Palestinian ceasefire violations, one against a military target and one rocket that harmlessly landed in southern Israel. Yet the world is led to believe that it is Israel that “responds” to “unprovoked” Palestinian missile attacks. Oh, and by the way, Israel’s heartless blockade of Gaza keeps its grip on the captive population. And in the West Bank, Palestinian families are terrorised at home by heavily armed Israeli troops in the middle of the night. That’s fascism.

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