A new generation unites in opposing Zionism

The New Zealand Green Party MP, Golriz Ghahraman, has upset the Jewish Council here because she described Joseph and Mary, the earthly parents of Jesus, as Palestinian refugees. Juliet Moses called the comment “ahistorical and disrespectful to the Jewish community.” Yet in reality, it is Zionism that denies history and – by committing crimes against humanity in the name of all Jewry – shows disrespect for those Jews who oppose its ideology.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph spoke Aramaic and it is in the nature of human history that, everywhere, cultures and people intermingle, societies undergo change. For centuries, Palestinian Jews had lived harmoniously with their Muslim, Druze and Christian neighbours and their status was respected in a manner far superior to that accorded religious minorities in Europe. Nevertheless, speaking on behalf of the Zionist enterprise in 1917, British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour contemptuously dismissed the entire Palestinian population as merely “the present inhabitants of the country”, ignoring their presence in their homeland as one of natural birthright and history.

British imperialism’s alliance with European Zionism resulted in the brutal ethnic cleansing and present-day denial by Israel of the Palestinian people’s UN-recognised right of return. Today, well over half of the world’s Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. It is this reality that should be recognised. The atrocities committed by Zionism, in the name of world Jewry, distress those who are opposed to such evil. In New Zealand, Justine Sachs writes of the cruelty and inhumanity of the ideology in her article: Oh you foolish little Zionists. Ethnic cleansing and foreign military Occupation are not just unacceptable in today’s world – they are in violation of globally-accepted international law.

Targeting a new generation

In just the first half of 2019, Israeli forces have already killed 16 Palestinian children and wounded/injured another 1,223. The Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights has reported the abductions of Palestinian children over that period and there have been 17 Israeli Army attacks on Palestinian schools and medical institutions in the Gaza Strip. There are now around 250 abducted Palestinian children incarcerated in Israel, in defiance of international law. The International Court of Justice has reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israel’s belligerent military Occupation of Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Article 76 of the Convention specifically prohibits the transfer of individuals out of Occupied territory and Article 147 determines that unlawful transfers are considered a grave breach of the convention.

Every Friday, for the past eight years, residents of the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum have been courageously protesting against the expansion of the nearby Israeli Occupation settlement of Kadum, with its associated closure of the village’s southern approach road. The Palestine Human Rights Campaign Aotearoa/New Zealand’s In Occupied Palestine newsletter for 12 July reported the following act of repression by the Israeli Army:

“13:45, Israeli troops opened fire, with rubber-coated steel bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters, on Kafr Qaddum villagers protesting against the closure of their village, inflicting a serious head wound on a ten-year-old child: Abdel-Rahman Yasser Ishtawi. There were, in addition, a number of tear gas casualties during the Israeli Army assault.”

Since then, a B’Tselem report, dated 19 July, has revealed that the child targeted with live fire, Abdel-Rahman Yasser Ishtawi, [‘Abd a-Rahman a-Shteiwi – who was, in fact, only nine-years-old] was seated outside a home at the edge of the village, around 100 metres away from the Israeli soldier who shot him. At the time, closer to the soldiers, about ten protesters were throwing stones at them. Two villagers seated nearby when the boy was shot, carried him to an ambulance waiting about 50 metres away. Doctors at the Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus confirmed that he had been “shot with an expanding live bullet that exploded into more than 100 fragments after it lodged in his head.” There was severe brain damage, with three major blood vessels ruptured. The report also revealed that villagers had “found a 5.56 bullet case on the ground where protesters had been standing some 15 minutes before.” The case was still hot and dozens more were found in the area. In news media statements, the Israeli military lied, refusing to take responsibility for the crime and denying that its soldiers use live fire against protesters.

Protest and resistance

Young ‘Abd a-Rahman was not taking part in the demonstration when he was shot and critically wounded – but even had he been part of the protest, that would be no excuse for the Israeli Army to shoot him. Children do take part in protests because the malevolent Israeli military presence in their villages allows them no peace or sense of security. Even at night, while asleep in their homes, the children know they are not safe from home invasions by Israeli troops. They live in an ever-present atmosphere of oppression, with the constant fear of abduction and brutal treatment by alien soldiers. They and their families have a stark choice – either surrender to brutality and submit to the Zionist order – or resist.

Heavily-armed Israeli soldiers, terrorising Palestinian children in their homes, schools and streets, exemplify Israel’s moral degeneration. These cowardly acts, usually perpetrated by more than one well-protected soldier for every child, originate in the racist assumptions of Zionist ideology. Targeting children will never succeed in ending resistance, however, because the steadfastness of Palestinian youngsters is becoming ever stronger. Add to that, the increasing revulsion shown by growing numbers of young anti-Zionist Jews towards Israel’s founding ideology, and we see the coming together of a worldwide humanist alliance.

In militarily-Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem, Israeli forces are facilitating a fanatical attempt to reverse 3,000 years of history. The powerfully wealthy Israeli Occupation settler group, Elad, is being licensed to criminally excavate directly underneath dozens of Palestinian homes, the walls and foundations of which are being made to crumble. Elad is about to go further as it prepares to start a new tourist enterprise – a tunnel under the district of Silwan reaching to the Al Aqsa Mosque. The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, celebrated the opening of the venture by publicly using a sledgehammer to smash down a symbolic wall to what has been renamed as the ‘Pilgrimage Road’. The excavations are an attempt to prove that, in Roman times, the tunnel was a street used by Jews to ascend to a temple there. Dozens of Palestinian families have already been forced out of East Jerusalem and the outlook is grim for some 20,000 others.

UN appeal

In a UN News Press Release dated 23 July 2019 Jamie McGoldrick, UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, Gwyn Lewis, Director of West Bank Operations for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and James Heenan, Head of the UN Human Rights Office in the area, deplored the evictions and forcible transfers facing many Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Referring to the recent and on-going destruction of homes in the Palestinian community of Sur Bahir [see also video of home demolitions] they reminded the world that: “Among those forcibly displaced or otherwise impacted are Palestine refugees, some of whom today are facing the reality of a second displacement in living memory.”

A global threat to international law

The crimes committed by the Zionist Occupation violate international law and, therefore, have global significance. Yet these violations of human rights are being supported by the US, which is so often referred to as one of New Zealand’s ‘traditional allies’. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), has ruled against Israel’s annexation Wall running inside the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and including the Sur Bahir homes, stating explicitly that it “violates Israel’s obligations under international law”. The UN statement concluded that: “Had there been concrete action to ensure respect for these principles, and for international humanitarian and human rights law, generally, the people of Sur Bahir would not be experiencing the trauma they are today, and violations of their rights”.

The survival of any hope for a rational, humane, rules-based framework for international peace and stability must include the repudiation of Zionism. The US needs to be constantly reminded of just how far it has strayed since the end of World War Two, from the world community’s embrace of the principles formulating the Fourth Geneva Convention.

All who live in what is now Israel/Palestine have the right to live peaceably together, with justice and equality and an end to state-sponsored discrimination. International law provides the true basis for a solution, which includes recognition and full implementation of all Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homeland. It is the duty of the world community, that has played such a major role in helping to create the present humanitarian disaster, to now shoulder its responsiblity and take immediate action to restore respect for international law, peace and stability. Will the New Zealand Government take up the challenge?

Support the Palestinian Struggle

John Minto, Chair of New Zealand’s Palestine Solidarity Network, has appealed to all of us to remind the Prime Minister of the Government’s Electronic Tender Service’s Rule 44 with regard to a Ministry of Defence proposal to purchase $9 million in military equipment from Israel. Rule 44 states that the Government may exclude a supplier on the basis of “human rights violations by the supplier or in the supplier’s supply chain”. Minto has sent the following email to j.ardern@ministers.govt.nz:

Please invoke government purchase rule 44 to cancel the proposed purchase of $9 million in military equipment from Israel by the New Zealand Defence Force. The company providing the equipment, Roboteam, is an integral part of the Israeli Defence Force and provides equipment to support the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the siege of Gaza. It is providing active assistance to the Israeli Defence Force in their human rights abuses such as the murder and maiming of unarmed Palestinian youth (16 killed so far this year) and the detention without trial of Palestinian children and minors. Please respond urgently.

News media reports reveal how Israel has used its military to develop and trial these, and other products, in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. Let all who care about justice, human rights, peace and security, give support to John Minto and follow his example – let the New Zealand Government know that we expect it to live up to this country’s values and set an example to the world.

Jacinda Ardern passes buck to Ron Mark

On 24 July Marian and I sent an email to the Prime Minister that included a version of John Minto’s email. On 26 July we received the following reply from the Office of the Prime Minister:

“Dear Leslie and Marian Bravery

I am writing on behalf of the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, to thank you for your letter of 24 July 2019 concerning the Ministry of Defence proposal to purchase $9 million worth of military equipment from Israel, and asking that this order be cancelled.

As the issue you have raised falls within the portfolio responsibilities of the Minister of Defence, Hon Ron Mark, your email has been forwarded to the Minister’s office for information.

Thank you for writing to Jacinda.

Best Wishes
Dinah Okeby
Office of the Prime Minister”

The concerns raised in our email relate to international law, New Zealand’s foreign policy, human rights and the upholding of New Zealand’s values and so go beyond purely military matters. It is disappointing that our Prime Minister showed no willingness to reply positively regarding these issues. We now await Ron Mark’s response regarding New Zealand’s commitments to international law and the safe guarding of human rights. We shall publish the email that the Office of the Prime Minister has forwarded to the Defence Minister and any forthcoming response.