Christians4Palestine
Political Oppression
There are many forms of political oppression used across the world. The Israeli regime has employed many of them as it oppresses the people of Palestine.
What is Zionism?
Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in late 19th-century Europe to establish and support a Jewish homeland through the colonization of Palestine.
Zionism has a number of very dangerous aims and objectives - one of the most repulsive is that Zionists believe they are a chosen or superior race of people. This infers that there are some races that Zionists view as inferior or sub-human. This has been the pretext for apartheid in South Africa, the holocaust in Germany and the current genocide in Palestine.
Zionism is a political ideology and is not a religion. There has been an attempt by Israeli Zionists to conflate Judaism (a religion) with Zionism (a flawed political ideology). The purpose of this conflation is to use the antisemitic accusation to provide cover for the war crimes, breaches of international law that the Israeli Regime has perpetrated.
Zionism was and remains a racist ideology . Since the current Israeli government the ideology has become more overtly racist. The Israeli Nation State Law of 2018 states
'the right to exercise national self determination' in Israel' is unique to the Jewish people'
What is Apartheid?
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word for ‘apartness’ or ‘separation’, which was originally used to describe the system of racial discrimination that existed in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. However, today the term Apartheid is used in international law to describe a category of regime, defined in the United Nations (UN) International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973), and refined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2002.
The Convention defines the Crime of Apartheid as: “inhumane acts…committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
There is overwhelming evidence that the system instituted by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people meets the UN definition of Apartheid. Various human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council, B’Tselem, Yesh Din, and even a UN Report have all issued reports stating that Israel is committing the Crime of Apartheid.
‘Apartheid: Wrong in South Africa, Wrong in Palestine’
In practice, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories constitute one territorial unit (which Palestinians often refer to as ‘Historic Palestine’ as it was all called Palestine until 1948) under full Israeli control. As of 2016, of the total population of the Apartheid State of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, around 6.45 million are Jewish Israelis and about 6.41 million are Palestinians. Of the nearly six and half million Palestinians, only under one third (2 million Palestinian citizens of the Israeli state) get to vote in Israeli elections to decide the type of government that rules over their lives.
Under Israeli law, and in practice, Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians are treated differently in almost every aspect of life including freedom of movement, family, housing, education, employment and other basic human rights. Dozens of Israeli laws and policies institutionalise this prevailing system of racial discrimination and domination.
When it comes to refugees and the wider Disapora, millions of Palestinians – whether Muslim, Christian or Atheist – who originate in historic Palestine are not allowed to return to their homes, while at the same time anyone with a single Jewish grandparent is eligible for Israeli citizenship and welcome to go to live there on land stolen from these same Palestinian exiles.
Settler Colonialism
Munther Isaac in his book ' Christ in the Rubble' gives a very accurate description of ‘settler colonialism’. This is a particular form of colonialism where by settlers are used to displace the existing inhabitants of a land by force in order to establish a permanent outpost where they will have privileged status enshrined in the laws of that state. By enshrining the superiority of the settlers within the ‘law' they are then able to describe any resistance to this colonialism as terrorism.
Let us not forget that many world statesman or women were described at one time as terrorists by the colonial power. A great example of this is Nelson Mandela in the South African apartheid regime.
This form of colonialism has been used in many countries. It was employed in The United states when the Native Americans were displaced from their lands and put onto reservations. It was also used in Ireland when the British Empire encouraged settlers from Scotland and the north of England to come to the province of Ulster and take over lands from the native Irish. It has been used in other countries such as Canada Australia and New Zealand
Ethnic Cleansing
This is defined by international law as
'a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic group to remove by violent and terror inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.'
It is designated by the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity.
The Israeli state established in 1948 through the Naqba caused the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland by Zionist militias and the Israeli army. Approximately 75% of all Palestinians were displaced.
The terror campaign carried out by the Zionist settlers and militias resulted in dozens of massacres of Palestinian civilians which was a critical part of forcing the displacement of so many people.
The terror campaign of the militias also destroyed more than 400 Palestinian cities and towns. Homes, businesses and places of worship were destroyed to prevent the return of their Palestinian owners.
The original Palestinians and their descendants now number 8.36 million people, as of 2021, mostly located in the West Bank east Jerusalem and Gaza. Other Arab countries such as Lebanon Jordan and Syria also took significant numbers of displaced Palestinian refugees.
The Zionist propaganda often tries to claim that the land they invaded was ‘empty at the time’. When considering the number of refugees created it is clear that this is nonsense.
In Munther Isaac book he quotes Israeli historian Benny Morris as justifying the ethnic cleansing he states that
a Jewish state could not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. there was no choice but to expel. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads.
Segregation
Segregation is carried out by implementing separate legal regimes for Israelis and Palestinians living in the same area.
For example, Israelis living in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are governed by Israeli civil law, while Palestinians also living in the occupied West Bank are governed by Israeli military law.
Within the state of Israel, Palestinian citizens, who according to Israeli propaganda are afforded the same rights as Israeli Jews, are in fact subject to over 65 discriminatory laws, are not free to live wherever they choose, experience horrific incitement, and live in fear of forced transfer from their homes.
Israel carries out various acts targeting Palestinians – based solely on their ethnicity – that are prohibited by the UN Apartheid Convention including: forcible transfer to make way for illegal settlements; prevention from returning to their homes and lands; systematic and severe deprivation of fundamental human rights; denial of the right to freedom of movement and residence; murder, killing, torture, unlawful imprisonment and other severe deprivations of physical liberty; persecution because of opposition to Apartheid
Palestinian Political and
Child Prisoners
At any given time there are somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Apartheid Israel’s prisons. Of these, between 200 and 300 will be children.
Since 1967, around 800,000 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli military for political reasons. Israel’s use of torture and other violations of human rights and international law in regards to political prisoners are widespread and systematic. Each year Israeli occupation forces arrest and detain around 6,000 people, including an average of 700 children.
A 99.7% Conviction Rate
Israel tries Palestinians in apartheid non-jury military courts which are inherently unfair; these courts, where trials last an average of five minutes, have a 99.7% conviction rate. Amnesty International says these “proceedings do not meet international standards for fair trial”.
Israel also uses a form of indefinite internment without trial called Administrative Detention “to suppress the legitimate and peaceful activities of activists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”, according to Amnesty.
In addition, torture and ill treatment (of both children and adults) along with other violations are routine according to the UN Committee Against Torture, UNICEF, and human rights groups like Amnesty and Defence for Children International. Palestinian political prisoners are frequently forced to resort to hunger strikes – individual and collective – in order to secure basic human rights within the apartheid prison system.
At age 16, Ahed Tamimi spent 8 months in an Israeli prison for slapping an Israeli soldier
According to Defence for Children International Palestine, “from the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces. Three out of four experience physical violence during arrest or interrogation. Israel is the only country in the world to automatically prosecute children in military courts that lack basic safeguards for a fair trial.”
Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process,” according to the UNICEF. Human Rights Watch says that “Palestinian children are treated in ways that would terrify and traumatize an adult. Screams, threats, and beatings are no way for the police to treat a child.”
The issue of prisoners, particularly child prisoners, is one that is often overlooked. Yet the prisoners issue goes to the very heart of Israeli policy in Palestine – the decapitation of political movements, the criminalisation and ‘securitisation’ of young people, not to mention the psychological and traumatic effects detention and abuse have on people, especially children, who endure the prison system. The imprisonment regime is an important aspect of Israel’s total domination of the lives of Palestinians.
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Impunity from international law breeds contempt
In both the West Bank and Gaza, the killing and maiming of Palestinians by both occupation forces and illegal settlers continue apace and with complete impunity. For example, in 2013 an Israeli human rights group noted that in the cases of the more than then 6,500 Palestinians killed since September 2000, Israel opened only 179 investigations, and not a single one resulted in a murder conviction.
The ‘Great March of Return’ protests in Gaza have seen some 200 unarmed protesters, including women, children, medics and journalists, deliberately shot and killed, and thousands more wounded – and often permanently disabled – by live fire.
‘To Exist is To Resist’ – Mural on the Apartheid Wall in Bethlehem
In total, since the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987, Israeli occupation forces and illegal settlers have
- killed over 10,000 Palestinians
- among them almost 2,500 children,
- maimed over 250,000,
- with 15,000 reported limb amputations.
Since 1967, around 800,000 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli military for political reasons. In the same time frame, almost 50,000 Palestinian homes and other structures have been punitively demolished – and many more destroyed by airstrikes and shelling.
The International Criminal Court ICC issued arrest warrants for the most senior Israeli politicians, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes. The arrest warrants have not been enforced by many members of the UN including the USA, a permanent member of the UN security council.
Despite the fact that the International Court of Justice has ruled a 'plausible genocide in Gaza' and imposed directions for Israel to comply with to prevent further suffering, the Israeli regime has simply ignored these directions.
The US has gone to the extreme position of sanctions courts and UN officials.