There’s no ambiguity about life in Occupied Palestine.
In 1948, Palestinians lost 78% of their historic homeland to Israeli aggression, the rest in June 1967.
From that time to now, they’ve endured brutalizing occupation, colonization and apartheid.
All of the above breach core international law.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirmed self-determination as an essential principle of international law.
In 1960, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Colonialism).
It condemned “colonialism in all its forms and manifestations,” including illegal settlements.
In 1973, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid—the Apartheid Convention.
It condemned state-sanctioned discriminatory “inhuman” racism “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
According to the Rome Statute of the International Court:
“The ‘crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts…committed in the context of an institutionalized 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.”
Israel is an apartheid state—how it’s been from inception.
Since illegally established in 1948, its ruling regimes committed virtually every high crime imaginable—with US-led Western support.
Yet accountability was never forthcoming.
Palestinian suffering continues without relief.
It’s ongoing throughout the Occupied Territories, especially in East Jerusalem since mid-April and against besieged Gazans.
Establishment media are complicit with US-led Western regimes on all things historic Palestine by one-sidedly supporting Israel.
In response to ongoing Israeli state terror against East Jerusalem Palestinians and besieged Gazans, Western media reports are largely one-sided—notably by suppressing the worst of Israeli high crimes against defenseless Palestinians.
Instead of denouncing Israeli state terror, reports refer to “clashes” between both sides.
In one of its propaganda reports, National Pentagon Radio (NPR) defied reality by accusing assaulted Palestinian worshipers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque of “thr[owing] rocks and chairs at police, who fired rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades.”
NPR blamed Palestinians for their UN Charter right of self-defense.
Ignored was that Israeli security forces preemptively attacked Palestinian worshipers—the same thing occurring in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, along with IDF terror-bombing of Gaza as it’s done many times before.
When reporting on events like the above, establishment media ignore the root cause—illegal Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid.
According to Mondoweiss on Sunday, Western “media [are] an accomplice in erasing Palestinian life.”
Ongoing since the 1947-48 Nakba, Israeli state terror and endless wars by hot and other means are its defining features.
Occupier Israel extrajudicially brutalizes, exploits and otherwise abuses long-suffering Palestinian unaccountably—prohibited collective punishment ignored by the West and its press agent media.
There’s no end of it in prospect because of one-sided US-led Western support.
At the same time, Palestinians are declared guilty of defending their land, families, and fundamental rights as affirmed under international law.
Last week, Israeli forces preemptively shot 16-year-old Saeed Odeh “twice in the back with live ammunition,” Mondoweiss reported, adding:
“He was prevented from receiving medical care for fifteen minutes at least.”
“Another boy, who tried to help Saeed, was shot (and injured) by soldiers…”
Saeed died, murdered in cold blood by Israel, his fate repeated countless times throughout the Territories.
Yet most always, establishment media suppress what Mondoweiss called “[e]rasure of Palestinian life”—what’s happened time and again since the Nakba.
Palestinian rights, welfare and lives don’t matter.
Conventional and social media suppress reports of their suffering.
According to the Netanyahu regime, its aim to dispossess Sheikh Jarrah residents from their homes and land is a “real estate dispute.”
That’s how Israel’s Foreign Ministry described its state terror last Friday, tweeting: “[T]he PA and Palestinian terror groups [sic] are presenting a real-estate dispute [sic] between private parties [sic], as a nationalistic cause [sic], to incite violence in Jerusalem [sic].”
“The PA and Palestinian terror groups [sic] will bear full responsibility for the violence emanating from their actions [sic].
“The Israel police will ensure public order is maintained [sic].”
Longstanding Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is all about wanting their land for exclusive Jewish development and use.
Calling attempted apartheid dispossession a “real estate dispute” is an example of Israeli propaganda to suppress its high crimes against defenseless Palestinians.
Biden regime hardliners support what international law prohibits.
At the same time, Israeli forces continue to brutalize Palestinians daily—accountability off-the-table because of US-led Western support.
A final comment
When Israel kills a Palestinian child, youth or adult, they’re automatically called “terrorists”—despite no evidence suggesting it.
When extremist Israeli settlers brutalize or kill Palestinians, it’s considered self-defense.
When Israel steals Palestinian land, it’s unjustifiably justified by racist legislation enacted in 1948 and following years.
Israeli laws and land administration prohibit Arabs from buying, leasing or using land exclusively reserved for Jews.
Yasser Arafat once said that “Israel always confiscated land from Arabs and dispossessed them of the property.”
“The land always goes from Arabs to the Jews.”
Most always, Israeli courts rubber-stamp the practice that’s prohibited by international law.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
