Hypocrisy, apartheid and the people of Palestine - EDITORIAL

On December 29, 1947 the United Nations (UN) partitioned Palestine via Resolution 181 (II). The resolution recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem.   
The plan was accepted by the Jewish population but rejected by the Arabs. The plan gave approximately 2/3rds of the land to the new state of Israel and a third to the Palestinians. On May 14, 1948 Israel declared itself a state and fighting broke out after Israeli terrorist gangs began attacking non Jewish Palestinian Arab villages.   

In 1948, Israel had only 806,000 people. Estimates of the number of Arabs displaced from their original homes, villages, and neighbourhoods during the period from December 1947 to January 1949 range from about 520,000 to around million or more.   
According to Britanica.com The birth of Israel led to a major displacement of the Arab population, who either were driven out by Zionist para military forces before May 15, 1948, or by the Israeli army after that date or fled for fear of violence by these forces.   

Since its violent birth and many wars against the Palestinians, today Israel has seized and controls 85% of historical Palestine. These lands are referred to as the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which include the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. They are all subject to the jurisdiction of Israel.  
Palestinians have long complained of being subject to a multiplicity of atrocities committed by the State of Israel. Unfortunately despite the issue being raised at the UN, Israeli actions have been covered by the United States which uses its veto power at the Council to halt condemnation and stop investigations into Israeli actions which have been likened to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.   

On February 2, 2022, after a four-year investigation, in a damning report, Amnesty last week became the latest human rights organization to level charges, concluding Israel is operating a system which amounts to apartheid under international law This includes Palestinians in Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well as displaced Palestinian refugees in other countries.  

The report refers to Israel’s policies against Palestinians as Crimes Against Humanity. It sets out how massive seizure of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restriction, and denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system of apartheid under international law.   
This system is maintained by violations, which Amnesty International (AI) found to constitute apartheid -a Crime Against Humanity as defined in the Rome Statute and the Apartheid Convention. AI’s Secretary General said the investigators found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control also clearly amounted to apartheid.   

The report also highlighted the killing of Palestinian protesters as the clearest example of how Israeli authorities used proscribed acts to maintain the status quo. It cites as an example the 2018 Gazan Palestinian protests demanding the right of refugees to return and an end to the blockades imposed by the Israelis.   
Before the protests began Israeli authorities warned that Palestinians approaching would be shot. By the end of 2019 Israeli forces had killed 214 civillians including 46 children. AI is now calling on the Security Council to impose targeted sanctions such as freezing assets of Israeli authorities most implicated in the crime of apartheid. Israel however, condemned the report as being antisemitic, conveniently forgetting the Palestinians and Arabs too are Semites.  

The AI’s report also comes at a time our own country is being ‘drawn and quartered’ before the UN on charges of having committed War Crimes during the period of it’s ‘War on Terror’.We ourselves encourage the prosecution of those committing dreadful crimes after diligent investigation into the same, provides irrefutable proof of crimes.   
However, it has been a constant wonder to us that perpetrators of far worse crimes, committed on a far greater scale and which have been continuing for a far longer period of time have not been brought before either the International Criminal Court or hauled before the United Nations Human Rights Council.   

Could it be perhaps, because they enjoy the support of the world’s greatest perpetrator of Crimes Against Humanity in living memory... remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fire bombing of Tokyo, Mai Lai in Vietnam and the use of chemical weapons against the Vietnamese population to name just a few?  
A continual ignoring of these ongoing atrocities are a shame on the UN, a shame on democracy, and a victory for hypocrisy.