24th June 2023
A Palestinian man avoids the outcome of another Israeli attack on Palestinian land
Religious fundamentalists have for decades been robbing Palestinians of their land with the collusion of the Israeli state and cover from the Israeli Defence Force. Euphemistically characterised as ‘settlers’ they are nothing than more than illegal occupiers of territory over which they have no moral, political or legal right. Their actions can only be described as state sponsored terrorism.
Palestinians are suffering under the most right wing government in Israeli history, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, which is pressing ahead with illegal settlement activity and massive infrastructure plans. The government is determined to make the territory, illegally occupied since 1967, an integral part of Israel, flying in the face of United Nations resolutions and the rights of Palestinians.
Violence this week escalated when Israeli thugs attacked a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, setting fire to homes, cars and fields in a rampage that left one Palestinian dead from gunfire and 10 others injured. Not only were many of the hundreds of thugs who raided the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, armed but they also had the backing of the Israeli army.
Turmus Ayya resident Mohammed Awad, 26, said people had to contend with fire from the vigilante thugs and the army.
“I rescued five people with my own hands. They were shot with live ammunition,” he said. “It’s Armageddon in Turmus Ayya. Cars are on fire, villas and fields are on fire. Someone needs to stop them. No one is helping us.”
The current violence is allegedly in response to an escalation in Palestinian resistance that began early last year, with a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets. The Israeli military response has been to launch Operation Break the Wave, a series of raids that have resulted in heavy Palestinian casualties.
Further violence has been seen with an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp which resulted in an hours-long armed confrontation inside the city.
The clashes, widely seen as the fiercest in many years, began early last Monday with Israeli soldiers storming the camp, firing live ammunition, stun grenades and toxic gas. Combat helicopters were used for the first time in decades after the ensuing hours-long fighting. On the ground reports suggest that medical teams were initially denied access by the Israelis and eventually arrived very late to treat those who were injured at the scene. Some were described as being “in a very severe condition” needing urgent medical assistance.
The use of helicopter gunships was a 20-year first in the West Bank. Mohammed Kamanji, a lawyer and field researcher with the Independent Commission for Human Rights, said the latest raid was accompanied by “drones and Apache helicopters”, adding that it was the “largest” raid in many years. Israeli forces are “perpetrating gross violations against not only the paramedics, but also the journalists”, he said.
The storming of Jenin saw seven Palestinians killed, with more than 100 others wounded, in a year during which, so far, more than 160 Palestinians have been killed, including 26 children. This compares unfavourably to 2022, a year in which Israeli forces killed more than 170 Palestinians, including at least 30 children, in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This was described as the deadliest year for Palestinians living in those areas since 2006; this year is shaping up to be even worse.
In March this year Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, revealed the true colours of the present Israeli administration after saying the Palestinian people are “an invention” of the past century, adding that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” because “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people”.
The British government, in true neo-colonial style is looking to divert attention away from the crimes of the Israeli state by focussing upon the action of those opposed to the ongoing illegal occupation in Palestine, in the form of the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) bill.
While the bill will affect many campaigns for justice, the government has made clear that its primary target is the Palestinian led campaign for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, of which the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is a key partner. The government seeks to advance the familiar tropes and fallacious arguments that the campaign is inherently antisemitic or fosters antisemitism. The current bill echoes measures introduced in the 1980s by the Tories under Margaret Thatcher, which sought to prevent public bodies from divesting from and boycotting companies complicit in apartheid in South Africa.
The bill contains an extraordinary double standard including a clause which outlines a special exception for Israel, granting it an immunity from accountability. The bill allows a government minister to grant permission to public bodies to divest from companies involved in rights abuses by some states. However, this special clause says that no government can give permission to divest from a company because of actions in support of Israel’s rights violations, including within the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The bill flies in the face of United Nations resolutions including UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which directly calls on member states to distinguish in their dealings between Israel itself and its activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The bill in effect seeks to grant Israel a unique protected ability to violate Palestinian rights with impunity.
Opposition to the bill includes Unite the Union, PSC and Amnesty international. Pressure for the Labour Party to actively oppose the bill inside Parliament must build, alongside the extra-parliamentary activity of trade unions and human rights campaigns.
It is not antisemitic to point out that the Israeli state is engaged in effectively imprisoning an entire indigenous population through its blockade of Gaza; has imposed a military system of oppression across the Occupied Territories; continues to steal land and resources from the Palestinian people; and has stopped refugees from returning over a period of more than 50 years.
Labour must not be afraid to say so and, not only stop this bill, but actively demand the upholding of the rights of the Palestinian people in the face of state sponsored terrorism by Israel.
Avanti Populo 