Pearls and Irritations

Currently, the Palestine issue has become a question of how to get Israel to vacate and stop controlling Palestinian territories. That requires Israel to accept that it cannot continue pretending Palestine does not exist. Thankfully for Palestinians, however, it looks like much of the world already recognises that Palestine is a state.

Many await the determination of the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on the extent of Israel’s illegal acts and consequences on Palestinian territories over the past six decades. There is abundant evidence of these already recorded in United Nations documents. The much-awaited decision is likely to confirm that Israel has indeed been unlawfully treating Palestinian territories as their own whilst, at the same time, treating the Palestinians like pests to be contained rather than like human beings entitled to human rights. The ICJ is arguably likely to order Israel to vacate and relinquish all control of Palestinian territories.

Until then, it is noted Zionists have also made efforts to stop other countries and other entities from recognising Palestine as a state. They know recognition of Palestine, in particular by the United Nations, is a powerful obstacle to Israel maintaining its claim to all Palestinian territories. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken about the “danger” of there being a Palestinian state. It is not by chance that the US, Israel’s main supporter, reacted strongly when Palestine attempted to gain membership to several UN agencies in February 1988 – it threatened to withhold funding for any UN organisation that admitted Palestine.

Zionists continue to ignore Palestine is today recognised as a sovereign state by 145 of the 193 UN member states. This constitutes a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue in law and in actual fact. Israel may continue burying its head under the sand and continue claiming Palestine does not exist but that should be of little consequence to Palestine’s actual existence as a state.

What’s a real problem for the world is Israel’s persistent unwillingness to accept any UN resolution or any ICJ decision unfavourable to Israel. Indeed it has also rejected the International Criminal Court’s warrant for the arrest of PM Netanyahu and Israel’s Defence Minister. And it’s been able to get away with it because the USA continues to back Israel, US Congress even passing a Bill to sanction ICC officials. It bars them from entering the US and restricts any US-based property transactions by them.

This is why the de facto two-state solution has not had much flow-on effect. There is a need for more support of the existing international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to boycott Israel “until it meets its obligations under international law”. So far, it’s mainly the Arab world that has continued to lead Muslim countries in various boycotting of Israel businesses. In particular, it is highly noticeable that the Western world readily suspended Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris 2024 Olympics for the invasion of Ukraine but athletes from Israel are spared as the IOC President is against it.

This may be why critics have recently said the two-state solution has no meaningful outcome. They suggest focus should be on what Palestinians really want, viz, equality for all and the dismantling of the settler colonialism and the existing apartheid regime.

However, that is arguably too idealistic. Firstly, unless one lives in cuckoo-land, one cannot expect the Zionists to give up what they stand for just because someone tells them they’re depriving Palestinian people of their freedom and self-determination. Secondly, there is a need to take into account certain harsh realities about Zionism, such as the following:

• Unlike Judaism (Jewish faith), Zionism (opposed by many Jews) is the political philosophy justifying the idea of a Jewish state exclusively for Jewish people. It’s what keeps Israel being an apartheid state.
• Israel did not begin as a peaceful settlement of vacant land in 1948. It began with the horrific ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians amongst many of whom are today’s refugees.
• “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. That’s according to a 1975 UN resolution (3379) although, through powerful lobbying by the USA, this was repealed on 16 December 1991. Nevertheless, one effect of a 1963 UN Declaration is that Resolution 3379 officially condemned the national ideology of the state of Israel.
• There is no way the Zionists would, on their own initiative, give up their pursuit of the biblical teaching from the Book of Joshua about how they must completely eliminate the enemy. Indeed, this may be why they are committing genocide or ethnic cleansing in the Gaza.
• Zionism has caused Israel to be seen and listed as a terrorist state by Bolivia, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen. Wikipedia has a long list of assassinations by Israel.

Very unfortunately, these negative realities about Zionism are giving the Jewish community a bad time as too many people do not distinguish between Zionism and Jews.

It is heart-warming to note various protests taking place across the world against what Zionist Israel is doing, particularly its effort to starve to death nearly a million civilians in the Gaza. These protests are a timely reminder to mankind no country should be able to perpetuate apartheid and continue to behave as though it is above the law. This is particularly when it commits war crimes, property and land theft, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Protestors are reminding us the world cannot afford to – and will not – look away. It has a legal duty to do whatever it can to stop Israel’s ongoing criminal violations of international law.

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