Holocaust in Palestine

At the last count there were over 220 Palestinian innocent children, women and men dead and on the other side one dead Israeli.

(LONDON) - Far be it from me to quote ‘a holy book’ but if you think of those holy books as terms of reference as opposed to a rigid doctrine of worship then quoting them becomes acceptable.

It says in the bible that our journey in life, the human race, is limited to three score years and ten, adding up to seventy. Try to tell that to the many mothers, sisters and grannies in Palestine who suffered the loss of a child before they even made it to ten years, slaughtered by Israeli brute force. A force that is supplied, equipped, trained and sanctioned by western powers, especially the United States of America.

How could a mother or a granny or a sister bow her head in acceptance of the loss of a beloved child who perished before his time while playing football on the beach?

How could you comfort a family when many of its members, mostly youngsters are blown to smithereens while sitting in a café in front of a TV screen watching football?

How could you explain the floods of wrath of an evil God that was rained on the heads of entire families who were wiped out while sitting peacefully eating their evening meal during the fasting month of Ramadan?

How could you further explain that the utter carnage that is being brought upon a defenceless civilian population is sanctioned? And by immense powers that describe themselves as civilized? Nations that invite us all to emulate their way of life and their ‘values’?

Are you tongue-tied trying to find the words to express your indignation? That is an understandable state of affairs, if you are thinking as a member of the human race and consider yourself a decent human being.

In my last article, ‘Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel’, about the suffering of the people in Gaza I wrote:

‘Now they are out of harms way. No one can make them suffer any more. But the 1.7 million inhabitants of Gaza have more loss, more terror, more pain, more suffering, more loss of limb, more loss of life to come their way yet.’

And it certainly did. At the last count there were over 220 Palestinian innocent children, women and men dead and on the other side one dead Israeli.

Not a bad ratio, you would have thought when a certain rabbi said, ‘a million Arabs are not worth a Jew’s fingernail.’*

All of this and more has been brought upon us for the last seven decades. And our heinous crime? We were born on a piece of land that has historical and biblical resonance to three religions. And in a region that was blessed or cursed, dependent on your point of view, with an abundance of natural resources, which are still lusted after.

Nobody with a smidgeon of integrity could dispute that the tragedy that is Palestine is unparalleled in history. Yet despite the glaringly obvious injustice and savage behaviour of the Israeli Occupation Forces still the western powers stand by and state that this is all in ‘self defence’.

We have a proverb in Arabia that goes something like this. ‘He hit me and he cried. And then he ran first and complained.’

Which brings me neatly to the many devastating wars of aggression that were and still are brought upon the defenceless Palestinian population by the Neo Nazis in Tel Aviv.

In 1948 they invaded Palestine, massacred thousands and expelled hundreds of thousands and they blamed it on the Arabs. You would have thought that we invaded them, not the other way around. And the west, especially the Zionist media sang the chorus approvingly and perpetuated the lie.

The same in 1956, when Britain, Israel and France invaded Egypt. Egypt was made out to be the aggressors and the media applauded.

1967 and the same again. Another Israeli war that brought mayhem and destruction and created more hundreds of thousands of refugees. They swallowed up what was left of Palestine and as a bonus the Golan Heights and the Sinai Desert. Yet victorious Israel was made out to be the humble little lamb that held off the wolves that surrounded it.

1973, another war with Egypt that culminated in the Camp David accord which rendered the most powerful Arab Army as null and void. And still no respite for the millions of Palestinian refugees.

In 1982, the peace-loving nation of Israel invaded Lebanon and created more havoc and destruction. The declared purpose of the leader of that invasion, Arial Sharon, was to wipe out the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, then based in Lebanon, once and for all.

The PLO was not totally crushed but were expelled from the Lebanon, bloodied and weakened.

The list is endless. The loss of life and limb is countless. And the wanton destruction of homes and infrastructure is incalculable. Yet still Israel is portrayed as the victim and patted on the shoulder as its crimes are explained away as ‘self defence’.

Now, after Israel has momentarily quenched its thirst for our blood a so-called truce was declared. Forget the thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques that have been destroyed. Forget the utter devastation of the infrastructure in Gaza. Forget the total strangulation of Gaza from land, sea and air. Forget the hundreds dead. Let’s talk truce. Trouble is, nobody told Hamas.

Mr. Tony Blair, war criminal told Mr. Kerry who told Mr. Al-Sisi, the new dictator in Egypt but the so called combatant, the resistance fighters of Hamas, not a word.

As per the script, Israel declared that it accepted the truce. Hamas naturally rejected it. How could they not? They were not even consulted. So the show went on, the aggression continued – still in self defence – obviously and more slaughter, more destruction continued.

As of now the United Nations have reached a truce agreement between both parties that will last for five hours to allow humanitarian assistance to trickle through Gaza.

Does this sound familiar? Does it fit the repeated scenario of the Neo Nazis in Tel Aviv when they create chaos and bring Armageddon on our heads and then shrug their shoulders and say, ‘But we are defending ourselves. They want to destroy us.’ So the leaders of the western powers nod their heads and not only agree, but supply more and more support in arms, money and blanket political and diplomatic cover.

It’s not about self defence. It’s not about secure borders. It’s not about an existential threat. It’s not about right or wrong, good and evil. It’s very simple. It’s land theft. It’s genocide. It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s the supremacy of one race over another.

Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer, commentator and analyst on Middle Eastern affairs living in London.

He was born in Jenin, northern Palestine, was educated in England and spent the early years of his working life in the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia. He has traveled far and wide, searching for the answer to a question that still eludes him.

Why does the United States of America support the Zionist line in such a blind folded way while ignoring the legitimate rights of the indigenous Palestinian people? Particularly as the Palestinian people harbour no ill feelings towards America and its people nor has ever caused them any harm. It is, Jafar says, a conundrum.