Opinion Editorials, October 2007
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The Lying Israeli ambassador, Ron Prosnor
By Khalid Amayreh
[ 19/01/2008 - 04:54 PM ]
Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Israeli-occupied East
The new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, is devoting much of his
time these days to trying to enhance his country’s image as the British
public continues to be disillusioned with Israel’s colonialist polices in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In recent months, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians, including numerous
innocent civilians in the occupied territories. Moreover, the harsh Israeli
blockade of the estimated 1.5 million Gazans goes on unabated, reducing the
impoverished coastal territory to a modern-day version of Ghetto Warsaw.
Prosor thinks that aggressive and proactive PR can eventually morph critics
of Israeli occupation and racism into loyal lovers.
Speaking to reporters in London recently, Prosor described the British
public opinion as “more extreme than the political establishment in its
criticisms of Israel.”
“If there is one thing I want you to take home with you it is this: Israel
is a democracy under attack that it is dealing with difficulties that no
other country is facing.”
Prosor is lying on both accounts because Israel is neither a true democracy
nor is under attack.
In truth, Israel is a terrorist state, a murderer, thief and liar.
Israel routinely murders innocent people and claims they were killed by
mistake. Israel routinely confiscates private Arab land for Jewish
settlement expansion and then claims the land is disputed. Israel detains in
appalling conditions thousands of Palestinians, including democratically
elected lawmakers, without charge or trial. Are these patterns of behavior
compatible with a democratic state?
We all know that the supremacy of the rule of law is a central pillar of any
democracy. In Israel, however, the government, which is supposed to uphold
the rule of law, colludes in broad daylight with Jewish settlers to break
the law, and establishes “illegal settler outposts” on land stolen at
gunpoint from Arab farmers and peasants. Does a true democracy behave this
way?
Indeed, what type of democracy is that which is insisting that a certain
segment of its citizens have no permanent right to citizenship and equality
because they don’t adhere to the “right religion” and don’t belong to the
“holy tribe”?
Prosor claims that Israel is both Jewish and democratic. This is a brazenly
mendacious claim because Prosor knows deep in his heart that Israel can’t be
both Jewish and democratic at the same time. He should also realize that
whenever the mantra of Israel being “Jewish and democratic” is put to the
test, the democratic element will evaporates at the first chance.
Apart from the Zionist philosophy, which is based on Jewish particularism,
Israeli policies and especially behaviors amply demonstrate the
anti-democratic and even anti-human nature of the Jewish state.
In Israel, one has to be Jewish in order to enjoy full human rights and full
equality.
And if you are not Jewish, you are always viewed as a child of a lesser God.
And it doesn’t make any difference if you are alive or dead since Israeli
bulldozers routinely destroy and unearth non-Jewish graveyards for
“development” and in some cases in order to build a Museum of Tolerance as
the Israeli government is trying to do with the Mamilla Muslim cemetery in
the heart of Jerusalem.
You see, this is a state that tries to foster tolerance by unearthing the
bones of dead Muslims and Christians.
I have been living under Israeli rule for over 40 years, and in all honesty
I never ever felt that Israel is a truly democratic state. Here in the City
of Hebron where I live, nearly 200,000 human beings are effectively held
hostage to the whims and moods of 400 messianic settlers who think that
Palestinians belong to gas chambers. These Talmudic-minded settlers are
thoroughly inculcated in the primitive doctrine that non-Jews living under
Jewish Law ought to be exterminated, expelled or at the very least enslaved
as water carriers and wood hewers.
More to the point, these hate-filled extremists, who still glorify the
Jewish terrorist-murderer Baruch Goldstein who in 1994 murdered 29 Arab
worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque, routinely harass, terrorize and attack
unprotected Arab families in order to force them to flee so that the they
could take over their homes and property.
And whenever the victims seek redress in Israel, a thousand legal tricks are
concocted for the purpose of enabling the settlers to get away with
impunity. This brutal racism is not a one-day or one-month or even one-year
affair. This is the norm, this is the modus operandi of the Israeli rule,
and it has been going on since 1967. For the Palestinians, it is a
Kristalnacht without any end in sight.
Prosor claims that nuclear-armed Israel is under attack. This is nothing
short of fornication with words. Who has been attacking whom? Who has been
occupying whose territory? Who has been building illegal racist colonies on
a land that belongs to another people?
In 2006, Israel attacked and virtually destroyed the bulk of Lebanon’s
civilian infrastructure, killing hundreds of innocent people. And, as if
that were not enough, the Israeli air-force dropped millions of cluster
bomblets in southern Lebanon.
We know and the world knows that 3 million bomblets can kill at least 3
million civilians. This is an attempted holocaust at best, or maybe
half a holocaust by Jewish standards.
Last year, an insolent Israel bombed a Syrian facility without the slightest
provocation. The naked aggression, which most western states failed to
condemn, underscored Israeli bellicosity and aggressiveness.
And, now, in the aftermath of the Annapolis and Paris conferences, Israel is
busy building settlements in occupied Jerusalem while Israeli spokespeople,
like Ambassador Prosor, are quite vociferous in their claims that Israel is
a democracy, under attack and is seeking peace with its neighbors.
There is no doubt that the enduring Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
homeland is an enduring act of rape. It is also lamentable that
ambassador Prosor is acting as defender and apologist for Israeli crimes.
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