T
he Israeli army massacre, the Bloody Monday Massacre, in Gaza on May 14th, 2018, which deliberately killed 62 Palestinians with pre-positioned snipers and injured some 2100 in one day, follows a series of never-ending campaigns of torment and maiming intended at erasing Palestine and its population from the map. Palestine was/is part of a settler-colonial project that was foisted on the Palestinians and the region by Great Britain and the Western powers to fulfill the strategic goals involving the control of trade routes and the domination of resources and markets in the post WWI period.
Zionism is a secular political movement born, on the one hand, from persistent Western-Christian anti-Semitism, and on the other, from a desire to emulate the perceived success of European nationalism and an embrace of anti-religious-sacred text modernity. However, the Zionist embrace of modernity and secularism should not confuse observers with the persistent deployment of religious discourses to rationalize and placate criticisms of Israel and its never-ending settler-colonial project. The dispossession and violence directed at Palestinians are constitutive to the Zionist project and Western powers who foisted this on the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine are partners to this enterprise from the start.
Lord Arthur Balfour, the author of the infamous Balfour Declaration, wrote to Lord George Curzon that ‘in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country… The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism’. Lord Balfour is expressing the political commitment of the great powers to Zionism without giving any attention to the Palestinians, the “present inhabitants of the country”, constituting some 97% of the population at the time.
Lord Balfour continues the letter by rationalizing the dispossession of the Palestinians commenting: And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land… In short, so far as Palestine is concerned, the Powers have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate”.
The dispossession of the Palestinians and colonizing of Palestine was a project sponsored by the major powers, which has not changed since its inception. Often, the question is asked of the “international community” and their response is to defend the ongoing Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinians! Let’s be clear in our analysis when it comes to Palestine and the support of Western political elites for Zionism and Israel so as not to engage in further obfuscations.
Zionism and Israel is a project that was incubated, nurtured and supported into implementation by the major powers in the past and continues to be at the present time to facilitate the colonization and dominations of the region and its vast resources. Furthermore, a certain distorted Christian millenarianism with an apocalyptic view of the world contributed to the push for supporting Zionism and foisting it upon the Palestinians, a needed stepping stone for the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is important to remember that religion has often been deployed to rationalize colonialism, capitalism and imperial expansion, and it is the same in the case of Palestine.
Furthermore, the current relation of the Arab states that view Israel as a strategic ally is born out of the same logic and way of thinking that gave birth to settler colonialism and a divide-and-conquer strategy. Pushing for war against Iran, in the same way that it was pushed against Iraq, is situated at the expense of and in total subversion of the Palestinian rights and Israel is well acquitted and involved in the plans. The Western powers that look the other way when it comes to Israel’s nuclear weapons are on overdrive to punish and attack Iran for a supposed nuclear program and any country that possibly seeks to challenge Israel’s hegemony in the region. Empowering Israel with weapons and all types of technological advancement in armament, while denying or attacking anyone in the region that might challenge these points, makes the Western powers accomplices in the dispossession and in the crimes committed against the Palestinians.
As the world watches another Israeli massacre, the Bloody Monday Massacre, of the defenseless and occupied Palestinian population, the first crime committed against Palestine by the major powers was the embracing of the Zionist settler colonial project. The ongoing open-season on the Palestinians by the Israeli military and government is the natural consequence of foisting Zionism on Palestine and its indigenous population. What is needed is an immediate end to the Israeli siege of Gaza, providing protection for the population and setting in motion legal consequences for all those involved in the Bloody Monday Massacre – the military and civilian leadership.
Until the “international community” takes the appropriate steps towards Israel, it will stand to be guilty of being part of the problem and not finding any meaningful solution. Providing foreign aid and medical supplies to Gaza and the West Bank, while badly needed, is an act that prolongs the suffering of the Palestinians and acts as a global emergency room for the Israeli crimes. What is needed is a clear and unambiguous call for Palestinian freedom, dignity and self-determination! Nothing else suffice and everything else only serves Israel’s interests.
