End of Zionist Racism Prerequisite for Peace in Palestine

Ayman Ahmed

Safar 05, 1444 2022-09-01

News & Analysis

by Ayman Ahmed (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 51, No. 7, Safar, 1444)

Zionism is a racist ideology. It is also inhuman resulting in the barbaric oppression of the Palestinian people. While the zionists terrorize their victims, they also become inhuman in the process. It is inevitable.

Palestinian children are a special target of the zionists as was evident during their three-day onslaught (August 5 – 7) on the Gaza Strip. Eighteen Palestinian children were killed among them five-year-old Alaa Qadoom and five children gathered in the Jabaliya Cemetery to pray at their grandfather’s grave. The zionists accuse the Palestinians of being terrorists or potential terrorists. Thus, Palestinian children are potential terrorists because they would grow up to become ‘terrorists’. So, the zionists murder them before they grow up.

So far, the zionist regime has murdered 37 Palestinian children since the beginning of this year. Hundreds of other children are held in appalling conditions in Israeli prisons where they face torture and even sexual abuse. Many children are deeply traumatized because of zionist brutality.

According to Defence of Children International (DCI)-Palestine, each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone throwing.

The zionists are equal opportunity oppressors. They do not discriminate between the besieged Gaza Strip and West Bank. In the latter case, two areas in particular are targeted: Al-Quds/Jerusalem and Jenin. Al-Quds is targeted because the zionists want to ethnically-cleanse all Palestinians so that they can claim it exclusively for themselves. They want to build their mythical third temple there after destroying the Masjid al-Aqsa.

Jenin is the focus of their wrath because resistance to zionist occupation is the strongest there. It was outside Jenin that Palestinian-American citizen and veteran Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper on May 11. The New York Times put it most tactfully in its headline: “Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian Journalist, Dies, Aged 51”, as if it was a natural process!

Together with killing Palestinian children, and journalists that dare to report such crimes, the zionist occupiers have resorted to other criminal acts. Palestinian human rights organizations that document Israeli crimes have also been targeted. The offices of Al-Haq, Addameer, the Bisan Center for Research & Development, Defense for Children International Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Health Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women, were raided last month.

In typical style, the zionists accuse their victims of the very acts they themselves indulge in. In October 2021, through a military order, the Israeli regime declared seven Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organizations”. Without providing any shred of evidence, the zionists accused the groups of links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and funneling aid to Palestinian resistance fighters.

Not only have these groups strongly denied the allegations, their only contacts have been with the zionist terrorists that broke into their offices to vandalise and steal files. Not surprisingly, nine European Union states in July rejected the Israeli regime’s terrorist designation of the Palestinian civil society groups. The Europeans vowed to continue their cooperation and strong support for Palestinian organizations, citing lack of evidence for Israeli allegations.

The United Nations on August 18 said that Israeli raids on the offices of seven Palestinian human rights organizations in the West Bank “cannot be taken lightly,” and called for the protection of Palestinian civil society groups. Amnesty International was even more forthright in its support for Palestine rights groups. It said in a statement on August 18:

“These organizations have contributed enormously to human rights in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] and across the globe, yet Israeli army boots trample all over their work. Amnesty International stands proudly in solidarity with our Palestinian partners and calls on all governments to condemn the Israeli army’s attack on Palestinian civil society,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“The international community needs to work together not only to reopen the offices of these seven organizations, but also to honour their calls to support the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the Palestine situation and for international condemnation of Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians.”

Even the US—zionist Israel’s patron saint and underwriter—expressed “concern” over the Tel Aviv regime’s raids of the West Bank offices of Palestinian NGOs. Washington stressed that there is not enough evidence to prove their designation as terror organisations. While such statements confirm the criminal nature of the zionist regime, unless backed by specific concrete action, they will carry little weight. Nor will they deter the war criminals in Tel Aviv from continuing their inhumane and barbaric practices against the Palestinian people.

What is needed is to designate the zionist regime a terrorist entity, impose comprehensive sanctions on it and put its officials—civilian and military—on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The court’s investigation last year into Israel’s conduct in its war on Gaza in 2014 confirmed that there is sufficient evidence to charge the entity of war crimes. It is time to move forward with such prosecution to hold the zionists accountable for their crimes.

Without such accountability and elimination of the racist ideology of zionism, there will be no peace in the holy land.