How the JNF (whose patrons include PM Gordon Brown) was involved in the demolition and cover-up of 3 Palestinian villages: Yalu, Beit Nuba and 'Imwas to build a public park called Canada Park in the Ramleh region west of Jerusalem and not far from Lifta.

Israel And The “De-legitimization” Oxymoron

What follows is an article by Alan Hart, a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.

For readers who may not be intimately familiar with English terminology, an oxymoron is a figure of speech by which contradictory terms are combined to form an expressive phrase or epithet such as cruel kindness and falsely true. (It’s derived from the Greek word oxymoros meaning pointedly foolish).

For my contribution to the De-legitimizing Israel series, I’m going to confine myself to one question and answer.

The question is: How can you de-legitimize something (in this case the Zionist state) which it is NOT legitimate?

Leaving aside the fairy story of God’s promise, (which even if true would have no bearing on the matter because the Jews who “returned” in answer to Zionism’s call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews), the Zionist state’s assertion of legitimacy rests on the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the UN General Assembly’s partition plan resolution of 1947.

The only real relevance of the Balfour Declaration is in the fact that it was an expression of both the willingness of a British government to use Jews for imperial purposes and the willingness of Zionist Jews to be used. The truth is that Britain had no right whatsoever to promise Zionism a place in Palestine, territory the British did not possess. (Palestine at the time was controlled and effectively owned by Ottoman Turkey). The Balfour Declaration did allow Zionism to say that its claim to Palestine had been recognised by a major power, and then to assert that the Zionist enterprise was therefore a legitimate one. But the legitimacy Britain conveyed by implication was entirely spurious, meaning not genuine, false, a sham.

Zionism’s assertion that Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN General Assembly partition resolution of 29 November 1947 is pure propaganda nonsense, as demonstrated by an honest examination of the record of what actually happened.

In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a non-binding proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become binding, until and unless it was approved by the Security Council.

The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the US knew that, if approved, and because of Arab and other Muslim opposition, it could only be implemented by force; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the US was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence - actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.

The truth of the time was that Israel, which came into being mainly as a consequence of Zionist terrorism and pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist unless ….. Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.

As it was put to me many years ago by Khalad al-Hassan, Fatah’s intellectual giant on the right, that legitimacy was “the only thing the Zionists could not take from us by force.”

The truth of history as summarised briefly above is the explanation of why, really, Zionism has always insisted that its absolute pre-condition for negotiations with more than a snowball’s chance in hell of a successful outcome (an acceptable measure of justice for the Palestinians and peace for all) is recognition of Israel’s right to exist. A right, it knows, it does not have and will never have unless the Palestinians grant it.

It can be said without fear of contradiction (except by Zionists) that what de-legitimizes Israel is the truth of history. And that is why Zionism has worked so hard, today with less success than in the past and therefore with increasing desperation, to have the truth suppressed.



Russell Tribunal Says Sanction Israel

Israel's Blood Diamonds

With reference to our post below, this article supports our view for total boycott.
The Israeli diamond industry is a major pillar of its economy. No other developed country is so heavily dependent on a single luxury commodity and the goodwill of individual consumers globally.

Therefore total boycott against total occupation.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11170.shtml

Full-Circle of The Waiting Game: Total Boycott Against Total Occupation

Reading Rifat Kassis's Opinion: Moment of truth (e.i. 4 March 2010) we are inspired to put a halt to the arguments that call for a selective boycott of Israel, and to defy those voices which warn us Palestinians (and many internationalists, for that matter) who criticise Israel for fear of being labelled 'anti-semites' (although we are Semites). We challenge politicians who call for yet another round of talks (proximity or otherwise) on the Palestine/Israel question. Shall we count how many of these talks have we had in the last 62 years?

A boycot cannot be selective anymore. As Mr Kassis wrote: "The occupation is not a random onslaught of power, and it isn't conducted on some remote soil: it is a complete matrix of control, a strategic, consistent, deliberate, historically constructed, externally condoned..." and, lest we forget, perpetrated on Palestinian land.

The point being missed by many calling for a selective boycott is that the decisions being made inside Israel, inside the OPT and throughout historic Palestine, are made by the Zionist leadership and its collaborators, whose aim is the total annexation, occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories, not just post UNRES 181, not just post the Armistice Lines of 1949, not just post the 1967 conquests, but throughout historic Palestine.

The last 62 years of illegal Zionist conquest and occupation, cannot be swept aside by simply agreeing to a temporary status-quo pending final status agreements. Those painful 62 years cannot be parcelled into some kind of colonial areas called A, B, C, Gaza or Jerusalem. They cannot be relegated to the dustbin of history by a ceasefire, a checkpoint or an Apartheid Wall. As the occupation is total and illegal, then the boycott must be total and legal.

We should not just boycott the olive oil produced in the 'West Bank' because it is produced in an illegal settlement on the West Bank, but also boycott all products produced in all illegal settlements. We should not just boycott an academic institution involved in state financed military projects, but also boycott others involved in state financed cultural, scientific and academic activities. We should not just boycott an Israeli sports team playing internationally under the Israeli banner, but also boycott an Israeli dance or theatre company sent abroad to whitewash the fascist image of a cruel fascist State. We should not just boycott Caterpillar for demolishing homes and uprooting Palestinian olive groves, but also boycott those companies that supply the sand and cement which make up the Apartheid Wall.

We challenge those who call for a mild and selective boycott to identify any Israeli institution, may it be large or small, which is not part of this 'matrix of control' that suffocates our Palestinian nation.

As this occupation is total and unmerciful, so must our universal approach to fighting it and ending it be. As Israel's occupation covers all of historic Palestine and not only selective parts of it, so must our call for a democratic state which includes all of historic Palestine. A Palestine for all its people: Jews, Muslims, Christians, Coptic, Atheists, and non-Conformists.

In order to achieve this goal, we need a total boycott of the Zionist State. In order to achieve this aim, we need to identify that State. In order to identify that State, we need to untangle the politics of intrigue which produced the 181 UNRES which paved the way for the creation of that State. In order to untangle the tangled politics of that Resolution, we need to sit down, dust-off and read the official archives that go back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. We need to dig deep into the dark politics and personalities that gave one nation, Palestine, away to one small foreign group against the will of over a million indigenous Palestinian people. We must go the full circle.

It is a trip which will take us full circle. We have come full circle now,a so our boycott must be a full boycott.

Therefore, let us not read the pages of only one chapter of this saga and leave others unturned simply because it is easy to 'let bygones be bygones'. Israel has never compromised its aims, its goals or its aggression against the Palestinian people. It has never compromised its defiance of international law. It has never compromised its arrogance towards its most powerful ally, the United States. It has never compromised its military campaigns against innocent civilians to achieve all its Zionist goals. The initial cure to all this is a total boycott.

Total boycott against a total occupation. Nothing less will do.

Antoine Raffoul
Coordinator
1948: LEST WE FORGET