[News] Israel’s inherent sense of racial superiority will backfire one day

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://english.palinfo.com/articles/2019/7/18/Israel-s-inherent-sense-of-racial-superiority-will-backfire-one-day 



  Israel’s inherent sense of racial superiority will backfire one day

By Mohammad Balawi - July 18, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamas did a rare thing this week; it issued a press release 
contradicting one of its top officials, Fathi Hammad, who called for the 
killing of Jews everywhere in the world. Hammad had to backtrack on his 
comments and issue a press release of his own in which he stressed his 
commitment to the official position of the movement, which is to limit 
its efforts to resisting Israel’s occupation of the land of Palestine. 
“Our struggle is not with Jews elsewhere or with Judaism as a religion,” 
insisted the Islamic Resistance Movement. “Hamas has condemned and 
continues to condemn any attacks against Jews and their places of 
worship worldwide.”

Hammad, who is known for his fiery rhetoric, was commenting on an 
Israeli army sniper’s killing of Mahmoud Al-Adham. The 28-year-old 
border guard was shot while he was trying to prevent some Palestinian 
protesters from getting too close to the nominal border fence erected by 
the Israeli authorities. Egyptian mediators have been shuttling between 
Israel and Gaza to de-escalate tension between the two sides for months 
now. The killing was a major blow to these efforts.

The Israeli army does not want military escalation with the Palestinians 
in Gaza while war with Iran is still a possibility. A spokesperson said 
that the shooting of Al-Adham was a mistake, and the army will open an 
investigation. Although no investigation has been initiated, many 
Israeli commentators criticized the military and viewed its statement as 
a kind of apology to what they call a “terrorist” organisation. The 
reasoning was clearly this: why should any Israeli apologize for killing 
a Palestinian? He was, after all, merely an “Arab”.

Of course, Israel has been killing Palestinians inside occupied 
Palestine and further afield for decades. Palestinian resistance 
movements, especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are committed not to any 
retaliation outside historic Palestine, but Hammad’s comments were 
picked up as if such retaliation has already happened. Israeli crimes 
against humanity and war crimes, including the imposition of collective 
punishment on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for 13 years, were 
overlooked.

On the same day that Israeli media was lambasting Hammad and, indeed, 
all Palestinians, the Zionist state’s Channel 13 broadcast a documentary 
showing how the Israeli secret service, Mossad, assassinated the 
Secretary General of Islamic Jihad, Dr Fathi Shaqaqi, in Malta in 1995. 
The operation involved killing a man with neither charges nor a trial; 
abusing the sovereignty of an independent state; undermining domestic 
security; misleading local authorities; and forging official documents 
and passports. This criminal act was carried out, according to the 
documentary, in front of a new-born baby and its mother. But who cares; 
he was just another “Arab”.

Coinciding with the broadcast, Israel’s occupation army shot a 
10-year-old Palestinian boy in the head while he was taking part in 
anti-settlement protests in Kafr Qaddum in the West Bank. All 
settlements are illegal under international law. Abdul Rahman Yasser 
Shteiwi was rushed to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus. According to the 
Palestinian Ministry of Health, the boy is fighting for his life, with 
more than 100 bullet fragments in his head. “The child was not even 
involved in the demonstration,” explained a local source, “and was shot 
as protesters were pulling back.”

Another boy, 7-year-old Tariq Zebania, was riding his bicycle this week 
near his village, Tarqumia to the west of Hebron, when he was knocked 
down by a hit-and-run driver, an Israeli settler who headed for the 
Adhoura settlement after hitting the boy. Local people reported the 
incident to the occupation army; young Tariq was taken to hospital where 
he was pronounced dead. No attempt was made to apprehend the settler, 
witnesses reported.

Two days ago, Nassar Taqatqa, 31, was found dead in solitary confinement 
in an Israeli prison. He had been arrested by Israeli occupation forces 
on 19 June at his family home in the village of Beit Fajjar south of the 
occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. According to the Palestinian 
Prisoners’ Center for Studies, “[Taqatqa] was initially taken to the 
notorious Jalameh interrogation center, where detainees have previously 
reported being subjected to physical and psychological abuse at the 
hands of Israeli officers. Two weeks later, he was transferred to the 
Nitzan Prison in Al-Ramleh and placed in solitary confinement.”

 From long experience, Palestinians know that Israelis do not regard as 
worthy the life of anyone other than white Jews. Any investigations by 
Israel into the above incidents, if they ever take place at all, as well 
as court action, will lead to nothing whatsoever happening to obtain 
justice for the victims of Israeli violence. That is the norm when the 
accused is a white, Jewish Israeli and the victim is Palestinian. The 
killing of an Ethiopian-Israeli young man, Solomon Tekah, at the hands 
of an Israeli police officer, lends weight to this belief. He was an 
Israeli Jew, not an “Arab”, but was still killed and his killer has been 
released. The shooting itself was justified and covered-up by the state, 
merely because the victim was not regarded as quite Jewish enough. He 
was, after all, black.

Israeli propaganda has succeeded in misguiding people for a long time, 
but it is impossible to mislead people forever. There is a basic fact in 
all of this, which is that any racist mentality that prevails in a state 
based on colonialism with inherent racism, does not place any importance 
on human life unless it is the “right” kind. This inherent sense of 
racial superiority will, sooner or later, backfire, and Israel will 
suffer the bitter fruits of its own deeds.

/- Dr Mohammad Makram Balawi is a Palestinian writer and academic based 
in Istanbul. He is the president of Asia Middle East Forum. His article 
was published in MEMO.
/

-- 
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