OPINION
Hikmat Ajjuri
On the 17th of November 2015, Público published an article titled “Label against Peace” which is authored by Ben-Dror Yemini a columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, a daily Israeli newspaper which is a platform for defending the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.
I expect a concerned European to challenge this article because in simple words, it is soaked with crocodile tears and full of insults to the European intelligence, who decided to take this brave step of labeling settlements products as a means to transform Israel from an abnormal state to a normal state. Because Israel with its attitude of defying the International law and behaving as an above the International Law has become a state with no internationally recognized borders or internationally recognized capital. Consequently, “label against Illegal military occupation” should be the factual title of this article.
In 1973 Sharon a former Israeli Prime minister wrote to Winston Churchill the 3rd, then journalist, a letter saying “ We´ll make a pastrami sandwich of them. We´ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the west bank, so that in 25 years, neither the united nations, nor the USA, nobody, will be able to tear it apart”.
This letter of Sharon explicitly illustrates the current Zionist philosophy on Settlements as a means to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state on the Palestinian land that was taken by force in 1967.
Since then UN passed 10s of resolutions calling on Israel to pull out its forces from Palestine, to reverse its illegal decision to annex the Occupied East Jerusalem and to stop all of its illegal actions of building settlements on occupied territories but to no avail.
The International court of Justice has in July 2004 declared that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem have been established in breach of International Law”.
In fact the main reason of the latest Palestinian upheaval on every meter of the Occupied State of Palestine is a reply to the Zionist lies, one of which is the concerned article above. Because as I mentioned before that the latest Palestinian youth upheaval is an outcry for freedom from the captivity and bondage of the Israeli military occupation.
Netanyahu had spent during his last three terms in office more than 3 billion dollars for his propaganda machine against the Iranian Nuclear program. But for every one´s fortune he was proved wrong by the 5+1 responsible leaders.
Because he was compensated by his American allies for those losses, he has decided to reuse the same budget to fight the culture of sanctions. The late former British Prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher defended sanctions as a means to defeat Apartheid in South Africa said that “Sanctions have teeth”.
Netanyahu knows that it is not the revenue of the products of settlements that matters to him because he knows that he gets compensation from multi sources but what matters to him is the culture of sanctions as he runs an apartheid system worse than the demised South African.
The 600000 illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestine steel 50 million cubic meters from Palestinian water to cultivate 86 square kilometer of a stolen Palestinian land. This cultivated area and water consumed by settlers would provide 100, 000 job opportunities for Palestinians over there. The Israeli military Occupation with its overall oppressive military measures against the life of the Palestinians and the control of their sky, land and sea, costs the Palestinian economy more than 7.8 billion dollars every year. Out of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were made unemployed due to the oppressive policy of the Israeli Occupation, Israel, the occupying power allows only 30,000 to work in Israel and settlements under a blatant slavery conditions.
The EU by taking measures to end the suffering of the Palestinians in the occupied state of Palestine is in fact protecting its values the core of which is Human rights.
Article first appeared on 19.11.2015: http://www.publico.pt/mundo/noticia/contra-a-paz-ou-contra-a-ocupacao-ilegal-1714831