By Tariq A. Al-Maeena
Israel is an apartheid state; make no mistake about that. And it is a tumor in the region. A tumor that had been incessantly bloating as it illegally feeds off Palestinians and their lands through murder, imprisonment and a host of other crimes. Apartheid, to refresh your memory, is a system of institutionalized racial, social, economic and political segregation and deprivation of a group of people.
The Israelis invariably accompany this doctrine with a hail of murderous bullets. And much as the minority white rule in South Africa denied and detained the predominant black African inhabitants of their land, so has this putrid tumor in our midst been allowed to fester like an open sore and continue its present-day oppression.
Each and every day brings us the reality of what the Israeli government is openly exercising: The total extermination of Palestinian presence from their lands. And if that involves killing them, women and children being no exception, so be it. Perhaps we have become so immune to “collateral damage” that we tend to dismiss every daily individual case of murder and brutality exercised by the Israeli forces.
While the rest of the world has tuned in to the theatrics and human drama of events elsewhere, very little attention has been given to the real-life drama where human blood is being spilled in acts of unconcealed aggression by IDF cowards firing off payloads of death into civilian areas from the relative safety of helicopters.
Thousands of innocent Palestinians languish in Israeli prisons; they are held in contempt of human rights regulations and they undergo every form of abuse and torture. And yet, the concerns of the US media over the welfare of one Israeli soldier are hypocritically puzzling. Where are the outcries against the treatment of the Israeli government meted out to the oppressed of Palestine?
Undoubtedly encouraged by the lack of censure by the United States, Israel has continued its policy of violence against the people of Palestine. Were it not for the bellicose nature of its primary benefactor with regard to the elected government of the Palestinian people, one might have thought that perhaps Israel would finally seek peace with the people they have oppressed for so long, and return some of the land stolen from them. But it seems that that is not to be.
Beginning with depriving them of their livelihood, the Israeli government’s policy of denying Palestinians their daily bread with increasing sanctions and military action has once again placed the oppressed masses in the indiscriminate crosshairs of the Israeli military machine. It is not just Palestinian soldiers who are dying. Tragically, it is mothers and their children as well. It is the young and the very old.
Death does not only come from bullets. Denying food, water and medicine is another way of oppressing the Palestinians. The mounting death tolls of the innocent as a result of these sanctions do not seem to warrant headline news in Western media. And although human dignity has suffered, it has not waned in the hearts of the oppressed, a people who have suffered for so long against tyranny that hope and justice seem to be alien words.
The strategy of the Israeli government in taking over Palestinian land and driving its legitimate occupants into isolated pockets has served the Jewish state well in its policy of ethnic cleansing. Deprived of daily conditions that others in most parts of the world take for granted, these oppressed people continue to be victims of Israeli violence. And while this is happening, should we just remain seated and watch?
Do not try to convince us that Israel is a democracy in the region or that it is concerned about anyone’s welfare. If it were, then the Palestinians would have rights in their country. Israel is an apartheid state in every sense of the word and it is shamefully getting away with it. Who dares question this brutal game being conducted on killing fields against a defenseless people?
The author can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
