Bridgetown, Barbados: “The Jewish people have a legal and moral right to establish their homeland in Palestine and they have done so.” Dr. Peter Laurie, Barbados TODAYMay 21, 2021.
A narrative that gained traction when pushed by Zionists in the late 19th century. And it continued to gain acceptance and support from some Western countries. This narrative and subsequent approval led to the greatest act of injustice against a free people and nation in modern times, which has continued for 73 years.
West Bank and Gaza Settlements 2007, settlements have increased since then
Many Orthodox Jews themselves do not support or approve of the Zionist State of Israel. “A legal and moral right to their homeland in Palestine” is tantamount to saying that the First Nations peoples of the Americas have a legal and moral right to their homeland in all of North America, Central America, America the South and even the Caribbean. And in reality, First Nations people have a much stronger case than the Zionists. Palestinians have always lived in that land, be they Muslims, Christians, Jews or others.
He best expresses in his writings and speeches what Israeli society really is. It is a society that has surrounded itself with shields, walls, not only with physical walls, but also with mental walls. A society totally disconnected from reality, which is extremely dangerous.
He suggests that there are three principles that enable Israelis to live with this disconnected reality,
- they strongly believe that they are God’s chosen people and therefore as a chosen people they have the right to do whatever they want
- There has never been in history where an occupier is presented as a victim, not only a victim but the only victim around and Israel constantly plays the victim as well as the occupier and the aggressor and
- the ongoing dehumanization of the Palestinian people. This means that if a Palestinian is not a human being like an Israeli, then there is no need for human rights and human dignity when it comes to dealing with the Palestinian people.
And the sad reality is that Israel has been enabled all these years to behave in such a way by the large amount of aid it receives from the United States of America. Israel receives $3.3 billion a year in foreign military funding from the US, despite the fact that it has a record of human rights abuses and the use of superior weapons to kill and maim innocent men, women and children and destroy property.
The story of God’s chosen people and the victim card is overplayed by the Israelis with the Palestinian side being ignored, denied or not reported. As noted in his opinion piece, Omar Zahzah writes “In 1984, Palestinian American intellectual and Columbia University professor Edward Said famously argued that Palestinians are denied ‘permission to tell.’
More than 30 years later, in 2020, Maha Nassar, a Palestinian-American associate professor at the University of Arizona, analyzed opinion pieces published in two daily newspapers— New York Times AND Washington Post – and two weekly news magazines – The New Republic AND nation – over a 50-year period, from 1970 to 2019. Perhaps surprisingly, she found that “Editorial boards and columnists seem to have been quite consumed with talking about Palestinians, often in derogatory and even racist ways—yet they somehow did not they felt we needed to hear a lot from the Palestinians themselves.”
Therefore, the problem with the narrative is that for more than 70 years it has given the Zionist State of Israel impunity to do as it pleases with the Palestinian people, their lands, their homes, their livelihoods and everything else they own. Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author who writes regularly for Haaretz newspaper.
But in 2021 this is changing to the disgust of the Israelis and their groups. This latest episode in Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people has provoked an unprecedented response around the world from people of conscience, who have used social media to call out what they recognize as injustice, crimes against humanity and genocide on a people conquered by its occupier. .
Recent weeks have seen thousands of people take to the streets and social media to register their protest against Israeli aggression and to defend Palestine. Here in Barbados, about 100 people did the same last Friday. We stood for Palestine because enough is enough.
An explosion is pictured between buildings during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in 2019. AFP
We also argued that the Government of Barbados should in full conscience recognize the Palestinian people and their right to land. Over the years, the government has advocated the two-state solution, but has chosen to recognize only one state, the state of Israel. The challenge for them is the recognition of the state of Palestine. Several countries in CARICOM have already recognized the Palestinian state and have been quick to condemn the latest Israeli aggression.
It is interesting to note that the call to recognize Palestine as a state and to push for a two-state solution is exactly what Israel wants, because the alternative of a state in which all persons have equal rights in the state will harm the Israelis. This was proven recently and was probably why Netanyahu chose to engage in another round of aggression.
This excerpt from the Guardian reinforces this conclusion: “Longtime Prime Minister Netanyahu was on the verge of losing his post to a nearly formed coalition government after failing to secure a majority in the fourth general election in two years. The deal brokered by Yair Lapid, the central opposition leader, would have brought an Israeli Arab party into government for the first time in Israel’s history.
A two-state solution legitimizes Israel’s illegal occupation and historic seizure of Palestinian lands, its discrimination and massacre of innocent men, women and children, and its wanton destruction of Palestinian property. A one state solution will expose Israel’s apartheid policies, force them to accept all citizens as equal, Jews, Arabs (Christians and Muslims), and give them equal votes that in the end it will mean that the Jews will be in the minority.
Zionism has been and remains the ideology of the state of Israel. And this ideology demands a Greater Israel at the expense of the lands, homes, livelihoods and lives of the Palestinian people. This is not a religious conflict; this is a human conflict in which one group of people claims superiority over another group of people.
The same thing happened in apartheid South Africa. Don’t be fooled by the false narrative that this is Jew vs. Muslim terrorists. Palestinians are Muslims, Christians and even Jews. Christian Arabs are just as affected by Israeli aggression as Palestinian Muslims.
The late Nelson Mandela, who knew all too well the horrors of an apartheid state, said it best: “We know very well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people.”
Suleiman Bulbulia is a justice of the peace; Secretary of the Muslim Association of Barbados; Muslim Chaplain at UWI, Cave Hill Campus and Chair, Barbados Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition. An earlier version of this article was first published in Barbados Today on May 26, 2021.
