One of the most repulsive expressions of Israeli racism is the
firmly-held belief that a Jew is superior to and more im****tant than a
non-Jew.
According to this unholy principle, which most Israeli Jews see as an
unquestionable truism, a Jewish life is more im****tant than a
non-Jewish life, and a Jewish blood is far more im****tant than a
non-Jewish blood.
Unfortunately, it is upon this manifestly racist concept that the
entire Israeli justice system is based.
This scandalous perception of the Jew-gentile relation****p encomp*****
all aspects of Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people. It also
explains the institutionalized racism against the native Palestinians,
especially in the occupied territories of the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Take for example, the Shalit affair and how Israel managed to kill,
maim, detain and torture thousands of innocent Palestinians in order
to coerce Hamas to release the man who probably has become the world’s
most famous prisoner.
Two years ago, Gilad Shalit, the son of a French immigrant couple, was
taken prisoner by Palestinian resistance fighters during a
cross-border attack outside the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian operation
was first and foremost aimed at forcing Israel to release Palestinian
hostages in Israeli jails.
However, instead of trying to resolve the matter wisely, the Israeli
army ganged up on the nearly totally unprotected Gaza, murdering
hundreds of civilians, bombing public buildings and destroying
essential civilian infrastructure such as roads, bridges and power
stations.
In the process, the Israeli air-force annihilated entire Palestinian
families, including women and children without the slightest
compunction.
Moreover, thousands of Palestinians, including intellectuals,
lawmakers, cabinet ministers and professionals were violently abducted
and dumped in Israeli dungeons and detention camps, mostly without
charge or trial.
Generally speaking, Israeli behaviors following the capture of Shalit
were very much similar to the way the Nazi SS reacted whenever a
German officer was killed or captured by the resistance in Europe
during the Second World War.
In truth, Shalit, a prisoner of war, could have been released from the
very inception had Israel shown any modi*** of good will, respect and
above all some justice toward her Palestinian victims.
However, as always, and consistent with the Chosen People complex, the
Israeli government acted arrogantly and impetuously on the racist
premise that a Jew’s right to freedom exceeds and overrides the entire
Palestinian people’s right to life and freedom.
This probably sums up the entire philosophy of Zionism, which is based
on the concept of Jewish supremacy, just as Nazism was based on the
concept of Aryan supremacy, the ubermensch.
Today, as many as 10,000 Palestinians (or untermenschen) are detained
in Israeli detention camps in obviously inhuman conditions, many of
them because of their thoughts, views and non-violent political
activities.
Some are sentenced to lengthy terms on largely fabulous and flimsy
charges such as “constituting a grave danger or a threat to the
security and survival of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”
A few months ago, the Israeli army issued a written statement stating
that any Palestinian caught walking in the vicinity of charity
compounds in the town of Hebron, which the Israeli army had closed
down and confiscated, would be sentenced to six years in jail.
What is particularly scandalous is that when a given Palestinian
prisoner’s term expires, he or she is not allowed to go home. Instead,
in numerous cases the prisoner is sentenced to an open-ended
imprisonment known as “administrative detention.”
This writer knows academics and college professors whose originally
unjust prison terms ended six years ago, but are non the less still
langui****ng in Israeli jails and detention camps due to the mood of
the “judge” who with a strike of a pen can extend the incarceration of
a given detainee for six more months or even six more years.
Earlier this week, an “administrative detainee” who has been released
after spending 34 months in jail intimated to this writer that he
still didn’t know why he was imprisoned for such a lengthy period in
the notorious Kitziot detention camp in the Negev desert.
When “Sarmad,” the nom de guerre of the settler judge at the Kitziot
camp asked the Hebronite prisoner why he thought he was arrested, the
prisoner told him simply “I really don’t know.”
Then Sarmad asked the prisoner: “do you go to the Mosque?”
The Prisoner answered “Yes, I do.” Then Sarmad told the prisoner
rather unhesitatingly “that is it…you are guilty of going to the
mosque and praying there. This is why you are here.”
Needless to say, entrusting Jewish settlers, who are inculcated with
indescribable hatred for non-Jews in general and Palestinians in
particular, is very much like entrusting Nazi judges with the
administration of justice for Jews.
Indeed, for these so-called judges, a Palestinian is simply guilty
even if proved innocent. He is guilty for being a Palestinian and
refusing to die and disappear.
Then there is that silly mantra of Palestinians having Jewish blood on
their hands which prohibits Israel from setting them free unless, of
course, they are swapped for Jews, even Jewish corpses, detained by
the “enemy.”
Well, what about the tens of thousands of Israeli Jews who have
Palestinian blood on their hands? Is Jewish blood redder or more
sacred than non-Jewish blood? Doesn’t this racist discourse give
credibility to anti-Semites?
Beside, why is it that an Israeli soldier who knowingly and
deliberately murders a Palestinian school child on his/her way to
school is only charged with a frivolous charge (such as misusing
IDF-issued weapon), while a Palestinian freedom fighter who kills or
injures an Israeli occupation soldier in battle is treated as a common
criminal with no chance of being freed from jail.
The answer is, of course, crystal clear. It is Zionist-Jewish racism,
the chosen-people complex.
Israel can get Shalit released from Hamas’s custody the moment it
realizes that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody are as human as
Shalit, and have beloved ones awaiting their release from jail.
But then such a realization would contradict and even undo Zionism, an
evil ideology that is based on racism and brutality.
Hence, the problem.
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July 6, 2008 By Khalid Amayreh in East Jerusalem
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