Palestinians, virtual prisoners in their own homes

Latheef FAROOK

COLOMBO: The idea of a separate state for Jews was first mooted in 1895 by the Austrian Jewish journalist, Theodore Herzl .Two years later the first World Zionist Congress in Geneva decided to act on this plan to create this first ever religious- racist state .

Palestine then was a province of Turkey's Ottoman Empire and more than 96 percent of the population were Arabs while the remaining four percent were Jews. They all lived in peace and harmony.

It was such a peaceful place, before the arrival of Zionists, that one cannot even hear a bad word leave alone people talking loud. Violence, unknown to people there, came with the arrival of Zionists.

In the aftermath of the World War 1 Palestine was brought under British Mandatory power which, betrayed the Arabs, and ruthlessly helped Jews realise their goal of a separate state.

Some of the most notorious Jewish terror gangs were Haganah, Irgun and Stern. Two of their main leaders were Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, godfathers of terrorism, who were later elected prime ministers of Israel.

Hitler's Nazi laws were cleverly exploited by the Jewish propaganda machine to hoodwink the world and win sympathy to colonise Palestine with Jews. Britain helped prepare the ground work for the Zionist state of Israel which was proclaimed on 14 May 1948.

Unarmed Palestinians ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. By 1948 there were more than 800,000 Palestinian refugees. They continue to languish there todate in appalling conditions though they still have the keys of their houses and the title deeds for their lands.

Israel, served as the outpost of the Western colonial powers since its birth, never had any intention to live in peace with its Arab neighbours. In 1955 Israel joined Britain and France to invade Egypt to take back the Suez Canal nationalised by Egypt.

In June 1967 Israel attacked Egypt, Syria and Jordan and captured Sinai, Gaza strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It was at this point the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) came into existence.

Today Palestinians in Gaza, and even in the West Bank, are virtual prisoners in their own homes. Israel has cut off air, sea and land routes to the Gaza Strip preventing basic requirements like medicine and food from getting in. Supplies of electricity and water are irregular and insignificant. This is grave war crime and German leaders were sentenced to death for lesser crimes.

But despite all conspiracies and the presence of hundreds of Israeli agents to incite a civil war, they have failed so far. And the resistance too has not evaporated.

Disgusted with Israel's inhuman treatment of Palestinians prominent Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart decided to quit as professor at Tel Aviv University and leave the country with great regret stating that "she could no longer live in an Israel which is imprisoning a nation with a wall that cut off villages from their farmland".

She said "the walling of the West Bank will displace up to 400,000 Palestinians and force them to move to the outskirts of the bigger cities. "It's not just a land grab'. 'It's turning the West Bank into a natural open-air prison, just like Gaza. Palestinians should not have to pay the price of the Holocaust".

Under the circumstance it is not wrong to conclude that "history Zionism is nothing but history of lies, deception, bloodshed, conspiracy and crime. Yet the West preaching democracy and other cherished values stand fully behind this very same Zionist entity as they all have one goal- destabilise the entire Middle East and plunder its resources.

Betrayed and abandoned by all the Palestinians, the most educated and most politicised people in the world, stand alone today. They had shed enough of blood, lost enough of loved ones, spent too long years in refugee camps and even lost their basic human rights and dignity.

Yet the West and the Western media portray them as terrorists. But one thing is certain. And that is" it is doubtful that so long the Palestinians suffer those who caused this misery and their collaborators, will ever able to be in peace".