Firoz Osman
Even before the creation of Israel from the rib of terrorism, this settler colonial entity, weaved a web of lies and myths to hide its litany of crimes against humanity.
This apartheid entity developed a very sophisticated propaganda machine known as hasbara.
Hollywood played a role in spreading these myths, producing films such as the Exodus and Ben Hur.
Mainstream media spread lies such as “land without people for a people without land”; that zionism was a “national liberation movement”.
It called resistance by the indigenous occupied people “terrorism”.
The ethnic cleansing and collective punishment were enabled by the United States of America, Britain, Germany, France, and other settler colonial states such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
All these countries were settler colonial entities that decimated the indigenous populations of the lands they occupied.
These same countries continue to support the apartheid zionist entity with arms, diplomatic cover and financial aid.
What possesses a people, themselves erstwhile victims, that can perpetrate such horrendous crimes we have been witnessing for the last six months in Gaza?
Zionist ideology is a fundamental pillar of Israel.
It is a racist, apartheid settler colonial state that believes Palestine should be exclusively Jewish, without any Palestinians, Muslim, or Christians.
They insist that Palestinians must be expelled from that land.
It perfected an ideology that dehumanized the indigenous population.
It regards the indigenous population as sub-human, unleashing its military might that would inflict death and destruction on the innocent, infants and women.
The perpetrators of such horrors have no conscience, are without remorse and act with impunity.
Zionism indoctrinated into the Jewish people a toxic mix of fear, anti-Palestinian sentiment, rewarding Israeli settler colonialists for aggression against Palestinians, all of which has bred a lack of empathy in Israelis toward the Palestinians.
Fear among Israelis is sustained through militarization, reframing resistance as “terrorism,” remembering past atrocities such as the holocaust, constant accusations of anti-Semitism, and focusing on perceived and manufactured threats.
These ensure the settler population’s continued support for aggressive, expansionist, racist and genocidal policies.
All settler colonial endeavors, including South Africa’s, typically depend on depicting the targeted territory as “uninhabited” and its existing inhabitants as inhuman barbarians unworthy of any land.
This portrayal allowed zionists to displace the indigenous population of Palestine without moral qualms, portraying the establishment of Israel not as the destruction of a people but as the construction of a civilized “villa in the jungle.”
And if there is any resistance by the indigenous population, call them simply terrorist.
The South Africans know well that the terrorist label is in fact is a badge of honor.
South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist list right up to 2008.
Zionism is a racist, settler-colonialist movement, which opportunistically coopts aspects of Judaism.
This enterprise is based on the mass expulsion of the Palestinians and usurpation of their land for the exclusive use of Jews.
Zionism means occupation, ethnic cleansing, unending massacres, bombardment of entire civilian populations, wars of aggression, dispossession, exile, systematic racism and apartheid-style separation.
Zionism means that there will be massacres until the establishment of a Jewish-only state in Palestine, ‘Jewish’ in the sense of giving privileges to Jews and denying almost all the rights of the indigenous Palestinians.
It is not surprising then that they would ignore the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, international humanitarian law, and arrogantly dismiss any judgments by any international institution that rule against Israel.
Just as white supremacy in South Africa gave rise to apartheid, Bantustans, inferior education, job reservation, group areas, etc., Jewish supremacy in Palestine gave rise to apartheid, exclusivity, expulsion, and now genocide.
Unless the occupiers of Palestine are “de-Zionized”, injustice against the Palestinians will continue.
There will be no end to the killings because it has become embedded in the psyche of the zionists to dominate and enslave those it perceives as lesser human beings.
They have done this for the last 75 years without accountability.
It is the courage of the South African government that for the first time in Israel’s history, it has been taken to task for its egregious crimes against humanity.
And this challenge is not only against the racist Israeli entity, but also against those western regimes that back Israel and the shameless Arab rulers who care more about protecting their illegitimate thrones than human rights and justice.
The world today is divided between a minority of powerful imperialist white supremacists and their puppets who support the genocide of the Palestinians and the majority of the people who do not.
The ICJ decision places Israel squarely in the company of genocidal white colonial-settler societies.
As South Africa’s moral voice Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
The Palestinian struggle for liberation, self-determination and self-rule is actually a war they fight on behalf of the liberation of the exploited masses in the Global South.
The blood of the Palestinian martyrs, and the tears of their children will always remain an eloquent, if tragic, testimony to the utter hypocrisy of western human right crusaders and the prevalent unjust world order.
Just as apartheid was declared a crime against humanity and a threat to world peace, there cannot be peace in the world with the presence of zionism.
Zionism and the zionist entity should not be allowed to exist in the community of nations.
Dr. Firoz Osman is Executive Member at the
Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa
