By Iqbal Jassat
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
Much to his dismay, when the war criminal Netanyahu had hoped that the billions invested in “improving” Israel’s public image would shield him and the settler colonial regime from adverse publicity, a new missile has been launched to blow his fiction apart.
Having returned from his latest visit to the White House, where new plots were hatched by him and Donald Trump to further destabilize the world, the fugitive Netanyahu’s vain wish to insulate Israel from international censure has not materialized.
As architects of plunder, death, and destruction, both leaders have a terrible public record that no amount of money or fake news will wipe out. Their evil design to spread corruption across key regions of the world while hoping that global citizens will remain oblivious to the fallout is equally foolish.
Their idiocy is evident in the illegal abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on trumped-up charges, attempts to overthrow his government and blatant theft of the country’s mineral resources as well as oil.
Trump’s avarice is unlimited. His goal to take control of Greenland via military force, regardless of Denmark’s warning that the NATO alliance is at risk of fracturing, seems on track.
For him and his MAGA clan of thugs, the mineral-rich, self-governing Danish territory in the Arctic represents wealth and prestige. Framing it as a “national security priority” is a ruse.
Zionist Hasbara is not confined to the occupiers of Palestine. It has been adopted by Trump and his spin-doctors to drive narratives based on myths and fantasies.
The Hasbara related to the Gaza genocide, following the fanfare of a “ceasefire”, wants the world to turn its attention elsewhere by pretending that the genocide has ended while mass deaths continue.
Commenting on it, Palestinian writer Eman Abu Zayed, based in Gaza, made the following observation:
“It became clear to me that the real goal of the ceasefire was not to stop the violence or death, nor to protect people or limit bloodshed and genocide. The real goal was to stop the world from talking about Gaza, about the crimes being committed there, and about the daily suffering of people”.
Netanyahu’s desperation to save himself from capture and face trial at the International Criminal Court for war crimes is real. His reliance on Trump for protection is misplaced, given the US president’s prospect of impeachment.
To add to Netanyahu’s woes, the United Nations in its latest human rights report has slammed Israel’s decades-long discrimination and segregation of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and demanded an end to its apartheid.
“There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“Whether accessing water, school, rushing to hospital, visiting family or friends, or harvesting olives –- every aspect of life for Palestinians in the West Bank is controlled and curtailed by Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies and practices,” he added.
“This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before.”
Though numerous credible human rights organisations, including institutions within the colonial entity, reached the conclusion that Israel is an apartheid regime, this marks the first time a UN rights chief has applied the term.
Volker Turk’s report is evidence-based and categoric: the Netanyahu regime treat Israeli settlers and Palestinians residing in the West Bank “under two distinct bodies of law and policies, resulting in unequal treatment on a range of critical issues”.
“Palestinians continue to be subjected to large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of access to resources,” it added.
Apartheid is a system that thrives on racism, cruelty, injustice and as practised in Israel has resulted in dispossessing Palestinians of their lands and homes. In addition to targeted criminal prosecution in military (not civil) courts, where due process is absent and fair trial rights are systematically violated.
While rightwing elements in South Africa and elsewhere have cheered Trump’s assault on Venezuela and simultaneously applauded his hostile stance on Cuba, Mexico, Somalia, and Iran – among others – Netanyahu has foolishly been basking in his glory.
The insecurity he faces is clear. It is borne by the fact that while his talking points raise the spectre of “radical Islam” to drive fear and alarm among his Islamophobic constituency, Netanyahu is haunted by the tide of global public opinion against him.
As cowards behave, he has now effectively banned dozens of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) working in Palestine. 37 foreign aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, have been banned from operating in Palestine.
International aid workers have described Gaza as a dystopian demolition site – an apt description for an area of 365 square kilometres that has been subjected to the equivalent of six times the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according to Yara Hawari.
Trump and Netanyahu represent the new face of colonialism as they plot and execute decisions to dispossess people of freedom and liberty.
And though the damage wrought by them is monumental and ongoing, it cannot last. Injustice is not perpetual; it is terminal.
– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com
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