Israel’s contribution to UN accessibility is a façade for its violations

Ramona Wadi

Disabled Palestinian football players, who lost their legs during Israel's assaults, in action during a friendly match, organized by Supreme National Commission of the Return March regarding to 2018 FIFA World Cup, in Gaza City, Gaza on 15 June, 2018 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Israel marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities by donating three paediatric wheelchairs to the UN Human Rights Council. The aim, according to Israel’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, was “to make the UN truly accessible, so that persons with physical disabilities can actively take part and influence world issues discussed in Geneva.”

The occasional visits by children to the UN are not influential in the grand scheme of the organisation’s manipulation of human rights. Israel, however, is being allowed to influence the UN in terms of its contributions, which by default demand deliberately looking the other way as it continues to obstruct accessibility for Palestinians in Palestine, especially for Palestinians with disabilities. This latest episode in Israel’s manipulation of the international arena and its agenda begs the question – why do UN institutions allow the existence of Israel’s façade to flourish, at the expense of the settler colonial state’s ongoing violations against Palestinians?

In addition, Israel’s seemingly altruistic motive hides a darker reality highlighted by the UNHRC itself – Israel’s deliberate maiming of Palestinian civilians. In 2018, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) noted that Israel killed Palestinians with disabilities who were participating in the Great Return March protests. Israeli snipers also targeted the lower limbs of Palestinians demonstrating at the Gaza border, thus adding to the statistical toll of permanent disabilities.

Meanwhile, the latest statistics show that 92,710 Palestinians with disabilities, 52 per cent of who are living in the Gaza Strip, face increasing hardships in Palestine. The colonial occupation of Palestine and its restrictions upon Palestinians reflect even more strongly when it comes to persons with disability. This year, PCHR’s press release expounds upon such ramifications, noting the link between everyday Israeli violations of Palestinian rights and how this impacts the rights of Palestinians with disabilities, in particular when it comes to freedom of movement.

The press release states, “Israeli targeting of PWD is not limited to attacks on their physical integrity, IOF also restricts their freedom of movement and denies them travel to seek medical treatment abroad, raising the number of victims with permanent disabilities who could have been treated were it not for Israeli restrictions.”

Israel’s endeavours abroad, especially in humanitarian initiatives, continue to provide a veneer for its violations against the rights of Palestinians. The more it promotes its illusory concept of freedom to the international community, the more Palestinians are marginalised and left to face the increasing oppression in isolation. Providing three wheelchairs to make UN premises more available constitutes a propaganda effort along the same lines as promoting its expertise to niches of need, especially in African countries, for example, in terms of technology and agriculture.

Israeli media have framed the wheelchairs donation as Israel’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals which stipulate that no one should be left behind. Yet in Palestine, an entire population has been forced to stay behind without the possibility of ever attaining a semblance of sustainability. What Israel has achieved is a mockery of sustainability and the international community has played along with the charade.

Israeli minister calls for Western-Arab alliance against Iran

Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, called on Thursday for a Western-Arab alliance headed by the US against Iran, in order to curb its missile development and “aggression”.

This call came following a letter sent by France, Germany and the UK to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warning that “Iran’s developments of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles” violates a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Katz posted on Twitter: “The next step must be an effective military threat of a Western-Arab coalition led by the US to deter Iranian aggression. These are critical moments.”

According to the Times of Israel, Katz also tweeted: “This is the decisive moment.”

This came in the context of a meeting between Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Lisbon, where they discussed the Moroccan-Israeli relations.

How Western Media Bias Allows Israel to Get Away with Murder in Gaza

By Ramzy Baroud 

It is obvious that the Western media have maintained their blindspot on fairly reporting on Gaza and intentionally kept the truth from their readers.

An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent, and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when”.

The answer came on November 12, when the Israeli military launched a major strike against Gaza, killing an Islamic Jihad Commander, Bahaa Abu al-Ata, along with his wife Asma.

More strikes followed, targeting what the Israeli military described as Islamic Jihad installations. However, the identities of the victims, along with damning social media footage, pictures, and eyewitness accounts indicate that civilians and civilian infrastructure were bombed and destroyed as well.

As of November 14, when a truce was announced, 32 Palestinians have been killed and over 80 wounded in the Israeli aggression.

What truly frustrates any meaningful discussion on the horrific situation in Gaza is the feeble response, whether by international organizations that exist with the sole purpose of ensuring world peace or by Western mainstream media, that ceaselessly celebrates its own accuracy and impartiality.

A most disappointing response to the Israeli violence was offered by Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

Mladenov, whose job should have long been deemed pointless considering that no “peace process” actually exists, expressed his “concern” about the “ongoing and serious escalation between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel”.

Not only Mladenov’s statement creates a moral equivalence between an occupying power, which instigated the war in the first place, and a small group of a few hundred armed men, it is also dishonest.

“The indiscriminate launching of rockets and mortars against population centres is absolutely unacceptable and must stop immediately,” Mladenov elaborated, putting great emphasis on the fact that “there can be no justification for any attacks against civilians”.

Shockingly, Mladenov was referring to Israeli, not Palestinian civilians. At the time that his statement was released to the media, there were already dozens of Palestinian civilians that had been killed and wounded, while Israeli media reports spoke of few Israelis who had been treated for “anxiety”.

The European Union did not fare any better. The EU parroted the same American knee-jerk response by condemning “the barrage of rocket attacks reaching deep into Israel”.

“The firing of rockets on civilian populations is totally unacceptable and must immediately stop,” a statement by the European bloc read.

Is it not possible that Mladenov and top EU foreign policymakers do not truly comprehend the political context of the latest Israeli onslaught—that embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using military escalation as a way of fortifying his weakening grip on power.

Considering this, what is one to make of the poor media coverage, the inept analyses and the absence of balanced reports in major Western news media?

In a report published by the BBC on November 13, the British broadcaster referred to “cross-border violence between Israel and militants in Gaza”.

But Gaza is not an independent country and, per international law, it is still under Israeli occupation. Israel declared Gaza a “hostile territory” in September 2007, arbitrarily establishing a “border” between it and the besieged Palestinian territory. For some reason, the BBC finds this designation acceptable.

CNN, on the other hand, reported on November 13 that “Israel’s military campaign against Islamic Jihad” is entering its second day, while emphasizing the UN condemnation of the rocket attacks.

CNN, like most of its American mainstream counterparts, reports on Israeli military campaigns as a part and parcel of some imagined “war on terror”. Therefore, analyzing the language of US mainstream media with the purpose of underlining and emphasizing its failures and biases, is a useless exercise.

Sadly, US bias regarding Palestine has extended to mainstream media in European countries that were, to some degree, fairer, if not somewhat sympathetic, with the Palestinian peoples’ situation.

El Mundo of Spain, for example, spoke of a number of Palestinians—making sure to emphasize that they were “mostly militants”,—who “died” as opposed to “were killed” by the Israeli military.

“The escalation followed the death of Gaza’s armed branch leader,” El Mundo reported, failing once more to pinpoint the culprits in these seemingly mysterious deaths.

La Repubblica, which is perceived in Italy as a “leftist” outlet, sounded more like a rightwing Israeli newspaper, in its description of the events that led to the death and wounding of many Palestinians. The Italian newspaper used a fabricated timeline that only exists in the mind of Israeli military and decision-makers.

“Violence continued. Several rockets were thrown towards Israel by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad (militants), breaking the brief truce, according to (rightwing Israeli newspaper) The Jerusalem Post and to the Israeli army”.

It remains unclear what “truce” La Repubblica was referring to.

France’s Le Monde followed suit, reporting the same deceptive and cliched Israeli lines and emphasizing statements by the Israeli military and government. Interestingly, the death and wounding of many Palestinians in Gaza did not deserve a place on the French newspaper’s homepage. Instead, it chose to highlight a comparatively irrelevant news item where Israel denounced the labeling of illegal settlement products as “discriminatory”.

Maybe, one could have excused these across-the-board journalistic and moral failings if it were not for the fact that the Gaza story has been one of the most covered news topics anywhere in the world for over a decade.

It is obvious that the West’s “newspapers of record” have maintained their blindspot on fairly reporting on Gaza and intentionally kept the truth from their readers for many years so as not to offend the sensibilities of the Israeli government and its powerful allies and lobbies.

While one cannot help but bemoan the death of good journalism in the West, it is also important to acknowledge with much appreciation the courage and sacrifices of Gaza’s young journalists and bloggers who, at times, are targeted and killed by the Israeli army for conveying the truth on the plight of the besieged but tenacious Strip.

Ramzy Baroud

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, 2018). His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter, and is a former Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.

The Duplicitous Agenda Endorsed by the UN and NATO

Ramona WADI

To the undiscerning, the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) perform different roles in the international arena. Yet both organisations have a common aim – the promotion of foreign intervention. While the UN promotes its humanitarian façade, NATO provides the militarisation of the UN’s purported human rights agenda.

NATO’s participation at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in September provided an overview of the current collaboration the organisation has with the UN. Jens Stoltelberg, NATO’s Secretary-General, mentioned the organisations’ collaboration in “working closely to support Afghanistan and Iraq”.

Since the 1990s, the UN and NATO cooperation was based on a framework which included decision-making and strategy on “crisis management and in the fight against terrorism.” In 2001, US President George W Bush launched his ‘War on Terror’ which eventually expanded to leave the Middle East and North Africa in perpetual turmoil, as the coined euphemism morphed into the so-called Arab Spring.

While the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were led by the US, it is worth remembering that the absence of the organisation at that time is not tantamount to the exclusion of warfare from NATO member states. Notably, the US invasion of Afghanistan invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on a NATO member state constitutes an attack on all member states.

“For NATO-UN cooperation and dialogue to remain meaningful, it must continue to evolve.” The statement on NATO’s website is a bureaucratic approach which detaches itself from the human rights violations created and maintained by both parties, which form the premise of such collaboration.

UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), upon which NATO based its collaboration with the UN, reaffirms, “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence as recognised by the Charter of the United Nations.” The resolution provides impunity for member-states and other collaborators with the UN, including NATO, to define what constitutes terrorism while eliminating foreign intervention as a terror act, despite the ramifications which last long after the aggression has been terminated or minimised.

The UN-NATO duplicity is exposed in Stoltenberg’s speech when he states, “NATO has also contributed to developing UN disposal standards to counter improvised explosive devices, which remain one of the greatest threats to peacekeepers.” Why are the UN and NATO selecting rudimentary forms of warfare over precision bombing which has killed thousands of civilians in the name of fighting terror or bringing democracy?

In 2011, the UNSC’s arms embargo was supposed to prevent the proliferation of weapons to the rebels in Libya – a contradiction given the UNSC’s authorisation for NATO to bomb Libya. France, however, defied the resolution by publicly declaring its proliferation of weapons to rebels in Libya, on the pretext of their necessity to protect Libyan civilians. NATO denied its involvement as an organisation in providing arms to the rebels, despite the fact that action was taken by a NATO member. With the UN endorsing foreign intervention and NATO implementing the atrocities, the UN can fall back on its alleged peace-building and humanitarian roles, of which there is never a decline due to the irreparable damage both organisations have wreaked upon exploited, colonised and ravaged countries. The cooperation lauded by NATO does not rest on a division of roles but rather on blurring the differentiation between war and humanitarianism, in order to generate both as a duplicitous agenda.

NATO maintains that the UNSC holds “primary responsibility” for maintaining international peace and security. What the statement evades is the individual interest of each member, as well as their collective framework as NATO members. To satisfy the UNSC, individual interests and NATO membership, a common denominator is imperative. For the perpetrators of foreign intervention, war constitutes the binding legacy.

Ramona WADI

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America.

It’s Past Time to Move the United Nations to Switzerland

Wayne MADSEN

With a dangerous right-wing and quasi-fascist administration in power in Washington, one that rejects internationalism and consensus-building, it is past time for the United Nations to move its headquarters and member states’ permanent missions to a more neutral location. One can understand why the UN was originally located in New York. The Rockefeller family donated the land on Turtle Bay on the East River for the construction of UN Headquarters. After World War II, the United States was in a prime position to nurture the UN, something it failed to do after World War I when Washington rejected membership in the League of Nations.

The League’s headquarters in Geneva was a painful reminder to some UN members who saw the world’s first international organization devoted to peacemaking fail miserably to contain Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan. In some respects, although the UN was the successor organization to the League, no one wanted to be reminded that it was at the League’s headquarters in Switzerland where Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie pleaded with delegates to stop the brutal Italian invasion and occupation of his country.

The charter members of the UN wanted no reminders of the UN’s toothless predecessor. The UN was an organization with a Security Council of five permanent members that was authorized to meet aggression with force. Unfortunately, the UN’s host nation, particularly under Donald Trump, but also to a lesser extend under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, has shown its willingness to disregard decisions of the UN and violate the US-UN Treaty governing the rights of delegates to freely enter and depart New York while conducting business at the UN.

The US-UN treaty, which may not be violated by Trump without the approval of Congress, was signed at Lake Success, New York in 1947. The signatories were UN Secretary General Trygve Lie and US Secretary of State George Marshall. The treaty guaranteed the extraterritorial nature of the UN headquarters in Manhattan. Furthermore, it guaranteed that the US would not interfere with the expeditious granting of US visas to foreign diplomats and UN personnel transiting through US territory in furtherance of their responsibilities to their own governments and the UN, respectively.

Trump’s xenophobic and far-right policies directed against Muslims, Palestinians, and countries, including Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and Venezuela, have resulted in repeated violations of the US-UN Treaty by zealous US immigration authorities. The recent Trump administration threat to deny visas to Iran’s delegation to attend the 2019 General Assembly Plenary Session in New York is a case in point, but not the only one. Similar restrictions by the Trump administration have been levied against delegates from UN members Libya, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Official observers from Palestine have also been harassed and delegates from the Houthi-led government of Yemen and Abkhazia, non-UN members, have been denied US visas to plead their cases before the UN.

The US-UN Treaty stipulates that the US government will facilitate entrance into the United States, and the use of available means of transportation, of “persons coming from abroad who wish to visit the headquarters.” This would include members of non-member nations wishing to petition or otherwise interact with the UN and affiliate agencies on an official basis. In fact, the US violated this provision in 1975 when US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger saw to it that US visas were denied to representatives of the Kingdom of Sikkim, Western Sahara, and East Timor, who desired to plead their nations’ cases with regard to invasions and occupations by India, Morocco, and Indonesia, respectively. East Timor was eventually admitted to the UN as a member state, but it was after a bloody war with Indonesian occupation forces and US collusion with Indonesia’s military dictatorship.

US policy toward a liberalized visa policy for UN members, employees, observers, and guests has been erratic since the UN’s founding. In 1968, the Lyndon Johnson administration did grant a visa to Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the secessionist Republic of Biafra Matthew Mbu to visit the UN to plead his nation’s case to UN officials. In 1948, the Harry Truman administration denied visas for two representatives of Indian princely state leaders – the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad and the Sikh Maharajah of Nabha – to appeal to the UN against aggression by the Hindu-dominated newly-independent nation of India. That same year, the Truman administration failed to permit representatives of the Kalat Confederacy in Baluchistan to appeal to the UN against Pakistani annexation.

The original founders of the UN even envisaged a UN-controlled airport near the UN Headquarters that would deny US immigration authorities the right to deny visas to UN delegates and other guests visiting the UN. Such an airport would have enjoyed extraterritorial status with unhindered travel corridors to and from the UN.

While he was Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, was subjected to an invasive strip search in 2006 when he was detained for 90 minutes at New York’s JFK Airport while returning home from a UN General Assembly meeting. The detention of Maduro was a CIA-initiated fishing expedition. Maduro was questioned about his alleged role in the failed 1992 Venezuelan coup attempt led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Although the League of Nations lacked any real enforcement authority to back up its resolutions, the host nation of Switzerland did yeoman’s work in facilitating the entry to the Geneva headquarters by official parties and guests. The US record on affording equal access to the UN in New York has been woefully inadequate. The UN could very easily move its headquarters to Geneva, where several UN constituent bodies and specialized agencies, including the UN Human Rights Council, World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Meteorological Organization (which is immune to Donald Trump’s redrawing of weather maps with black Sharpie pens), and the International Telecommunications Union are located.

Since Switzerland’s traditional foreign policy is one of neutrality, it is a much better choice to host the UN than New York. Trump’s recently fired National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who was also a past US ambassador to the UN, once fantasized about the top ten floors of the UN Secretariat building being demolished. Trump’s personal attorney, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, routinely used the New York Police Department to harass UN delegates from countries he did not like. Delegates and staff from Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Laos, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt, Kazakhstan, China, Cuba, Cyprus, Zaire, and other countries were routinely issued parking tickets and had their vehicles towed. Russian diplomat Alexandre Zmeevski stated that “his delegation had been given tickets even in some parking spaces reserved for diplomatic vehicles.” Costa Rica delegate Emilia Castro de Barish complained that she “had received two unfair and discriminatory parking citations, including a citation while she had been parked in a parking space reserved for diplomats.” In 1995, Giuliani ordered Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, in the city to help celebrate the UN’s 50th anniversary, ejected from a New York Philharmonic special concert for the gathered world leaders. Giuliani stated that if the UN did not like his harassment of its employees and diplomats, they could “leave town.”

It was not the first time that a right-wing Republican and extremist Israel supporter told the UN to leave New York. Alternate US delegate Charles Lichtenstein addressed a diplomatic standoff with the Soviet Union in 1983, when the states of New York and New Jersey barred Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s plane from landing at either JFK Airport in New York or Newark International Airport in New Jersey. The alternative of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey was offered. However, the Soviet government rejected the offer as a violation of US treaty rights afforded to the UN. Lichtenstein responded by saying that if member states believed that “they are not being treated with the hostly consideration that is their due, they should consider removing themselves and this organization from the soil of the United States,” adding, “we will put no impediment in your way. The members of the US mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset.”

It’s time to honor the requests of Giuliani and Lichtenstein and move the UN from New York to Geneva or another location not subject to the whims of right-wing fanatic blowhards like Trump, Giuliani, Bolton, or the late Mr. Lichtenstein.

Wayne MADSEN

Investigative journalist, author and syndicated columnist. A member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the National Press Club

Iran to Propose ‘Coalition of Hope’ in Persian Gulf

TEHRAN -- President Hassan Rouhani headed for New York on Monday to attend the UN General Assembly on a mission to win support for Iran against "cruel" pressure from the United States.

Before departing, Rouhani said his delegation was heading to the UN gathering despite Washington's reluctance to issue them U.S. visas.
Tehran and Washington have been at loggerheads since May last year when President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal and subsequently began reimposing sanctions on Iran in a stated campaign of "maximum pressure".
"It is essential for us to take part in the UN General Assembly and talk at various levels," Rouhani said at Tehran's Mehrabad airport.
"The cruel actions that have been taken against the Iranian nation and also the difficult and complicated issues that our region faces with them need to be explained."
Rouhani also said Iran would put forward a Persian Gulf peace plan at the UN meeting.
Under the plan dubbed the Hormuz Peace Endeavour, or HOPE, he said, "all the coastal states of the Persian Gulf are invited to join this coalition to provide and maintain regional security".
The peace initiative, he said, is aimed at establishing long-term peace in the Persian Gulf, something he said is simply not achievable as long as outsiders are present.
"Of course, the plan that will be laid out at the United Nations won't be just about security, but rather economy and other issues, all in line with security matters."
The HOPE initiative comes against the backdrop of tensions in the Persian Gulf, where several tankers and commercial vessels have come under suspicious attacks by unknown parties while attempting to cross the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The United States has blamed the sabotage attacks on Iran, using them as a pretext to build a coalition that would patrol the region.
The U.S. is trying to project the mission as a bid to secure the Persian Gulf, but "the Europeans argue that Washington created the problem in the first place by trying to kill off Iran’s oil exports", the New York Times wrote last month.
Iran has dismissed the allegations and called the attacks false flag operations, warning regional neighbors to watch out for plots by outsiders to destabilize the region.
Rouhani echoed that stance on Monday, saying any solution to calm tensions must come from within the region and what he called a "coalition of hope."
"We believe the solution for the region comes from inside the region and those who come from the outside can never bring peace and security," he said.
Citing America's military interventions in the Middle East as an example, Rouhani said since entering the region in 2001, the United States has failed to bring back calm to any of the countries that it has deployed forces to.
"I hope we can roll out this plan and tell the world that Iran is looking for lasting peace in the region and is willing to" discuss it with other countries with the UN involved in the process, he said of his HOPE initiative.
Rouhani also pointed to the September 14 attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities by Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement and the biased reactions that it received from Riyadh's close allies, specially the United States.
The damage from the retaliatory Yemeni attack was so vast that the kingdom lost more than half of its oil output overnight, causing global oil prices to jump.
American officials, along with their Saudi allies, have since pointed the finger at Iran without any evidence even though the Houthis have on several occasions claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it is only one of their many such strikes in retaliation for the Saudi-led war.
"The Aramco (attack) is the outcome of the aggression that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Zionist regime have been leading against Yemen," Rouhani said.
"If they (the Saudis) don't initiate aggression, they (the Yemenis) won't hit back and when they do and see the response, it is hard for them to swallow" the retaliation, the Iranian president continued. "Their cruelty is justified in their own eyes."
Rouhani said this year's General Assembly was significant as it came at a time when the U.S. has hit the rock bottom against Iran after the failure of its so-called "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions.
"We are headed to the UN while the Americans have pushed their sanctions campaign so far that they admit there is nothing left for them to sanction," the president said, noting that the failures had put Washington in a state of "absolute desperation" against Iran.
Rouhani flew to New York on Monday morning. He will deliver a speech at the 74th UN General Assembly later on Wednesday and meet with a host of foreign leaders and Iranians living in the U.S. before heading back on Thursday evening.

Scholars for dollars sell out Palestine and its people

Yvonne Ridley

Palestine polarises people, of that there is no doubt. Those condemning Palestinians usually do so out of their blind loyalty to the concept of the Zionist State. With today’s backdrop of real and alleged anti-Semitism, and the ever pervasive shadow of the Holocaust, it is easy to see why anyone might go along with the black and white narrative that Israel is a force for good, and Palestine is bad.

However, the cold, hard facts present a somewhat different story: Israel was founded on land stolen from the Palestinians after the indigenous people had been driven from their homes at gunpoint, and anyone who resisted the Zionist militias paid with their lives. The Zionist movement’s quest for a “Jewish state” had been boosted by the British government’s 1917 Balfour Declaration in which a man who had neither the moral nor legal right to do so, glibly promised land in Palestine for a “national home for the Jewish people”.

Such facts cannot be refuted, regardless of some of the insane mutterings of Israeli leaders and their supporters. Former Prime Minister Golda Meir, for example, declared infamously in 1969 that the Palestinians “did not exist”. The UN, of course, established its Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 1949 specifically for the Palestinians. There are now 5.5 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA; they really do exist.

After the 1967 Six Day War, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242, which called on Israel to withdraw from the land it had taken during the fighting, essentially the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel ignored the resolution, and thus began the military occupation of those territories that is in place to this day. Resolution 242 is one of around 200 which Israel has ignored since its creation on Palestinian land in 1948. In all that time, the people of Palestine have faced a genocidal onslaught against their land, culture and identity. Israel heads the global league table of regimes which take no notice of, or have broken quite deliberately, international laws and conventions.

Just this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brazenly announced plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank if he wins next week’s General Election. A promise to impose Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea will, he hopes, be a vote winner, despite it being a breach of international law. He added that he would also look to apply sovereignty over all of Israel’s illegal settlements in the rest of the occupied West Bank as well as “other areas of importance to our heritage.”

Given such aggressive rhetoric and destructive Israeli policies since 1948, is it any wonder that Palestinians have used their legitimate right to resist the occupation in many different ways, all of them justified by international law? Over the decades, such resistance has been more or less backed by the Arab states, but that is no longer the case. Regimes like those in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt would rather extend the hand of friendship to Israel, and are increasingly open about this.

You would think that such “normalisation” of relations with the occupying state of Israel would be condemned by the most learned Islamic scholars, but those who enjoy the patronage of Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Cairo are silent. It seems as if these “scholars for dollars”, who are supposed to interpret Islam’s doctrines and laws without fear or favour, have sold out their spiritual and intellectual obligations to the detriment of the land of Palestine and its people. Have such scholars forgotten that Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam; the scene of Prophet Muhammad’s miraculous ascension to the heavens; and the Muslims’ first Qiblah, towards which they turned when praying before it was switched by Revelation to the Kaaba in Makkah?

I was reminded of such scholars’ hollow words when watching an interview on France 24 which was circulated on social networks. US-born Sheikh Hamza Yusuf was attending the Forum for Promoting Peace in Islamic Societies in Abu Dhabi. The UAE often hosts Sheikh Hamza, where he is said to be much favoured by the ruling family. In this interview about Palestine, he gives not one word of comfort or sympathy to the Palestinians.

“If Palestinians leave violence,” said the scholar, “and instead said, ‘We are weak and helpless, help us,’ by God, much of the world will sympathise with them. But when they strike with petty weapons against powerful weapons, it destroys everything. Then people will think Palestinians initiated the assault. This is the world’s perception now.”

The Arab Nations couldn’t care less about Palestine – Cartoon [Carlos Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]

I watched this interview several times and there was not one crumb of comfort or support for a people who have been dispossessed and displaced, and faced all kinds of oppression, for more than 70 years. Even if it was in the Palestinians’ nature to say “we are weak and helpless” does Sheikh Hamza really think that they would have survived all this time while demanding with great resolution their legitimate right to return to their land?

Without being critical of them in any way, I would call the Rohingya weak and helpless, and look what has happened to them; more than 750,000 have been ethnically cleansed and live in desperate conditions in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Equally as weak and helpless are the people in Indian-occupied Kashmir who have been under a brutal lockdown imposed by the Indian military for more than a month now. The situation is still nowhere near being resolved by the United Nations. The world has not rushed to their aid simply because they are helpless and have right on their side.

So who or what motivated Sheikh Hamza in this interview? Granted, he admitted at the end that, “I cannot judge the Palestinians because I am not in their situation, perhaps the situation has driven some of them mad, it is a tough condition.” Sadly, his views are either endorsed or echoed by half a dozen other US-based scholars.

Political cowardice appears to be the defining feature of some learned Ulema and their institutions, which promote a theology of obedience rather than standing up for what is right and legitimate resistance. Enjoying the financial largesse of their patrons, they opt to ignore the thousands of political prisoners held in dungeons from Cairo through Riyadh to the UAE. Silenced by fear, apathy or greed — I’m not sure which — from East to West these scholars have long forgotten what binds Muslims together around the world.

Funded by some Arab rulers, these spiritual leaders are essentially neutralising the Muslim faithful. If Hamza Yusuf is right about the Palestinians being “driven mad” then little wonder. Could it be because someone so learned assesses their situation and basically tells them to go down on their knees to their oppressors led by a Prime Minister who told the world just a few days ago that he is determined to take the rest of their land?

Yes, it would be easier for all concerned if the Palestinians didn’t exist, or if they abandoned their legitimate rights and handed over control of their future to Israel and America. If the Palestinians had gone quietly, they would now be living in Argentina and Chile according to crackpot plans suggested by the Bush Administration. Condoleezza Rice, the then Secretary of State of George W Bush, wanted to send five million Palestinian refugees to South America rather than allow them to return to their former homes in what is now Israel and the occupied territories. The astonishing proposal was raised in a June 2008 meeting with US, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Berlin.

Moreover, if not for the heroic resistance of the Palestinians, no doubt the Gulf States would today be enjoying open trade and diplomatic relations with Israel. According to an article in MEMO last month, some are already ignoring trade boycotts and doing business under the table. The UAE, for example, has signed a deal to buy sophisticated spy planes from Israel. The deal, first mooted ten years ago, is said to be worth $3 billion and was brokered through Israeli businessman Mate Kochavi. The UAE has already received one of the aircraft.

Relations between Tel Aviv and Riyadh have also thawed, judging from an interview by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman with The Atlantic Magazine in spring last year: “There are a lot of interests we share with Israel and if there is peace, there would be a lot of interest between Israel and the [Gulf Cooperation Council].” This is quite a departure for the Kingdom. Back in 1947, the government of Saudi Arabia was among the first to oppose the creation of the state of Israel, voting against the UN Partition Plan. As the Custodians of the two Holy Mosques (in Makkah and Madinah), the Saudi Kings have always positioned themselves as the leaders of the Muslim world and supporters of the Palestinian cause.

However, under the latest regime in Riyadh, there are well documented reports indicating extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic and intelligence cooperation with the Zionist State. During the Warsaw Mideast Summit in February, Netanyahu’s office deliberately leaked a video of a closed session in which the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates spoke out in defence of Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. One of them said that confronting Iran is more pressing than solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

These are the same men who demand complete obedience around the Muslim world and use Islamic scholars at home and abroad to enforce this. Their “scholars for dollars” and their organisations are being paid to stifle discussion among the masses and prevent talk of political and institutional oppression.

It could be argued that those in the pay and sway of petrodollars are the ones who are really weak and helpless, and deserving of our pity. To their eternal credit, the Palestinians’ cause has become a global concern because of, not despite, their resilience and resistance over eight decades. Thanks to their refusal to become eternal victims, they are demanding the right to return to their ancestral homes from which they were expelled in 1948 when Zionist militias ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinian men, women and children and wiped more than 500 towns and villages off the map.

It took great courage to confront the oppressors then, and it takes great courage to stand up to the Israeli army snipers who fire at protesters taking part in the Great March of Return every Friday since March last year. Past and present, the Palestinians have always shown that they are prepared to pay the ultimate price for justice. That must be an alien concept for those “scholars for dollars” whose silence on such matters, apparently, can be bought so cheaply.