By Latheef Farook
An elderly Palestinian couple was living in their ancestral house which had a beautiful garden in a serene environment. Their family often get together in this ancestral house . which has a title deed traced back to centuries.
One morning some Jewish settlers who have not even seen the house came and claimed that this house is owned by them and the couple should leave. Shocked couple resisted. Backed by the armed forces Jewish settlers forcefully ejected the couple and took over the house.
This is Israelâs justice in the occupied Palestinian lands backed by champions of democracy and human rights in the United States,Britain,Europe while US-European stooges Saudi Arabia , Jordan,Egypt and other Arab dictators turn blind eye.
According to United Nations report since Israel began its brutal bombing in Gaza in the wake of Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Jewish settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem more than doubled . During this period Jewish settler thugs killed 502 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Violent settler attacks in the West Bank since October 7, 2023 displaced people from 20 communities and entirely uprooted at least 7 communities ,Human Rights Watch said
Israeli settlers have assaulted, tortured, and committed sexual violence against Palestinians, stolen their belongings and livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently,destroyed their homes and schools under the cover of the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. Many Palestinians, including entire communities, have fled their homes and lands.
Israel started building illegal settlements just after capturing the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the June 1967 Six-Day War.
There was no country called Israel before 1948 .It was Palestine which was ruled by Turkeyâs Ottoman Empire. During World War 1 Turkey was defeated and British colonial power took control of Palestine. Even around 1905 the Jewish population in Palestine was less than five percent.
British colonial power together with Zionist Jews began colonizing Palestine with Jews brought from abroad. When the Palestinians resisted the presence of a;ien Jews the Zionist Jews led by terrorist Menachem Begin committed genocide in Deir Yassin with the support of British rulers in the same way Netanyahu is committing genocide in Gaza today with US European support.
Menachem Bein slaughtered 250 Paestinians in Deir Yassin and kicked out Palestinians from there .This very same Menachem Begin later became prime minister of Israel and the US=European free world honored him with awarding Nobel Price.
Once sufficient Jews were brought in United States pressurized United Nations and partitioned Palestine creating the state of Israel on Palestinian lands in violation of all laws . The mass migration of Jews to Palestine triggered an Arab uprising. But in the ensuing violence, the well-armed Zionist militias ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.
Palestinians call their expulsion the Nakba, which is Arabic for catastrophe.
Three quarter century later today while Jewish settler colonial state of Israel continues its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza ,Jewish settler thugs unleash violence against Palestinians in the occupied west bank to grab their lands. These lawless Jews were well armed and backed by the government while Palestinians remain relatively unarmed and ignored by the whole world including the Arab dictators.
Successive Israeli governments have pursued this policy leading to a rise in settler population in the occupied territories. About 40 percent of the occupied West Bank land is now controlled by settlements. These settlements â along with a vast network of checkpoints for Palestinians â effectively separate the Palestinian parts of the West Bank from each other, making the prospect of a future contiguous state almost impossible, according to critics.
After the signing of the sell out 1993 Oslo Accords the Israeli government officially stopped building new settlements but the existing settlements continued to grow. The settlement population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem grew from approximately 250,000 in 1993 to nearly 700,000 in September last year.
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About three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem .In 2017, Israel formally announced the start of new settlements.Prime Minister Netanyahu bolstered settlement expansions since he first came to power in 1996.There are also Israeli ânongovernmentalâ organisations that work to evict Palestinians from their land .They regularly seize and demolish Palestinian properties .
In December 2023 Israel approved the building of a major new settlement in occupied East Jerusalem in violation of international law, as it faces accusations of genocide on the besieged Gaza Strip. If it weren’t for the war (on Gaza), there would be a lot of noise.
Hamas called Israelâs move âa confirmation of the Zionist plan aimed at controlling our land, restricting our people, and isolating themâ.
The building of Israeli settlements and a separation wall on occupied territories has fragmented the Palestinian communities and restricted their mobility. About 700 road obstacles, including 140 checkpoints, dot the West Bank. About 70,000 Palestinians with Israeli work permits cross these checkpoints in their daily commute.\
Settlements are considered illegal under international law. The UN has condemned settlements, calling it a big hurdle in the realisation of a viable Palestinian state as part of the so-called âtwo-state solutionâ.
Today, about 5 million Palestinians live in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and 1.6 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel. This makes up about half of their total population. The other half lives in other countries, including Arab countries. There are about 14.7 million Jews around the world today, of which 84 percent live in Israel and the United States. The rest live in other countries including France, Canada, Argentina and Russia.
One of the main reasons why Israel continues its lawlessness in grabbing Palestinian lands is the betrayal of Palestinians by the Arab dictators who have virtually abandoned Palestinians and turned blind eyes to Israeli crimes. As a result Palestinians were now left to fight their lonely and long drawn out struggle for rights and freedom which seems to be a Himalayan task.
Most of the Palestinians in Gaza now being slaughtered by Israel were descendants of Palestinians who were driven out by Zionist forces in 1948 to accommodate Jewish settlers. Referring to the indifference of the world Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said “My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all”.
Posh Illegal Jewish settlements in Israeli occupied West Banlk
Getty Images
Masked Israeli settler thugs attack Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank,
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Daily plight of Palestinians in their own land.