April 16, 2023:
Information Clearing House
-- "Workers World" --
What
prompted the protests was a proposed “reform
package” that would curtail the judiciary branch
of the government and would give Israeli
politicians, viewed as being the “moderate”
wing, more authority to pick judges. Netanyahu
stated that such a change was necessary to
balance the power between judges and
parliamentarians. At the same time, Netanyahu
continues to face charges of corruption.
The
demonstrations have been so relentless that the
“reform” changes have been suspended, at least
for now. As of now only a small number of people
who oppose Netanyahu’s reforms have questioned
Israeli apartheid policies.
Netanyahu’s
critics say that the proposed changes would be a
threat to Israel’s “democracy,” which begs the
questions: Is Israel a democracy now, and has it
ever been a democracy since its founding? The
answers are an emphatic Hell NO!!!
The state of
Israel is an illegal formation founded on the
blood, sweat and tears of the Palestinian
people, who were the original inhabitants of the
land for thousands of years. British
imperialists passed the Balfour Declaration in
1917, declaring that Palestine would become a
“national home for the Jewish people.” A small
minority of Jewish people were then living in
peaceful coexistence with Palestinians, before
the declaration was codified.
As was written
in a December 2022 WW editorial: “The official
founding of the Israeli state in 1948 was
accompanied by massacres and the forced removal
through genocidal terror and intimidation of
three-quarters of the population of Palestine at
that time. Some 750 towns and villages were
literally wiped from the face of the Earth,
their remains bulldozed away, come to be known
as Nakba, aka “the Disaster.”
“In violation
of international law, not to mention the human
rights of the Palestinians, the Israeli military
occupied Arab homes and land, vowing never to
allow the people they had cruelly uprooted and
driven out to return to their homeland. In 1967,
in another war of aggression, Israelis seized
the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, where
they still remain to control, blockade and
terrorize.” (workers.org/2022/12/68147/)
Israel became
a military garrison state for imperialist
interests in this oil-rich region. For the
Palestinian people, Israel is a colonial settler
state ruled by the iron fist of white supremacy.
Palestinians, including young workers and
children, are ruthlessly beaten, murdered and
uprooted from their homes, as Zionist
settlements are expanded on a daily basis in the
Occupied Territories.
Despite the
brutal occupation of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF),
armed to the teeth by the Pentagon, the
Palestinian people continue to heroically resist
and fight back against this repression with mass
protests and strikes, armed with only rocks and
bottles. This kind of resistance continues to
inspire not only the oppressed masses throughout
the Middle East but throughout the world,
including the imperialist centers like the U.S.
A growing
number of Jewish activists, many of them young,
are defying Zionism and siding with the
Palestinian people by joining the BDS ( Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions) campaign and other
militant campaigns to help politically weaken
and isolate Israel. The resistance has also
resulted in the IDF facing a mounting crisis
from those forced into military conscription and
facing prosecution for refusing to kill
Palestinians.
Underneath the
current Israeli instability is that despite
committing terrorist acts, Israel has been
unable to contain the Palestinian people’s quest
for national liberation, especially winning back
their rightful, ancient and stolen lands from
their oppressors.
Instead of
flying the despicable Israeli flag, thousands of
Palestinian flags, outlawed by the Netanyahu
government, should be proudly flown. Palestine
will be free!
Views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
in this article are
solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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