Israel Has Accomplices in Its Violence against Palestinians

Rasa - According to Gaza's Health Ministry, dozens of Palestinians were hurt along the border on Friday. Most of the 86 people injured during the weekly protests, called, Great March of Return, were treated for tear gas inhalation while some sustained gunshot wounds.

News ID: 437919

Date: 28 May 2018 - 22:39

RNA - This should surprise no one. Over 120 Palestinians have been killed and 3,300 injured by Israeli live fire since demonstrations began March 30. Meaning more Palestinians will be killed during the next protests. This is because Israel's Supreme Court has unanimously rejected petitions brought by human rights groups demanding Israeli troops to stop using snipers and live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian protests in the Gaza Strip.

The court's ruling gives Israel a green light to its continued use of snipers and live fire against Palestinian protesters. The court even rejected the broad factual basis presented to it by the petitioners, which includes multiple testimonies of wounded and reports of international organisations involved in documenting the killing and wounding of unarmed protesters in Gaza.

That said, there are also others which continue to give the green light to the usurper regime’s disproportionate use of force, a horror that violates International Law, one being the United States which just recently opened its embassy in Jerusalem Al-Quds despite international criticism and condemnation.

Regardless of the reasons for this special relationship, American support for Israel really is quite extensive. The US has given Israel $118 billion in aid over the years (about $3 billion per year nowadays). Half of all American UN Security Council vetoes blocked resolutions critical of Israel.

The Trump administration has led to renewed warmth in the Israeli-American relationship as well, culminating in his December decision to formally recognize Jerusalem Al-Quds as Israel's capital. This goes in the face of global public opinion which is generally sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, creating real concern among Israelis that an international boycott movement, called BDS, could pick up some support.

It's clear that the ongoing Israeli violence against Palestinian protesters in Gaza and the West Bank is a key cause of Israel's poor global standing. Unlike the Trump administration, most of the world believes that Israel's continued violence and control of the West Bank is an unlawful military occupation, and that illegal settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.

On the other hand, the BDS movement, which coalesced in 2005, aims to capitalize on international anger with Israel. The movement's strategy is to create costs to Israel's Palestinian policy through boycotts of Israeli goods and institutions, divestment from Israeli companies, and sanctions on regime itself.

As is, BDS plans to continue boycotting Israel until 1) all of the illegal settlements are dismantled, 2) Palestinians are given equal rights inside Palestinian territories, and 3) Palestinian refugees are granted the right of return, which means to return to the land and homes they used to inhabit in what is now occupied Palestine. These are the same demands made by the Palestinian protesters along the besieged Gaza border as well.

Having said that, if Israel is allowed to continue to expand illegal settlements, which Palestinians see as a de facto campaign to erase the Palestinian state outright, and is not grilled at the UN Security Council, that’s because its special relationship with the US is still there. If the Palestinians remain politically divided between Fatah and Hamas, that’s because Washington doesn’t want to see any Palestinian unity along the way, much less any Palestinian right respected by Tel Aviv.

According to Fars News Agancy, the United States and Israel have made this apartheid policy official: The two regimes signed a new 10-year military-assistance deal just recently, representing the single largest pledge of its kind in American history. The pact, laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding, is worth $38 billion over the course of a decade, an increase of roughly 27 percent on the money pledged in the last agreement, which was signed in 2007.

So no matter how bad the relationship between the two countries’ top leaders, no matter who gets elected to the White House, no matter how loudly the international outcry, and no matter how many times Israeli violence against Palestinians and American complicity in Israeli crimes against humanity is condemned at the United Nations: The United States will keep providing large sums of money and diplomatic support for Israel’s apartheid regime. Tragic enough, it’s a foreign-policy deal seemingly immune to international laws and accountability.

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