It is not uncommon to hear US and Israeli officials talk about shared values. They do, especially when it comes to their imperialist agenda of expropriating the land of the weaker people/nations.
It is important we reawaken the struggle for Palestinian statehood especially now that Netanyahu can annex any part of historic Palestine with a TV pronouncement and President Trump is willfully “dashing” out Palestinian/Syrian lands.
A tragic reminder that the US and Israel are twinned in many evil ways.
History has recorded how Europeans, many of devious characters, migrated from Europe to America starting about 1492.
According to historical sources, for about 500 years the Europeans waged about 1500 wars against the aboriginal inhabitants of America (aka Red Indians) to take over their land and resources.
Historians assert that European migrants into America committed genocide and introduced alien diseases to exterminate the aboriginal Americans (Red Indians) reducing their population from between 5 to N15 million to fewer than 238,000 by the end of 19 the century.
One American writer said racism is in America’s DNA. From the above historical reference to bloodletting against Aboriginal Americans (Red Indians) and other peoples (including African slaves), it is safe to say violence too is in America’sDNA.
Ninety miles away from the coast of the US, America has illegally occupied the Guantanamo Bay, a piece of land belonging to Cuba since 1889. The US also occupies Guam and established a military base there.
At the peak of its imperialist aggression the US had occupied Haiti, Cuba, Panama, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, to mention but a few.
With this infamous antecedence of aggression/occupation, it is not surprising that the US courts Israel as a partner in evil.
Just as Europeans moved to occupy the Americas, European Jews began to systematically colonize Palestine with the active support of the British who controlled the colonial structure.
The Zionist State of Israel was founded in 1948 signalling the systematic, continual and increasing migration of Jews and depopulation of Palestinians.
The Zionists borrowed from the European the evilstratagemand template of depopulation in America, and subject Palestinians to terrorism, genocide, wars, forceful expulsion, etc.
In 1882 there were 270,000 Arab/Druze and 24,000 Jews in Palestine. But, with the creation of the Zionist State of Israel, over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land to make way for new settlers.
There are over N3 million Palestinians in exile today scattered across Arab countries pressing for a right of return to their ancestral land.
The foundation, growth and consolidation of the Zionist State of Israeli are at the expense of the Palestinians right to nationhood.
To achieve that negating objective, the Zionist Israel State adopted Palestinian land grab as a state policy with the active support of theUS/West.
The land allocated by the UN to the Zionist State of Israel continued to expand while that of Palestinians shrunk and lacked geographical contiguity from each other.
In the last 52 years, Israel has transferred 600,000 to 750,000 Jews to settle on Palestinian land of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Jews are generously encouraged with incentives and subsidized housing to migrate from US/Europe and settle on Palestinian lands. The Zionist courts and parliament legalized the theft of Palestinian land by the State.
It is observed that from 1948 to date, the Zionist state has taken over more than 78 per cent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed or destroyed over 530 villages and cities, and massacred thousands of Palestinians for the sake of the Zionist State of Israel.
In 2018, Zionist Israel approved the construction of 10,536 Jews houses in the West Bank.
In the same year, 189 Palestinians demonstrators were killed along the border with Zionist Israel. Even as occupied people Palestinians do not, and cannot, get protection from the international community.
The aftermath of the 1967 war saw the capture of Gaza strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights by Zionist Israel.
In 1980, Zionist Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli State has encouraged the settlement of over 20,000 Jews in Golan Heights, a Syrian land conquered by the zionist in 1967.
The US and Israel truly share the same value. The Zionists control the power levers in Washington as such US policies must promote the interest of Israel in the region.
To ensure the survival of Zionist Israel it must remain the most powerful militarily in the region. To ensure its viability Zionist Israel remains the highest receiver of US aid and grant.
In 2019 alone, it received $3.8 billion in foreign military aid and $8billion of loan guarantees. It is reported that the total US aid to Zionist Israel is about $233 billion.
The US has an early missile warning radar station in Israel. America has established a military base in Israel and made its hardware available to Zionist Israel just for the asking.
American CIA shares intelligence with Zionist Israel after tapping the Palestinian security system.
Zionist Israel is the star state in the Middle East mainly because of US support. Hold your breath, Saudi airspace is now accessible to Zionist Israel in the event it wants to attack Iran (a Muslim nation).
Arab nations like Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria are systematically weakened by wars imposed on them by the US and Europe.
Arab nations are also coerced to abandon the Palestinian cause. Iran and Syria must not only be punished for not having diplomatic relations with Zionist Israel, but for their support to non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas that fight for the cause of Palestinians.
The US and Israel are bent on reshaping the Middle East to achieve their geostrategic interests. Recalcitrant Arab leaders are simply reminded of what happened to Saddam, Gadhafi, Assad, etc. Zionist Israel’s growing powers means disempowering the Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority is very ineffective because Israel made sure the structure of the state is not allowed to function.
Having put their Authority in limbo, Netanyahu unilaterally decided to shut down the peace talks with the Palestinians for twelve years.
In this interregnum Palestinians aspiration was delayed, their leadership gradually lost the confidence of its followers, and more of their land was grabbed.
Note that the US has consistently used its veto to support and protect Zionist Israel villainy in the UN Security Council.
So much for shared values of oppression! Zionist Israel never had it so nice as during the Trump administration.
To please his evangelical Christian/neoconservative constituency, he unilaterally recognized Zionist Israel’s sovereignty over Palestinian territory of East Jerusalem and Syrian Golan Heights.
He closed down the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) office in Washington, cut off US aid to United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) a UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees and schools, moved the American embassy to Jerusalem and declared it as the indivisible capital of Zionist Israel contrary to UN resolution 242.
Because of Trump’s slavish support for Zionist Israel, neither the Palestinian leadership nor serious nations took his so-called “Deal of the century” proposal intended to bring peace between Israel and Palestinian seriously.
Some observers said Netanyahu’s cabinet drafted Trumps peace “deal”.
The UN, EU and Arab League no longer play any significant role in the struggle for Palestinian statehood. At best they can offer humanitarian assistance.
Internally the Palestinians are confronted with an ageing leadership, blockade of Gaza and deliberate destruction of their economy by Israel.
Arab nations are coerced by the US not to support the armed struggle of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
On the other hand, the Zionist Israeli state is increasingly becoming stronger grabbing more Palestinian land and the Zionists are bent on turning the entire Israeli land (including Gaza and the West Bank) into a Jewish/Zionist (apartheid) state despite the Arabsbeing 21 per cent of the total population.
In his seminal treatise “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” (1917), Vladimir Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. Observing the transformation of Israel over time, it is apt to borrow Lenin’s phraseology to assert that, “Apartheid is the highest stage of Zionism” to ensure the final annihilation of Palestinian aspiration for nationhood!
Bob Dylan, a popular American singer, songwriter, visual artist, author and Nobel laureate, who incidentally is of Jewish parentage, has rendered a song that speaks to the dire circumstances of the Palestinians. In his song blowing in the wind, Bob Dylan queried; “how many years can some people exist before they are allowed to be free.”
The Palestinian people are subjected to over 60 years of occupation and dehumanising injustice.
Friends of Palestinians and progressive forces must re-energize the struggle for a Palestinian state through international engagements, UN and the Sanction and boycott campaign against Israel.
It is now clear that it would only take a press conference or an impulsive tweet for Trump, and Netanyahu to announce the complete takeover of the entire remaining Palestinian land by Israel, and the nations of the world would watch helplessly. Here again, in Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the wind song we are tasked to ponder; “how many times can a man turn his head. And pretend that he just doesn't see?”
What is happening in the streets of US should be replicated in the capital cities of the world for the Palestinians. These are trying times for the Palestinians as they are for blacks in America, Rohingya in Myanmar, and all oppressed peoples across the world.
After all, “Black Life Matter” is only part of the conversation on freedom and human rights. Blacks in America, or any peoples elsewhere, will not be free until humanity is free.
MB Sabo writes from Efab Estate, Abuja, and can be reached at bukarmustaphasabo@yahoo.com.
