The Palestinians of ‘Israel’ in Face of New Racial Laws
Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman
The Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 was not just an event of extreme devastation of Palestinian lives in which around a million Palestinians were driven out of their lands and homes by a brute colonial military force, but it was also a story of fortitude and steadfastness to hold on to the Palestinian national identity in every possible way. The Palestinians have maintained their struggle under trying hardships refusing to surrender their national and legal rights to the Zionist colonial occupiers, regardless of the high cost of human lives and material losses.
The Palestinians in occupied Palestine have been facing on a daily basis a brutal killing machine yielded by the Zionist/Israeli military occupation, the only colonial power remaining in our world, whose sole agenda is to make the Palestinians leave Palestine in order to turn it into “a pure Jewish state”. Brute force is not the only means used in the ethnic cleansing taking place in Palestine, but the colonial Zionist/ Israeli power has resorted to the enactment of atrocious, prejudicial and racial laws to make the transfer of Palestinians from historical Palestine proper and legal, despite the fact that such laws violate international law and human rights enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
Israel has passed racial laws shunned by all civilized counties during the past 15 years imposing them on the Palestinians of 48 by the Israeli military rule that governs only the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and not the Jewish citizens of Israel. These laws are being intentionally used to disrupt Palestinians’ lives economically, politically and socially to push them to leave or to face deportation later as a final act to attain the Zionist objective of a “pure Jewish state”, naturally without a Palestinian Arab presence. A Jewish state means no Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship with equal rights. All democracies in our world prohibit the classification of their citizens according to gender, race, creed or color with one type having rights superior to the rest as the case is in Israel. The latter, has passed, so far, 45 laws to make out right confiscation of Palestinian lands and properties legal in Israel.
In 1948, around 957 thousand were driven out of their lands and homes by brute military colonial force and were prevented to return to their homes since then. The “absentees’ property law enacted by Israel in the wake of the 1948 war has allowed Israeli authorities to seize all lands and properties estimated in billions of dollars that belonged to Palestinians who were expelled or forced to leave. The Zionist entity (Israel) did not shun away from using ‘The Holy Torah’ as a ‘real estate’ book to claim divine entitlement of all Palestinian lands in historical Palestine which is a sheer robbery in the Name of God.
All Palestinians, without exception are seen in the eyes of the present Israeli leadership as “deadly enemies of the Jewish state” and must be eliminated one way or another. Attacking Arab Palestinians has become the norm in Israeli politics, used by the far right parties to gain popularity among their Jewish voters. Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of ‘Israel is our Home’ party promised his voters “the death penalty” for Palestinians resisting the Israeli military rule. Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, advocating passing of a prejudicial law asserting that “Israel is the national homeland of the Jews”, thus, negating the presence of non-Jews, the Palestinians, in all historical Palestine.
In order for these laws to endure in the books of the Israeli judicial system, members of the Israeli parliament are now advocate passing laws limiting the power of the Israeli Supreme Court from ever striking down these undemocratic and illegal measures that are in violation of international law. One of these laws allows stripping a whole Palestinian family of its citizenship if one member engages in an act of violence, besides destroying their home which is a common practice in Israel.
Zvi Bar’el wrote in Haaretz that “in the Jewish state only the Jews are allowed to be terrorists without any fear of losing their citizenship and without being prosecuted for meeting with terrorist organizations.” He said “Israeli citizenship given to the Palestinians of 1948 is really a temporary measure that can be taken away any time Israel deems fit. The Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel are seen by the state as enemies.”
The most prejudicial law being enacted in the Israeli parliament is the law that defines Israel as “The State of the Jewish people”. Israeli historian Yerachmiel Cohen warned that “It is very vital that all Israeli political parties should recognize that extremism whether related to nationality or religion will lead in the end to internal destructive conflict within the state. The great divide between Jews and Arabs should be greatly narrowed”. Concluding, he said “the ongoing shame (should be) replaced with an Arab/Jewish reality of peaceful coexistence.” He wondered as to whether he was dreaming a fantasy.
Any realistic observer would answer to this with “Yes, Mr. Cohen, you are dreaming a fantasy and your dream is called ‘chimra’ which means a confused dream that has no relation to the reality of the state of Israel which is being ruled by the ultra-nationalistic and ultra-religious Israeli/Zionist parties that advocate the establishment of “the Jewish state” that negates the presence of all Palestinians in historical Palestine.
