Fernando Guevara writes:

It is an outrage hearing even some ”alternative”media outlets talking about finding a compromise with Zionists. Decency aside, see what trying to appease Israel has brought us. Look what happened to Jeremy Corbyn when he capitulated. All they ever wanted when we ceded ground was: more. For anyone who’s interested, I wrote an “Open letter to British MPs” about the only possible outcome of failing to identify the nature of Zionist claims – around the time Corbyn allowed Israel rewrite the rules of the British Labour Party, and started evicting its non-racist politicians based on Labour having become a home for Zionists. I am not slamming Corbyn. I think he is a very decent human being who has realised and regretted some serious mistakes he made in not standing by the right people at the right time.

Even for those who don’t care about other people’s lives and dignity, where is their own pride? If we don’t repossess some self-respect soon, what will we tell future generations? Why are we still pussy-footing around Israel? When are we going to tell them the answer is ”No”?

Look where the failure to identify the nature of Zionist claims has brought us. It could only have ended in disaster, and it has. Are we willing to commit suicide for Israel? Are we willing to give up our own freedoms (including the freedom to speak) for an apartheid theocracy?

Until now, the UK and USA have supported Israel unconditionally. Initially, because of shortsighted financial and ”security” interests (that they had caused themselves) and, more recently, due to ”shared values” between the UK, USA and Israel.

In Israel, Palestinians have to display separately marked license plates – to show that they are not qualified to ride on the same highways as Jews. The euphemistically named ”settlements” are linked by Jewish only highways. Even in South Africa during apartheid they did not have that: whites only highways. In 2008, there were 800 kilometres of Jewish-only roads in Palestine/Israel.

What is more shocking: 200 Israelis captured on 7 October 2023 or the more than 2,000,000 Palestinian captives, on top of 75 years of genocide and apartheid?

Who in the the UK and USA shares these ”values”? The people? They have told us differently in the streets.

Unless Israel was created in a joyful celebration of the Messiah having returned, and having created world peace, how can Israel anchor its legitimacy anywhere?

Discussions about international law are necessary but insufficient in themselves. But just in case we are at all interested in the law, following are merely a couple of  points that are almost always deafeningly absent in discussions about the legal standing of Israel.

International law

The Genocide Convention of 1948 (in force since 1951) defines genocide as

acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The Convention, further, declares that there shall be no immunity. Persons participating in this crime shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

Aside from jus cogens (customary law that compels all states, regardless of treaty affiliation), Israel chose to make itself a party to the Genocide Convention. Those responsible for committing genocide are not entitled to ”self-defend”. Why do mainstream media refer to incitement to genocide as “lobbying”, when done by Israel and its terror networks? Why do we make ourselves complicit in the genocide?

Please also note that armed squatters are not civilians under international law. Especially not when governmentally/militarily sponsored. In Israel, armed land-occupiers have received carte blanche from the Israeli army to kill occupied Palestinian civilians – the squatters are even egged on by the army.

In addition, I’d like to point out the international law criteria for statehood. They are:

1. A permanent population
2. A defined territory
3. The capacity to conduct foreign relations4. A government

Israel has failed the first two out of four (see below). While it is conceded that a bunch of war criminals effectively rule Israel (meeting point 4), it is debatable whether Israel has shown a capacity to have relations with other nations, as required by point 3.

Regarding points 1-3:

1. A euphemistically named ”settler” population does not qualify as a permanent population. Nor as a civilian population, as mentioned above.
2. Israel has never had a defined territory.
3. I am questioning whether Israel has the capacity to have foreign relations because I do not believe that violence qualifies as “having relations”. In other words, I am saying that neither war, blackmail, bribery or threats qualify as foreign relations. Asserting that would be like asserting that rape qualifies as making love.

Moreover, Israel has proven incapable, which includes unwilling, of honouring even basic agreements like abiding by the United Nations (UN) ”Partition Plan” or the UN Charter (which was a condition for Israel’s membership in the UN), the Genocide Convention, to name but a few. In the present context, it is also very important to point out that the Partition Plan itself was not a legally binding document; it was a UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution (UNGA Resolution 181, passed in 1947). As opposed to a Resolution by the UN Security Council, an UNGA Resolution is not binding (even assuming Palestine were theirs to give away). Therefore, the Partition Plan had all the legal force of a SUGGESTION.

Conclusions

The attempts by corrupt politicians and organisations to make exceptions for Israel on all the above points do not change the above facts.

Palestine has paid a far greater price than any country in the ”West”. But our freedoms have been embezzled here as well by Israel’s terror networks in our governments, schools, militarised media, our entire societies.

I agree with Pete Gregson, Rabbi Weiss, Rabbi Beck and Dr Azzam Tamini that Palestine must be for all its peoples, and that we who caused Israel as a Jewish state to happen are responsible for solving the problem; that Palestine must prevail; that Israelis must recognise they are guests in the land in which they live, and that  they will be given the right to remain as long as they recognise the Palestinians as the rightful inheritors of that territory – all Palestinians, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or of other or no creed. I must add to that those who are heirs to traceable properties must be given the choice of getting the very land stolen returned to them, or receive financial compensation – their choice. The people who have taken that land can then rent it, or whatever agreement might result from the evicted people’s choice. Again, anything else would be giving more weight to what Israelis might find acceptable versus what is acceptable to anyone else.

We should stop regarding ourselves as a subservient class to the Israelis. And we should stop asking their permission to respect ourselves.