Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute by Felicity Arbuthnot /from dissidentvoice.org

Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute

by Felicity Arbuthnot / July 30th, 2017

“All 100 U.S. Senators signed a letter Thursday asking U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to address what the lawmakers call entrenched bias against Israel at the world body.”
The letter: “ … uses strong language to insist that the United Nations rectify what the Senators said is unequal treatment of Israel on human rights and other grounds.
“Through words and actions, we urge you to ensure that Israel is treated neither better nor worse than any other U.N. member in good standing,” they stated.
The Senators appear to be on a parallel universe. Have they reflected, in context, on the UN’s fine founding words, avowing:

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person … to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours … to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples …

Israel – ever presented as the eternal victim – has not just made a mockery of the words but also of the Balfour letter of 2nd November 1917 and trampled on both ever since. Balfour:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine … (Emphasis added.)

So much for the “rights” of the Palestinians. Between November 1947 and November 1948 five hundred and thirty one Palestinian towns and villages had been “ethnically cleansed”. By 1952 it was six hundred and fifteen.
This “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) seventy years after Israel’s final founding is ongoing.
The land grabs are illegal and violate: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) and 51 (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1 (1970).
Settlements on occupied lands violate Geneva Conventions IV, Article 49(6) (1949). It is illegal to colonize or transfer non-indigenous people to occupied land.
Taking land by force and claiming sovereignty violates: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1.
Forbidding civilian populations the right to return to their homes following the end of armed conflict is in direct violation of international law and UN resolutions. Geneva Convention IV, Articles 45, 46 and 49 (1949), UN resolutions 194 (III) (General Assembly; 1948) and 237 (Security Council; 1967).
Collective punishment violates Geneva Conventions IV, Article 33 (1949); Geneva Conventions (Protocol I), Article 75(2d) (1977).
The list of breaches of international law is near endless as are the attacks on a people with no army, air force or navy, plus the decimations of 1967, 2008-9 and 2014.
Israel’s violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, legally binding on Member-nations, include Resolutions 54, 111, 233, 234, 236, 248, 250, 252, 256, 262, 267, 270, 280, 285, 298, 313, 316, 468, 476, a small sample.
The Senators would seem to have as little knowledge of the iniquities inflicted on the Middle East by foreign powers and cuckoos in the nest as their rookie President. It is not Israel being meted out “unequal treatment”. It is the Palestinians, thieved of their land, history, justice and all normality.
• First published at Global Research

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq. Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq, John Pilger's Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.) Read other articles by Felicity.

This article was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2017 at 6:51pm and is filed under Crimes against Humanity, Ethnic Cleansing, Israel/Palestine, Militarism, Narrative, Occupation, Propaganda, Terrorism (state and retail), United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, US Hypocrisy, Zionism.