DAVID ALBUQUERQUE
This is concerning Radharao Gracias’ article on the Edit page of O Heraldo, “Wars without End”, published on 27 November, on Israel and Palestine.
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Now there are three problems associated with his statements: Factual/Legal, Contradictory and Moral.
His statements are inaccurate.
a) Gracias claims: “Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, recognised by the United States, the Soviet Union, and many others, followed immediately by invasion from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan.”
He has got his facts utterly wrong. The boundaries of the state of Israel do not conform to the UN RECOMMENDED boundaries.
The UN had no authority to mandate the partition of Palestine or carve an apartheid Jewish state on Palestinian land because it would violate the UN’s core principle of self-determination.
UNSCOP practically acknowledged this when it said: “About the principle of self-determination, although international recognition was extended to this principle at the end of the First World War and it was adhered to about the other Arab territories, at the time of the creation of the ‘A’ Mandates, it was not applied to Palestine, obviously because of the intention to make possible the creation of the Jewish National Home there. It may well be said that the Jewish National Home and the sui generis Mandate for Palestine run counter to that principle.”
b) Gracias states – “Israel was the victim of Arab aggression”
False: Israel staged a Genocide using terrorist militia to go beyond the UN-recommended borders, using terrorist militia- the Stern Gang, the Irgun and the Palmach – to create wide-scale terrorism and genocide to go beyond the 55% recommendation and violently steal 78% of Palestine.
Noted Israeli historians, including Ilan Pappé and Benny Morris recorded the holocaust of Palestinians, the Nakba to Palestinians and Plan Dalet to its orchestrators, Ben Guruon and Jewish terrorist groups like the Palmach, the Lehi, the Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Hagannah.
Pappe in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, writes about the “Red House” in Tel-Aviv.
He details how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, met with leading Zionists and young Jewish military officers on March 10, 1948 to finalise plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine that unfolded in the months that followed including “large-scale (deadly serious)intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.”
The final master plan was called Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew) following plans A, B, and C preceding it. It was to be a war without mercy complying with what Ben-Gurion said in June, 1938 to the Jewish Agency Executive and never wavering from later: “I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.” Plan D became the way to do it. It included forcible expulsion of hundreds of thousands of unwanted Palestinian Arabs in urban and rural areas accompanied by an unknown number of others mass slaughtered to get it done. The goal was simple – to create an exclusive Jewish state without an Arab presence by any means including mass murder.
Once begun, the whole ugly business took six months to complete. It expelled about 800,000 people, killed many others, and destroyed 531 villages and 11 urban neighbourhoods in cities like Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. The action was a clear case of ethnic cleansing that international law today calls a crime against humanity for which convicted Nazis at Nuremberg were hanged.
c) Contradictory/Double Standards.
Radharao Gracias refers to UN Resolution 181. He makes no mention of the countless UN resolutions Israel has ignored! I quote: ‘1948 after the Nakba, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes, villages, and farms, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 (III) establishing the right of all Palestinian refugees to return.
One of the architects of this resolution was the UN-appointed mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. He was assassinated by the Zionist militia shortly before the resolution was adopted in December 1948. The newly formed Israeli state let go of all the major accused in his assassination.
The landmark UN Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted on 22 November 1967 asking Israel to withdraw…
d) Fallacious argument: Radharao advances this spurious ‘logic’ – ‘Israel has thrived and emerged as a modern and progressive State while the Arabs have languished.’
Common law does not accept the principle of property theft being legitimised if the thief makes better use of the property. Common law will not condone my abduction of someone else’s child if I send that child to Harvard and make him into a rocket scientist. Radharao seems unaware that it is the US taxpayer – not Israel – who deserves the credit for transforming land stolen from the Palestinians.
e) Fallacious argument: “Israel has thrived while the Arabs have languished”.
Fact: ‘Soon after Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, in June 1967, the Israeli military authorities consolidated complete power over all water resources and water-related infrastructure in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 50 years on, Israel continues to control and restrict Palestinian access to water in the OPT to a level which neither meets their needs nor constitutes a fair distribution of shared water resources.
In November 1967 the Israeli authorities issued Military Order 158, which stated that Palestinians could not construct any new water installation without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. Since then, the extraction of water from any new source or the development of any new water infrastructure would require permits from Israel, which are near impossible to obtain. Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation continue to suffer the devastating consequences of this order until today.
While restricting Palestinian access to water, Israel has effectively developed its own water infrastructure and water network in the West Bank for the use of its citizens in Israel and in the settlements – which are illegal under international law. The Israeli state-owned water company Mekorot has systematically sunk wells and tapped springs in the occupied West Bank to supply its population, including those living in illegal settlements with water for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. While Mekorot sells some water to Palestinian water utilities, the amount is determined by the Israeli authorities.
As a result of continuous restrictions, many Palestinian communities in the West Bank have no choice but to purchase water brought in by trucks at a much higher price ranging from 4 to 10 USD per cubic metre. In some of the poorest communities, water expenses can, at times, make up half of a family’s monthly income.
Therefore Gracias’ article is not a mature, reasoned piece and is not supported by any evidence or academic citations to prove his statements.
(David Albuquerque, is a former leader of Goa’s Citizens for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights, now based in Australia, and a strong advocate of justice for Palestine)
