Watching the BBC on April 1^st, its camera in Beit Jala was telling the world that nothing could be further from the truth. The BBC crew, which can easily be differentiated from Palestinians by skin color, outfit, tags and equipment, was repeatedly shot at in order to evacuate the site as the reporter angrily noted (this is not even Ramallah, which was declared a military zone and where no reporters are allowed). The picture is getting clearer and clearer; add the apartheid policies, bullying annihilation, and violations to international laws and UN resolutions – all to the recent obstruction to journalistic integrity – and that is “Israel.”

But the hands of falsehood are more far reaching than what they occupy. The old elastic “anti-Semitic” accusations are resurrected again once a writer pinpoints the carnage inflicted by Israeli army on Palestinians and on the occupied territories! The editorial of New Statesman, March 18^th, challenged the passed over Palestinian rights and occupation:

Go to the heart of the dispute and you are left with two fundamental points. First, the Jewish state is a creation of the Western powers… later, the idea of Israel became the Second World War allied powers' version of the final solution to Europe's Jewish “problem.” Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular naturally wonder why the tragic results of Europe's inability to tolerate a harmless minority should be exported to them. As for the Jewish claim to biblical lands, it makes no more sense to the Arab mind than an Italian claim to establish a Roman state along the length of the A5 would to the British.

Paul Foot

And in his article “Far From the Promised Land,” John Kampfner deconstructed the myth of the aliyah (the “come home” campaign) of Jewish immigrants and showed that hatred towards the Palestinians has become the glue that holds the Israeli community together. In response to that, Israel started a wave of anti-Semitic accusations, carried out by Jewish rabbis, against the editor and other writers who censured these vague accusations by differentiating between criticism centered on occupation and oppression and anti-Semitic overtones (New Statesman March 18, 2002).

Many British intellectuals started to echo the guiltiness of the UK in the creation of Israel and crushing the Palestinian resistance in 1939. Some of them, like Paul Foot, take a stronger stance in standing by the Palestinian resistance by arguing that “the violence of the Israeli army and police in those regions is the violence of the oppressor, and the consequent violence of the Palestinians is the resistance of the oppressed. Anyone who favors the Israeli occupation of the areas, or the settlements, or who denies the right of violent resistance to the Palestinians is siding unequivocally with the oppressor against the oppressed.” (The Guardian March 5, 2002)

British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, whose name is associated with the “Balfour Declaration” of 1917, promised the Zionists a home in Palestine.

Lately, a number of British human rights activists, most of them are members of the International Solidarity Movement to Free Palestine, and among them comedian and writer Jeremy Hardy, started a nonviolent campaign in the Palestinian territories. 12 British members of the movement, all Sussex university students, have been acting like “human shields” to protect people in refugee camps of self-sacrificing bombers. And another 4 British activists were wounded. On their web site www.freepalestinecampaign.org, Israeli naked intrusions, even against international peace activists, are posted. In an Interview with the BBC Radio 4 programme on April 2^nd, they said that they had never seen such "brutality" as when the Israeli soldiers fired towards the peaceful protesters.

In the eyes of many Britons, especially leftists, Israel’s position has bounded from an underdog to an oppressor. They feel that the Palestinian suffering – which can be traced back to British imperialism and the Balfour Declaration – is completely unacceptable, especially with the current partial role of the UK under Blair. This is the reason behind the great numbers of anti-Israel demonstrators in London. Among the flyers that were handed out was a call on the British Parliament to ban selling arms to Israel for the use of those weapons against unarmed civilians.

The shift in public opinion is continuing to attract more British people on all levels after a long history that started with guilt and lasted in unfairness. The British are like all peoples, once unequivocally introduced to the reality of Palestinian suffering under Israel’s racist war, it becomes so hard for them to deny solidarity and to withstand the world’s greatest injustice.

 

The articles posted on this page reflect solely the opinions of the authors. Views Archive Advanced Search Views & Analyses