Western hypocrisy: Crimea and Israeli war crimes

[RFS_Br]

Western hypocrisy: Crimea and Israeli war crimes - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

The velocity with which the US and EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea is equal to the mass of hypocrisy on Israel's creeping annexation of Palestinian land through colonial-settlement expansion. The ongoing expansion is seen as a war crime "falling into the provision of Article 8 of the International Criminal Court statutes".

Following the overwhelming vote by Crimeans to secede from the Ukraine and join Russia in the rushed referendum on March 16, US President Barack Obama, on March 20, ordered a second round of soft sanctions targeting a list of key Russian officials, businessmen and bankers, sending ripples of instability through Russia's stock market.

Unfazed, the following day, President Vladimir Putin, formalised the annexation into law which was then passed unanimously by the Russian parliament. In parallel, the EU and the Ukraine signed a security and defence co-operation pact with the added sweetener of reduced tariffs to boost Ukraine's debt-ridden economy.

Countering the large Russian troop presence on Ukraine's eastern border, the US raised the stakes in the sabre-rattling game. The Pentagon cancelled a military exercise, Atlas Vision, that was to be held in Russia and instead announced the inclusion of US forces in the multinational military exercise, Rapid Trident, that will be held soon in the Ukraine.



Israel's illegal annexations

When in 1947, the UN grappled with the idea of partitioning Palestine, it was rejected, outright and rightfully, by the Palestinians. Nor were the entire inhabitants under the British mandate granted a referendum, as were the Crimeans, on the matter because the indigenous population far exceeded the Zionist immigrants whom the international community favoured.

So when Israel - unilaterally - declared the state of Israel, after massacring unarmed Palestinian children, women, elderly and men, destroying over 500 villages and forcefully deporting 700,000 terrified Palestinians, the West did not impose economic sanctions nor lift a military finger to redress the grave violations of international law then.

Furthermore, the West ignored Israel's unilateral annexation, on June 28,1967, of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, that placed its Palestinian residents under Israeli jurisdiction, administration and illegal military occupation as well as ignoring Israel's annexation of Syria's Golan Heights.

Both annexations have been deemed invalid by many UNSC Resolutions such as 478, 269 and 497 - all rejected by Israel that, 47 years later, relentlessly fuels its annexation drive by the expansion of its settlement colonies.

On March 20, while the Ukrainian crisis unfolded, the Israeli Civil Administration, with Putinesque arrogance, defied the Israeli-Palestinian peace process demand for a settlement freeze, by announcing the approval of more than 2,000 housing units in the illegal West Bank settlements.

Today, there are 121 colonies plus 101 offshoot outposts subsidised by the government of Israel and supported by monies from Jews worldwide through rich Zionist organisations like the apartheid JNF "charity" whose provision of illegal settlement housing and leases on stolen Palestinian lands are "chartered to benefit Jews exclusively". Moreover, JNF's racist policies and illegal operations are tax-exempt in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.

Almost half a million illegal colonists reside in the encroaching settlements. They have the right to bear arms and enjoy the impunity to act as government militia under the protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces. Systematic settler oppression includes torching fields, uprooting thousands of fruit and olive trees, damaging property, arson, poisoning sheep, defacing graves and mosques, illegal squatting, water and farmland contamination by diversion of sewerage, throwing sewerage on Palestinian passer-bys, road blocks, attacks on schoolchildren and school buses, intimidations, beatings, shootings, deliberate hit and run, vile verbal abuse, racist and threatening graffiti.



Judaisation plans

Over the recent months of peace talks, provocative assaults by settler and military activity against the al-Aqsa mosque has heightened fears of Zionist desecration and judaisation of al-Haram al-Sharif, marked for the site of the Jewish Third Temple as demonstrated in the propaganda film featuring Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

Billions of dollars to fund the Third Temple are set aside and ready to literally blast away the Dome of the Rock and the holy al-Aqsa Mosque which are under daily threats by excavations below and above by the Zionist religious and settler zealots impervious to the inevitable repercussion of a Muslim conflagration.

The judaisation of East Jerusalem is fundamental to Israel’s annexation master plan to unite East and West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The relentless coercion and the dispossession and displacement of Palestinian residents is executed by the Israeli government, the Municipality of Jerusalem and Elad, the right-wing settler organisation through the revocation of residency rights, absentee property laws, discriminatory taxation policies, home demolitions, transfer of Palestinian residents,.

In short - ethnic cleansing in direct violation of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons is prohibited."

Every day, with every brick laid in the colonial settlements, a war crime is committed as Palestine shrinks before the eyes of the world.The very same eyes that have been indifferent to and complicit with 67 years of the longest brutal occupation in modern history have suddenly flared with indignation for the Russian annexation of the Crimea implemented with the blessing of the Crimean people.

Israel's overt and furtive annexation of Palestine is also the annexation of Palestinian dignity, rights and freedoms. However, it is not only the people of Palestine who are injured by the political hypocrisy of Western leaders, all of us are the losers when international law is cynically and deliberately abused and neglected.

 

[Falcon29]

That was the first thought in my head while the Ukraine dispute was occurring.

 

[senheiser]

facts on the ground

 

[Falcon29]

facts on the ground

What?

 

[Solomon2]

Contentions

Slurring Israel with the Crimea Comparison
Tom Wilson | @TomJamesWilson

03.26.2014 - 7:30 AM

For those who make a profession of inciting hatred against Israel, just about every new eventuality seems to present another opportunity to demonize the Jewish state. The recent invasion and annexation of Crimea by Russia has been no exception. The fact that the West has responded to this clear breach of international law with sanctions against Russia has both brought cries of hypocrisy from the anti-Israel camp and whetted its appetite to push for similar such moves against Israel. The difference between the Russian invasion and annexation of Ukrainian sovereign territory and the Israeli presence in the West Bank should be clear enough for all to see. Yet, there are those whose agenda will involve a concerted effort to push this comparison.

A blog post appeared on Al Jazeera pushing the Israel-Russia comparison might not be considered all that consequential. Al Jazeera may have greatly expanded its programming in the anglosphere, but as is apparent from the piece in question, the commentary given here is hardly of either a mainstream or overwhelmingly credible character. Yet, watered down versions of the same accusations made at Al Jazeera have also appeared in the Economist and are now even being made by peers in Britain’s parliament. We may well find that, wildly inaccurate as this comparison undoubtedly is, for the undiscerning it has some traction.

Apart from the fact that Vacy Valanza’s piece for Al Jazeera makes the bizarre claim that the establishment of Israel was itself a violation of international law, and that Israel is annexing the West Bank “supported by monies from Jews worldwide through rich Zionist organizations,” the main thrust of the argument is one accusing the West of “hypocrisy.” The claim is that the West singled out Russia yet turns a blind eye to Israel behaving in a highly comparable way. Of course, if the anti-Israel camp is going to now start leveling accusations about the hypocrisy of opposing some occupations but not others, then they may be inviting some rather hard-to-answer questions about their own disinterest in every other occupation from China in Tibet to Turkey in Cyprus.

The Economist piece addressing this subject is in many respects almost as startling as the Al Jazeera piece. Here the suggestion is that the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory may serve as a distraction that will allow Israel to strengthen its hold on the West Bank and avoid U.S. pressure to end “its own occupation of Palestine”. In this suggestion the analysis offered by the Economist is simply illiterate of recent events. It is the Palestinians that are currently under pressure to continue negotiations about an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, but more significantly it is Israel that has made a series of concessions by way of prisoner releases to keep these discussions open. Nevertheless, the Economist piece only strays into even more questionable territory when it starts detailing at length a tenuous list of links between Russia and Israel, as if Israel is the only country in the world that had any remotely friendly ties with Putin’s Russia. This appears to be a particularly poor case of attempting to establish some kind of vague guilt by association.

Clearly such sentiments, however outlandish, have had a certain resonance even with politicians. During a recent debate in Britain’s House of Lords, several of the peers repeated the comparison between Israel and Russia’s invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory. The Labour peer Lord Grocott complained that when it came to occupied territory, the Crimean issue had received a level of “urgency and commitment” not seen in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The infamous Baroness Jenny Tonge, who achieved the impressive feet of managing to be thrown out of the left-wing Liberal Democrat party for her continuous stream of anti-Semitic statements, asked why Britain was “prepared to impose sanctions on Russia for breaking international law but not upon Israel, which has been breaking international law for decades?”

It is striking that so many are referencing this comparison, when in fact it should be clear that any equivalence between these two cases simply does not stand. In the case of Russia and the Crimea, one state invaded the sovereign territory of another and then unilaterally annexed it. This was a completely unprovoked act. In the case of the Israeli presence in the West Bank, this territory fell to Israel after a defensive war in which Jordan initiated hostilities against Israel, and it should further be noted that the West Bank had at no point been legitimately considered Jordanian territory. It was the Jordanian annexation of this land that was in contravention of international law and as such never recognized by most of the international community.

Today the West Bank is commonly referred to as occupied territory, despite the fact that the situation here does not meet the Geneva Conventions’ own definition of occupied territory. Having not previously been the territory of any existing sovereign state it would be more accurate to simply consider the West Bank disputed territory. But as the Levy report acknowledged, if any state has a legitimate claim to this territory it may well be Israel, given that the League of Nations earmarked this land for close Jewish settlement as part of the creation of a Jewish national home.

While the British peers condemn what they refer to as occupation others, such as Al Jazeera’s Valanza, accuse Israel of being in the process of annexing the West Bank. Yet remarkably Valanza actually gives credence to the notion that the Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory may have legitimacy because Russia appeared to hold some semblance of a referendum. It is, however, a sign of the times that even when talking about Crimea, there are many who can’t stop themselves from changing the subject back to Israel.