How to defile a nation in many easy steps

There exists on an almost daily basis a profound disconnect between reality and rhetoric in the Middle East.

On the one hand, Israel wants to find a way, any way, to continue building illegal settlements in the West Bank. Jewish fundamentalists in the area are routinely allowed to cause destruction against Palestinians and the state does virtually nothing to stop it. They’re just being good Jews, right?

Instead, we read in the essential Haaretz about the following stories:

Israel’s security services came under fire on Wednesday for its methods of restraining Palestinian prisoners during questioning, which a new report claims are tantamount to torture.

The report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) describes “pain and humiliation” suffered by Palestinian detainees at the hands of members of the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service.

The report, which is based on interviews and investigations into 574 arrests and interrogations over the last year, argues that Israeli organizations, in particular the IDF and the Shin Bet, habitually bind detainees in a painful and humiliating manner, often constituting torture.

And:

In protest over the complaint the United States dared to lodge against Israel over the plight of Gaza Strip residents, the Defense Ministry declared there is no humanitarian crisis there, nor did one ever exist.

According to the ministry’s criteria for humanitarian cases, our American friends got a little carried away. For example, is the case of a 7-year-old Gazan who lost his mother and wants to rejoin his father, who lives in Hebron, to be considered a humanitarian case by the Defense Ministry? That’s not a sure thing.

The only real way to deal with this criminality and arrogance is a boycott campaign to isolate a state that enjoys persecuting Palestinians. Only then will they maybe realise that apartheid is no longer acceptable in the modern age.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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