For G-ds sake...

In response to mounting international pressure, Israel has stated that the programme of house demolitions in Arab East Jerusalem will be frozen in six weeks time. In reality the programme is being accelerated to make way for Israeli settlements. Israel’s aggressive game of Geopolitics is the reason the White House recently demanded that settlement construction in Jerusalem ceases, as it is illegal under international law. This is what the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was referring to when he stated that “Jews have the right to build anywhere in Jerusalem.” We awoke to grim news: at 7am two more homes were demolished, adding to the total of over 16,000 demolitions. Israeli policy violates at least seven international laws and human rights including “All humans have the right to housing and to seek to improve this housing to the best of their ability” and “The Occupying power must preserve housing at all costs unless absolutely militarily necessary.”

Working with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD), we set up a stall in central Jerusalem along with 40 other activists. Attempting to discuss the issue with Israelis was a remarkably impossible experience. People would take the leaflet, and at best, read the first line and screw it up before throwing it at your face. The first line read: “Speak up for human rights, no to East Jerusalem home demolitions”. The leaflet, written by Israelis, contained what shouldn’t have been points of contention, simply facts and figures highlighting human rights abuses. Within seconds a sizable angry mob was forming, the arguments quickly becoming heated. One man, visibly incensed, screamed at the top of his lung into a young girls face. I recorded his tirade:

“Fuck the Palestinians, Fuck Palestine, it has never existed and never will, this is a big lie! Since Jesus Christ, Since Santa-Claus, This is a big lie! The Palestinians should never have existed; the Jews have the right to half of Africa and the Arab world. We are Jews and we are ready to fight even you, Wait here, I will get my gun, I will get my gun and shoot you like the dog you are. I kill very well by the way.”

I quickly was drawn into an argument with another man standing near by which I again recorded:

Zionist: “…We didn’t force anyone out, no one was forced out”

Me: “Well nearly 8 million Palestinian refugees is testament to the fact that actually Zionists forced a lot of people out”

Zionist: “No, That’s a testament to the fact that instead of going to an Arab country and demonstrating for them to take responsibility for them…”

Me: “But WHY should they have to flee to another country. Why SHOULD they have to leave their homes?”

Zionist: “Because of useful idiots like you, they choose to live in camps”

Me: “You think people choose to live there? You think that they desire to live in poverty, whilst their homes are destroyed, their farms and businesses taken? You think that they choose to live in 18% of Historic Palestine, that they choose 30% unemployment? You think they choose squalor and misery?”

Zionist: “Yes.”

I became so frustrated that at this point I walked off. Talking to a brick wall does not begin to epitomise how difficult this is. People will spit on you, stare at you, gang up on you and even threaten to kill you. I am beginning to understand what was said to me in Tel-Aviv: Israeli society does not have the will to change itself. Many of these people do not know what is going on, but the do not want to know. In my eyes this makes them morally culpable for the actions of their government.

One man told me how Barrack ‘HUSSEIN’ Obama, (He was keen to emphasize his middle name) was a Muslim in disguise and had just given $1,000,000,000 to Hamas with which to destroy Israel. I pointed out that Israel receives $3,000,000,000 of US Aid every year and that the US does not bankroll its terrorist blacklist. Despite 5 Americans informing him that his facts were massively wrong, he was convinced. The most worrying thing was that he was seemingly intelligent.

I asked an Israeli human rights activist why she thought the situation was so bad. “Racism”, was the instant reply. Opinions in Jerusalem contrasted sharply with those I found in Palestine. Here, the Palestinians are spoken about with genuine malice and a sense that their problems are not the fault of Israel. One particularly vile rant epitomises this:

“Fuck the Arabs, - those fucking sand-niggers need to die. This is Jewish land, Jewish, and they cry that they left, well GOOD, they are a blot upon the earth; I hope we kill every last one of them. They were squatting our land and in the name of G-d we reclaim it. We will take all of Israel [Referring to the West bank] and they will cease to exist.”

This is, quite literally, the avocation of Genocide.