It’s good to be Israel

Whenever one decides to speak out on Israeli mistreatment and occupation in Palestine, they run the risk of being labeled an ‘anti-Semite’. This label, an offended misused and manipulated term, is used like a weapon to prevent individuals from speaking out for the Human Rights of Palestinians. It is used to ‘black list’ individuals and scare us to fear the wrath of today’s liberal society, for if you acquire this label, you can be sure that it will be used to discredit you and perhaps personally affect your very way of life. It is because of this label, that many shy away from saying and doing what is right. Are you truly an ‘anti-Semite’ simply because you oppose an apartheid state that violates the human rights of the indigenous people of that land? Can you be considered an ‘anti-Semite’ because you care about the freedoms and rights of another Semitic people? Where does it say you are a ‘hater of the Jews’ because you support the right to self determination for Palestinians? The fact is it doesn’t. This label, which is meant for those who would deliberated discriminate or violently persecute Jews, is being twisted and misused to defend an apartheid state which only brings shame to Jewish people.

At the moment, the fact is it’s good to be Israel. Only Israel could be able to expand settlements in an occupied country to continue and change the demographic make-up of the land. In part committing genocide against an innocent people who only wish to have the same freedoms and rights given to other human beings. Just this past week, Israel decided to expand its settlement in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Capital, adding 900 more housing units to the Gilo settlement. Meanwhile, in the past month alone, Israel has demolished 17 houses, displacing 99 innocent Palestinians, mostly children from their ancestral homeland.

What type of reaction would one expect to such horrific crimes from the world’s only superpower? I doubt it would be an arms deal to only help strengthen an apartheid state, which could be seen as a silent approval of human rights abuse. Yet that is exactly what the United States has done, recently pitching a unique version of their F-35 fighter jet to Israel. As Reuters reported this week, “The United States has offered to add Israeli systems and munitions to a new U.S. built fighter jet and deliver it to Israel by 2015, provided a deal is sealed in coming months’.

Perhaps the United States didn’t receive this past month’s report that states ‘fresh security incidents’ in occupied Palestine. Fresh incidents which have resulted in 73 Palestinians wounded and Palestinian institutions in their own Capital, East Jerusalem being closed. All amongst a continued blockade of the Gaza Strip, which is deteriorating the local infrastructure, environment, and destroying innocent families’ livelihoods. It’s good to be Israel, to play the victim card whenever your interests are threaten, because of your own inhuman actions.