Johannesburg - This has been a heart-breaking week characterised by apartheid Israel’s security forces storming a mosque during the Ramadan prayers and beating up scores of Palestinian worshippers in Jerusalem – mainly youths – in reflections of glaring inequality of our world order.
The sheer brutality and disregard for human rights by members of the Israeli occupying force lay stark naked in and outside of the iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque in the holy city of Jerusalem for the entire world to see.
But then again, the “world” has stayed not only blind to the immeasurable suffering of the oppressed people of Palestine – but the “world” has additionally elected to remain deaf.
For over four decades, nay – make that five – the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel since June 1967 has remained a selfishly-guarded mission primarily by the US, the world’s only remaining superpower since the end of World War II.
To South Africa’s great credit, Mandela’s country has refused to remain silent amidst blatant subjugation of Palestinians since the ANC came to power in 1994. Various ANC-led administrations have spoken albeit at varying degrees against the oppression of the Palestinian people, the brutish annexation of their territories and the illegal occupation of their land.
Every week, almost without fail, the hardship faced by the people of Palestinian peoples in the face of explicit hatred by hordes of Israeli settlers is reminiscent only to our SA-style oppression under the Nationalist Party’s apartheid rule. Yet, watching pictorial, video and anecdotal evidence of the Palestinian victims of Israel’s brutality makes me to feel like life wasn’t as bad growing up in Soweto under the white minority regime.
Ramadan is a sacred time for Muslims all over the world. It is a time during which they visit their places of worship – the mosques – to reconnect with Allah and perform their religious rituals. This is supposed to be done in perfect peace and harmony. But not in occupied Palestine. There men, women and children are extremely fortunate to live up to the age of adulthood.
From birth, their reality is to be baton-charged, sjamboked, teargassed, shot at, teargassed, bombed indiscriminately and simply removed mercilessly from the face of the Earth by a barbarous State that has scant regard for any non-Israeli life. The daily raids by gun-toting Israeli security forces whose trigger-happy nature is well-documented is a reality that every Palestinian wakes up to – adult or minor.
It is one thing to beat up human beings regarded as second-class citizens like the Palestinians on any day, anywhere and anytime. But it completely heart-piercing to indiscriminately burst inside a mosque in the holy city of Jerusalem – where Jesus Christ performed many of His teachings and miracles – and shoot at worshippers during Ramadan prayers, nogal!
During apartheid South Africa, the soldiers and the police used to knock down doors in Soweto, Sharpeville, Langa, KwaMashu, Mamelodi and many other places where black people dared to protest, claiming to be searching for “instigators” and weapons.
Life under the white minority regime was a living hell for all of us “second-class citizens”. Our collective sin was simple – the colour of our skin.
When, at the height of our repression, former Prime Minister PW Botha bragged that South African black people lived a lot better than black people elsewhere in the continent and the Diaspora, we screamed “no ways!” The shoe was pinching us, those wearing it. But the visual brutality that we see the Israelites meting out to the Palestinians makes me wonder if our version of apartheid was a picnic compared to occupied Palestine.
The bloodthirsty Israeli government’s explanation for their programmatic annihilation of the helpless Palestinians isn’t too dissimilar to the version of our erstwhile oppressors. For each stone thrown at their army or police vehicle the response should be such maximum force as to scare stone-throwers into a permanent state of fear and sheepish submission.
Like apartheid South Africa, apartheid Israel shamelessly subscribes to the savage art and practice of collateral damage. If their security is searching for one or few individuals an entire community of thousands of innocent people must suffer the harsh consequences for the perceived misdemeanour of the hunted. House-to-house raids, beating up of the elderly and the young alike, detention without trial, lengthy incarceration for freedom fighters dubbed “terrorists” and daylight murders such as that of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh are all the trademarks of living hell in occupied Palestine.
This week, the Holy week for all religions – Israeli police who have become a law unto themselves detained hundreds of Palestinian youths inside the iconic Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Israeli police claimed on social media that more than 350 “vandals” and “law-breaking and masked youths” had launched fireworks and pelted police officers with stones before fleeing to hide inside the mosque.
Witnesses said that members of the “Israeli occupation forces surrounded the Palestinian worshippers from all directions in the Al-Qibli prayer hall at Al-Aqsa Mosque, firing stun grenades at them intensively”.
The ensuing episode was typically reminiscent of our lives in the townships during apartheid South Africa. The heavily-armed Israeli police did what they know and do best – storming one of Islam’s holiest sites to teach all a lesson. They obviously do not care much, if at all, about the global reaction to their ugly deeds. They are insulated from attack and blame by the US and the West on the warped logic that the Hamas does not wish for Israel to exist.
From day one of illegally occupying the land of Palestine, long before the formation of Hamas in 1987, the Israeli security has continued to this day to act with impunity. At the UN, any sound and meaningful condemnation of Israel is all but non-existent, thanks to the veto power that the US holds in the UN Security Council where consequential resolutions against Israel could be passed and implemented. The international community has all but given up on holding Israel accountable in similar ways to the manner in which South Africa was cornered with resolutions declaring apartheid a crime against humanity.
I concur with the late Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and many others that have previously argued that Israel’s cruel subjugation of the Palestinian people is sheer, unadulterated apartheid – if not worse. Be warned, the rapidly crumbling US-dominated world order is on a slippery slope. Just like us South Africans, the Palestinians will not always be oppressed.
As they chanted at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s US, and I paraphrase: “Someday they, too, (Palestinians) shall be free.” They shall overcome. There were times, times too many to remember when we in SA doubted if we would ever break the shackles of racial oppression. When you live under occupation – illegal nogal – too many days are desperately lonely than upbeat ones. A sense of despair and hopelessness sets in too easily, particularly in the knowledge that the international community is complicit in the oppression of the Palestinians through its mischievous silence.
By commission or omission, the UN member-states must be held collectively liable for the perpetuation of Palestine’s oppression. Just as they did in support of Ukraine in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) last year where member-states could adopt a particular motion against unacceptable deeds in spite of lack of authority to implement, I implore them to do the same against Israel. In UNGA, a vote condemning the long-running, illegal occupation of Palestine and the insistence to implement the two-state solution can be adopted without any chance for a US veto intervention. In that way, despite the glaring limitations, the international community will come to know that the people of Palestine are not alone in their suffering.
The Arab League raised their voice of condemnation against Israel’s Al-Aqsa Mosque scandalous behaviour, but the collective voice of the Arab nations has been muted for a considerable time, allowing evil to reign supreme in Palestine.
The frequently illogical argument by the Western backers of Israel to equate Palestinians’ stone-throwing acts to Israel’s disproportionate firepower must be condemned in the strongest terms.
The nations of the global south in particular, most of which are former colonies themselves, ought to raise their voice in support of the world’s last remaining oppressed nation, the State of Palestine.
I am acutely aware that throughout human history, evil can never triumph over good forever. The day shall come when the people of Palestine, too, shall occupy their rightful place at the table of the nations of the world. Western Europe once colonised nearly every part of the globe, yet one after the other nations broke free from the yoke of racial discrimination and wanton suppression. The plight of the Palestinians is made particularly heart-piercing by the treacherous nature of our geopolitics, where the Western nations will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo.
At this time of religious importance for us Christians and other faiths, it is crucial to remind the Jewish State of Israel about their Biblical-times’ trials and tribulations. Tutu said they should not be doing to the Palestinians the evil that others did to them. As for the US-led global north, they need to be reminded that even Hamas’ hard-stance towards Israel can be interpreted as a last-ditch cry for international community to foster dialogue between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It is not impossible to thrash out a breakthrough. We did it in SA, with the help of the international community. This is the time for the global village to be on the side of the weak against the powerful. In that way, Archbishop Tutu would rest in eternal peace.
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