Israel's fanatic push for legitimacy -- its shrill insistence and demand that "its right to exist" is a precondition for any Palestinian socio-economic and political construct is based on its insecurity. More than anything it fears not being recognized as being legitimate. Hence its continuing use of the Holocaust narrative, its religion-political myth of its "holy land status" and all of the other baseless and unsubstantiated arguments packaged and peddled as facts to a gullible populace to hide the fickle, story-book narrative of its existence.
For all the talk about Israeli democracy and its veneer of a stable, oasis of people's power in an unstable part of the world, its just spin and more false narratives. When a nation that supposedly is home to "God's Chosen People" is built on and driven by a massive military sustained by the United States's Foreign Military Funding (FMF) to the tune of billions of dollars in free armaments just to prevent Palestinians from buying an Aspirin across the border, then something is really wrong.
Internally, Israeli democracy is a lie.
Many prominent scholars have used Israel and the apartheid analogy comparing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of non-whites during its apartheid era. And, no matter the howling to the contrary, there are a number of aspects that make the analogy compelling. For example, Israel's system of control in the occupied West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements, an apartheid-like ID system, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens, the second class existence of Arab Israelis in Israel itself, military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage laws, exploitation of cheap Palestinian labor, inequalities in legal rights and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the occupied territories, all resemble in shape and form colonial-era South African apartheid.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like one it is a bloody duck.
Finally, this is not about anti-Semitism or hating Jews. Its about presenting a factual narrative that underscores and exposes an unequal and unjust relationship between Israel and Palestine. It is an unsustainable relationship for Israel. Little nasty wars, occupation and brutality will not win hearts and minds and if you pack nearly 2 million desperate, impoverished, beaten and abused people into 139 square miles, pregnant with hovels, lack of running water, and no way to get out, you will, no matter your military might, eventually reap the whirlwind.
Wars are not won by armaments alone. People win wars. And every bomb, every child killed, every house razed, bolsters a growing, ultimately uncontrolled resentment, and yes, hatred, that will have dire consequences for Israel the so-called "only democracy in the Middle East." You see, unlike Israel that desperately wants to preserve its image and way of life the only thing that Palestinians have to lose is their chains. And that, you cannot bomb, kill, shoot or isolate.
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