3
1
Ongoing Israeli Human Rights Abuses - by Stephen Lendman
Throughout its history, Israel's been a serial human rights abuser. Count the ways.
State-sponsored terror is official policy. So is collective punishment, apartheid, colonialism, premeditated war, torture, and filling prison cells illegally with Palestinians wanting to live free on their own land in their own country.
Instead they've suffered brutal indignities and persecution under 44 years of occupation. They've endured racism, land theft, dispossessions, road blocks, checkpoints, Separation Walls, mass arrests, prison hell, economic strangulation, terrorized neighborhood incursions, and isolation in cantonized communities and Gaza under siege.
Israel is a modern day Sparta, a regional killing machine. It can mobilize over 600,000 combatants in 72 hours, equipped with nuclear and other state-of-the-art weapons. With strong Western backing to do what it pleases, it takes full advantage.
Moreover, its youths are indoctrinated to be warriors. Underage boys and girls are prepared for future mandatory military service even though Israel has no enemies except ones it manufactures to justify conflict and violence.
Impressionable young minds are taught to believe force and belligerence are preferred ways to solve political problems. Education highlights it, including by uniformed soldiers in classrooms.
Moreover, teachers, especially principals, are retired career officers, and school walls are adorned with names and photos of fallen heros among their graduates. In addition, field trips for all ages visit military memorials on former battlegrounds.
Curricula and textbooks also reflect militarism. From kindergarten through high school, programs in all state-run ones mandate "preparation for the IDF."
They feature training, glorifying military heros and conquests. At the same time, children are proselytized to vilify Arabs and hate them.
They learn early and it sticks. They're disciplined for later conscription, combat, and a lifetime of military support. In fact, by raising children in a hostile, violent environment, they're conditioned to wage war against any designed state enemy, whether or not true.
Palestinians have paid dearly under occupation hell, especially besieged Gazans. They've endured years of slow-motion genocide from depravation, neglect, and regular air and ground attacks.
Israeli Arabs are treated more like fifth column threats than citizens. Even Jews are abused. Military and business priorities come ahead of people needs.
As a result, poverty, homelessness and hunger are growing problems. Israel, in fact, is one of the most unequal Western societies in terms of income, standard of living, and eroding social benefits.
Moreover, democratic freedoms are threatened. Israel's Knesset under Netanyahu is its worst ever. Weak-kneed opposition members go along to get along.
Recent actions include forcibly transferring around 30,000 West Bank Bedouin Israelis. Beginning in January, 2,300 will lose their homes and be expelled to a site near Abu Dis' refuse dump east of Jerusalem, the city's main one.
