So when Israel is called upon by governments and NGOs to "respect human rights" in Palestine, nothing happens, because they all know there is nothing to fear; nothing will change.
Mark the silence of the European Union, which accommodates Israel while refusing to maintain its commitments to the people of Gaza -- such as keeping the lifeline of the Rafah border crossing open: a measure it agreed to as part of its role in the cessation of fighting in 2014. A seaport for Gaza -- agreed by Brussels in 2014 -- has been abandoned.
The UN commission I have referred to -- its full name is the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia -- described Israel as, and I quote, "designed for the core purpose" of racial discrimination.
Millions understand this. What the governments in London, Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv cannot control is that humanity at street level is changing perhaps as never before.
People everywhere are stirring and are more aware, in my view, than ever before. Some are already in open revolt. The atrocity of Grenfell Tower in London has brought communities together in a vibrant almost national resistance.
Thanks to a people's campaign, the judiciary is today examining the evidence of a possible prosecution of Tony Blair for war crimes. Even if this fails, it is a crucial development, dismantling yet another barrier between the public and its recognition of the voracious nature of the crimes of state power -- the systemic disregard for humanity perpetrated in Iraq, in Grenfell Tower, in Palestine. Those are the dots waiting to be joined.
For most of the 21st century, the fraud of corporate power posing as democracy has depended on the propaganda of distraction: largely on a cult of "me-ism" designed to disorientate our sense of looking out for others, of acting together, of social justice and internationalism.
Class, gender and race were wrenched apart. The personal became the political and the media the message. The promotion of bourgeois privilege was presented as "progressive" politics. It wasn't. It never is. It is the promotion of privilege, and power.
Among young people, internationalism has found a vast new audience. Look at the support for Jeremy Corbyn and the reception the G20 circus in Hamburg received. By understanding the truth and imperatives of internationalism, and rejecting colonialism, we understand the struggle of Palestine.
Mandela put it this way: "We know only too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."
At the heart of the Middle East is the historic injustice in Palestine. Until that is resolved, and Palestinians have their freedom and homeland, and Israelis are Palestinians equality before the law, there will be no peace in the region, or perhaps anywhere.
What Mandela was saying is that freedom itself is precarious while powerful governments can deny justice to others, terrorise others, imprison and kill others, in our name. Israel certainly understands the threat that one day it might have to be normal.
That is why its ambassador to Britain is Mark Regev, well known to journalists as a professional propagandist, and why the "huge bluff" of charges of anti-Semitism, as Ilan Pappe called it, was allowed to contort the Labour Party and undermine Jeremy Corbyn as leader. The point is, it did not succeed.
Events are moving quickly now. The remarkable Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) is succeeding, day by day; cities and towns, trade unions and student bodies are endorsing it. The British government's attempt to restrict local councils from enforcing BDS has failed in the courts.
These are not straws in the wind. When the Palestinians rise again, as they will, they may not succeed at first -- but they will eventually if we understand that they are us, and we are them.
This is an abridged version of John Pilger's address to the Palestinian Expo 2017 in London. John Pilger's film, "Palestine Is Still the Issue," can be viewed at http://johnpilger.com/videos/
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