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Palestinians' Right to Resist

Written by Subject: Israel - Palestine
Palestinians' Right to Resist

by Stephen Lendman

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states "(e)veryone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." No one has the right to deny them.

Resisting lawless occupation is universally recognized. Palestinians may use "all necessary means at their disposal" to do so. More on that below.

Consider daily life. Longstanding militarized occupation is ruthless. It's criminal. It's unrelenting. It's suffocating. It's vicious. It denies Palestinians fundamental human and civil rights.

Collective punishment is policy. So is economic strangulation. Free expression, assembly and movement are denied.

State terror, closed borders, isolation, land theft, settlement expansions, exploitation, targeted killings, abductions, political imprisonments, roadblocks, checkpoints, separation walls, other barriers, curfews, and never ending fear reflect daily life.

International law is clear and unequivocal. Self-determination is inviolable. It's universally recognized.

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

"All peoples have the right of self-determination."

"By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

"All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence."

"The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations."

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights repeats the same language.

General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 (November 1978):

"Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle."

General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) (November 1974):

"Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples' struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle."

"Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people."

General Assembly Resolution 2649 (1970):

"Affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal."

According to Princeton University Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination director Wolfgang Danspeckgruber:

"No other concept is as powerful, visceral, emotional, unruly, or as steep in creating aspirations and hopes for self-determination."

The 1960 General Assembly decolonization resolution states:

"The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation."

"All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

"Immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom."

"All States shall observe faithfully and strictly the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the present Declaration on the basis of equality, non-interference in the internal affairs of all States, and respect for the sovereign rights of all peoples and their territorial integrity."

General Assembly Resolution 181 called for an Independent Arab state by October 1, 1948.

It asked "all Governments and peoples to refrain from taking any action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations."

It called for the Security Council to be empowered with "the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation."

In the late 1980s, Francis Boyle drafted Palestine's declaration of independence.

On November 15, 1988, the Palestine National Council (PNC) adopted his Memorandum of Law. It "proclaimed the existence of the new independent state of Palestine."

It legally qualifies. Its territory is determinable. Its borders are negotiable. Palestine existed for millennia.

It has a fixed population, a functioning government, and capacity to have normalized relations with other states.

Over 140 nations recognize its legitimacy. Militarized occupation denies it. Resisting it is universally recognized. According to Boyle:

"Palestinians have a perfect right under international law to resist an illegal, colonial, genocidal, criminal, military occupation regime of their lands and of their homes and of their People that goes back to 1948 so long as it is done in a manner consistent with the requirements of international humanitarian law."

UN Charter Article 51 affirms "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense" against armed attack.

Israel attacks Palestinian civilians repeatedly. Daily examples explain. On Friday, Israel assaulted nonviolent protesters in five West Bank villages.

Bil'in, Nabi Saleh, Kufer Qadum, and Al Ma'ssare were affected. Seven Palestinians were arrested. Dozens were injured.

Four international supporters and three local activists were detained. So were media crews.

Israeli forces used live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas. They did so against nonviolent civilians. Resisters were beaten with rifle butts.

During the week ending October 9, Israel conducted 51 incursions into Palestinian communities. Around three dozen adults were arrested. So were six children.

Seven Palestinians were injured. Hazem al-Syouri was one of many affected. His experience reflects daily life in Palestine.

"I live with my mother and brothers in a 5-story building in the centre of the Old Town in Hebron," he said.

At around midnight October 3, he awoke to knocks on his front door. Soldiers raided his apartment. They deployed there.

They climbed stairs to "other apartments belonging to (his) mother and brothers."

They were yelling. They ordered al-Syouri out. They raided the whole building.

His mother, brothers and children were sleeping. They ordered them out. They ransacked the building for hours.

"We heard the sounds of smashing glass and destroying doors. Children were crying all the time."

"When I tried to talk to the Israeli soldiers to allow me in, a soldier pushed me away…Israeli soldiers ordered women and children to get inside to be personally searched with the metal detector."

Seventeen month-old Joud was stripped naked. Al-Syouri's mother fainted. His two brothers were handcuffed.

Soldiers "destroyed the doors and electric appliances, damaged the furniture and closets, mixed the foodstuffs in the kitchen together and took off some of the building bricks on the roof."

"The damage caused to my brothers' apartments and mine are above NIS 100,000 (about $25,000). "

Similar incidents occur daily throughout occupied Palestine. Settlers attack Palestinians freely.

Yesh Din is a volunteer human rights organization. It works on behalf of Palestinian civilians.

They face daily "acts of violence committed by Israeli" settlers. They're "not isolated incidents." They reflect "hate and anger."

They're "part of a sophisticated, wider strategy designed to assert territorial domination."

Doing so violates international law. Israel is obligated to ensure security and safety. It instigates state terror instead.

Since 1967, Israeli security forces and settlers destroyed over 800,000 Palestinian olive trees. It's the equivalent of razing New York's Central Park 33 times over.

Resisting tyranny is a universal right. Hamas Political Bureau head Khaled Mashal called for doing so.

Palestinians "need to take a clear stance," he said. "(I)t is essential to keep the resistance strong."

Liberation depends on it. "All factions must agree on a unified strategy and a unified goal."

UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinian human rights Richard Falk calls resisting occupation "a legally protected right." It bears repeating. Liberation depends on it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/palestinians-right-resist/

2 Comments in Response to

Comment by Tatiana Covington
Entered on:

Nature's way of settling disputes is by fighting and killing.

Comment by TL Winslow
Entered on:

[[Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

"All peoples have the right of self-determination."]]

My how tiring Lendman's moose hockey is becoming.

One. There is no such thing as a "Palestinian people". They're all just Muslim Arabs whose right of self-determination is well protected in Arabia, if the Saudis would just let them move back in. Less Rolls Royces, more condos.  Recently Euro auditors revealed that billions of euros send to the Fakestinians for humanitarian aid was coopted for jihad and corruption:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/10/surprise-eu-auditors-find-billions-of.html

Two. The right of self-determination is just what the people of Israel have, but the fake Palestinians won't concede.  They prefer eternal jihad.

Three. Every time the Israelis have broke down and offered them their own state, the Palestinians have refused, because it would carry the condition that they recognize the right of Israel to exist, and duh, they prefer eternal jihad, your erectile dysfunction could be a function of blood flow.

Four. The Palestinians already have their own state, and it's called Jordan. They have another one called Egypt, and another called Syria, but you see, as Muslims Allah told them to never accept a Jewish state of Israel even ona slice of land the size of a Freschetti pizza. Since Lendman is greased by Saudi money he has to turn a blind eye to it, and to the Saudis who drive the whole jihad while paying for sick deceptive agitprop like his.

The Muslim World including the sicko Saudis is in its last days, and knows it.  When it disintegrates completely, the bigger better Jewish State of Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates will be glad to help the ex-Muslims rejoin the human race so they can work as hard at peace as they do at war.  Lendman can find another source of grease money, I'm sure he's already double-dipping from Moscow :)

http://tinyurl.com/islamwatchblog

Speaking of jihad, fueled by eternal hate. Here's what the world's #1 Historyscoper said in his Jerusalem Historyscope at

http://historyscoper.com/jerusalemhistoryscope.html

(with permission granted :)

Speaking of hate-filled Muslims, the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine, no matter how small, and no matter how cleaned-up the govt. got, forever stuck in the craw of Arab Muslims, who insisted on clinging to the 7th cent. Quran which commands them to conquer the world for Islam and set up its horrible retro  Sharia,
and to never ever give up a single square inch, with the reward of paradise for martyrdom while fighting to expand or recover territory, not for being a designer or inventor or whatever, a fighter.  On Jan. 5, 1956 Egyptian grand mufti Sheikh Hassan Mamoun issued a fatwato the effect that since Palestine had long been conquered by jihad, it was a permanent possession of the global Muslim Umma, hence regardless of the U.N. or Jewish-oriented history, the Jews usurped Allah's territory and therefore no
Muslim can ever conclude a peace with them, no matter how stupid the Yankees are to think they can mediate one.  In 1961 Jaffa-born intellectual
Shafiq al-Hout (Shafik al-Hut) (1932-2009) and Jaffa-born
Ahmed Jibril (1938-) founded the militant Syrian-backed
Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF);
in 1964 al-Hout became a co-founder of the PLO, representing it at the U.N. and in Lebanon, then resigning after Arafat signs the 1993 Oslo Accords; the fake Arab Muslim
"Palestinian"
nationality was dreamed up by the KGB in 1964 for Soviet-trained Yasser Arafat, who uttered the soundbyte "The Palestinian people have no national identity.  I, Yasser Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel."  After years of subversive movements, in 1964 with Nasser's backing the out-in-the-open
Palestine Liberation Org. (PLO) was founded to end the Jewish state by violence and terrorism, not just in the Middle East, but anywhere they think it might advance the cause.  Like many if not most so-called Palestinians, the founder
Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) (grand-nephew of Jew-hating Nazi ally grand mufti Amin al-Husseini) was born not there, but in his case in Cairo, but Arabs started out by taking the territory by fear, force and violence in the 7th cent. and aren't about to change as long as they stick with Islam.  Don't take my word for it.  In 1959 after urging by the PLO so that Palestinian refugees in Arab countries won't be assimilated and forget their problem, the Arab League promulgated Decision Number 1457,
to wit: "Arab states will reject the giving of citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their integration into the host countries."  The
1964 PLO National Charter puts it quite honestly:
"The Palestinian people firmly believe in Arab unity, and in order to play its role in realizing this goal, it must, at this stage of its struggle, preserve its Palestinian personality and all its constituents.  It must strengthen the consciousness of its existence and stance and stand against any attempt or plan that may weaken or disintegrate its personality."  
Where's the paper snowflakes?  How about the
1988 Hamas Charter: "As for the objectives: They are the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam, so that people and things would return each to their right places and Allah is our helper."  
That's a lot of pizza for a little dough.  For a triple confirmation, let's look at the 2003 Palestinian Constitution: "Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation.  Arab Unity is an objective which the Palestinian People shall work to achieve."  So actually, there really isn't such a thing as a Palestinian, it's a political term only.  
There never was a nation of Palestine that the Jews stole from anybody, it was just one of many provinces of the Ottoman Empire from 1517-1917 that was backward and depopulated until Jews began moving in and reclaiming the desert, after which the creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 followed by an Arab-launched war caused many Arabs to flee to neighboring Muslim lands, who wouldn't accept them as citizens but forced them into camps and threw them back at the
Israelis to use as cannon fodder in their jihad for Allah, after all, paradise complete with virgins and great lodgings beats all that cruddy desert land, right, so go get your martyrdom today fighting and killing infidel Jews, and if not today then tomorrow.  To quote
Zuheir (Zuhair) Mohsen (1936-79), leader of the Syrian-backed
As-Sa'iqa ("thunderbolt or storm") (main rival to Arafat's Fatah in the PLO) in Mar. 1977 in an interview with the Dutch newspaper "Trouw":
"The Palestinian people does not exist.  The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.  In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.  Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct
Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.  For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheba and Jerusalem.  However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine
and Jordan."  By 2011 they didn't even try to hide it anymore, with Hamas MP and cleric
Yunis Al-Astal uttering the Al-Aqsa TV soundbytes:
"The Jews are brought in droves to Palestine so that the Palestinians, and the Islamic nation behind them will have the honor of annihilating the evil of this gang."  "All the predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews."  
"In just a few years, all the Zionists and the settlers will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre, by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil."  
"When Palestine is liberated and its people return to it, and the entire region, with the grace of Allah, will have turned into the United States of Islam, the land of Palestine will become the capital of the Islamic Caliphate, and all these countries will turn into states within the Caliphate.  When this happens, any Palestinian will be able to live anywhere, because the land
of Islam is the property of all Muslims."  "Until this happens, we must reject all the resettlement plans, naturalization, or even reparations prior to the return of the refugees."  On Mar. 23, 2013 Hamas minister Fathi Hammad uttered the soundbyte: "Who are Palestinians?  Palestinians don’t come from Palestine... Brothers, half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis." In 1967
Wadi (Wadie) Haddad (1927-78) founded the Marxist
Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which became the 2nd largest member of the PLO after Fatah, becoming fond of hijacking airplanes.  
Meanwhile in June 1974 the PLO adopted a "phased strategy", meaning that it will seize any territory from Israel it can by any means available then use it as a springboard for more until it achieves the "complete liberation of Palestine", welcome to Hell's Kitchen and the dream of becoming head chef.  At least they used the right word, liberation, not restoration.  
In 1984 American journalist
Joan Peters (1938-) pub. the controversial book
From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, which claimed that most of the Palestinian Arabs arrived after Jewish settlers started developing the land, which might or might not be true, but is actually irrelevant to the fact that Palestinian Arabs are Arabs, their true heart is in Mecca, which they consider the center of their empire however far outward it spreads, and they believe that Allah gave them all land that they or their ancestors have conquered forever, hence will never concede a square inch of it as long as they believe in Allah and the Quran,
rather, they will ever work to keep spreading the outer radius of their Ummah or Borg Hive worldwide.  By the way, Jordan keeps over 1 million Palestinians in refugee camps, as does Syria and Lebanon, for a total of over 3 million, while Israel has only 1.3 million, yet Saudi-financed anti-Israeli propaganda makes Israel appear to be responsible for the plight of all Palestinians.  Why don't Palestinians demand that Jordan, Syria or Lebanon either assimilate them or let them create a Palestinian state?  Because it's not about that, it's about the Muslim Ummah that stretches to Mecca being restored after the Jewish breach is cleansed like a disease.  On Dec. 11, 1984 Benjamin Netanyahu gave a
speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly on why Jordan is the real Palestine, with the soundbyte: "Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews.  Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel.  The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there.  It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally
allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish national home.  The other state, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which 1/6 is Arab.  It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate...  It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own.  The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949."  To give equal time to the other side, in 1997 Palestinian-American historian Rashid Ismail Khalidi
(1948-) (a good friend of Pres. Barack Obama) pub.
Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, which although admitting there never was an Arab state of Palestine before the creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948, claims they had formed a "national consciousness" before that because of the Zionist movement, hence all zillion of them should
have the right to crowd into Israel's little strip of land in the huge Arab Ummah and set up Sharia like in the rest of the Ummah, then poof goes their national identity and here comes holy killing with Frontline Plus with help of the entire Ummah, hello, what do you think I got stamped on my forehead, the word Dummas?



 

 

 


 

 


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