Resisting Israeli Tyranny a Legitimate Palestinian Right

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Resisting tyranny is a universal right. Thomas Jefferson called it "obedience to God."

In his second Treatise of Government, John Locke defended the "right of revolution," saying when government fails the people, its "trust (is) forfeited…power devolv(ing) into the hands of those that gave it."

In his landmark "Civil Disobedience" essay, Henry David Thoreau defended "the right of revolution…the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable."

Ralph Waldo Emerson supported the right to resist unjust laws on moral grounds.

Martin Luther King defended the right to resist, saying "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

Half a century of Israeli military occupation turned historic Palestine into an armed camp hostile to Arabs - persecuted and unwanted, terrorized and brutalized, countless numbers imprisoned and tortured, thousands murdered by wars, assassinations, and industrial-scale cold-blooded murder.

Throughout its history, Israel defied international laws, norms and standards, including numerous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

Israel wants Palestinian history, culture and collective memory erased - Judaization a policy of de-Arabization, colonizers brutalizing the colonized, supported by the West instead of denounced, the rights of millions of Palestinians (including diaspora ones) ignored.

The Nakba never ended, ongoing throughout the Occupied Territories, stealing Palestinian land, terrorizing and displacing its inhabitants, killing them with impunity.

Former IDF chief of staff/Israeli politician Moshe Dayan once said "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages."  

"You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either."

"There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

While Judaization of historic Palestine proceeded, countless amounts of Palestinian possessions were looted by Zionist militias - stolen from homes, government offices, libraries and other facilities.

In their film "The Great Book Robbery," Benny Brunner and Arjan El Fassed explained a well-planned anti-Palestinian offensive, saying:

"For decades, Zionist and Israeli propaganda described the Palestinians as 'people without culture.' " 

"Thus, the victorious Israeli state took upon itself to civilize the Palestinians who remained within its borders at the end of the 1948 war." 

"They were forbidden to study their own culture or to remember their immediate past. Their memory was seen as a dangerous weapon that had to be suppressed and controlled."

What began during Israel's so-called war of independence, continues today - Jerusalem and Gaza the twin-epicenters of Israel's aim to establish unchallenged control over historic Palestine by brute force, eliminating resistance throughout the Occupied Territories.

Century ago Zionists wanted a future Jewish state to include Palestine, southern Lebanon, southwestern Syria including Golan, western Jordan and Egypt's Sinai.

The notion of a greater Israel persists, the Jewish state complicit with Washington in wanting to redraw the Middle East map, replacing sovereign independent governments with pro-Western puppet regimes, partitioning Iraq, Syria, Iran, and other regional countries for easier control.

Israeli violence in Gaza since Friday continues, part of a longstanding pattern of persecution, aiming to terrorize Palestinians into submission to a Jewish occupier.

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers attacked East Jerusalem Palestinian residents, around 100 reported injured, mostly from live fire.

More injuries occurred in Gaza since Friday's bloodbath, a pattern likely to continue throughout the "Great (Palestinian) March of Return," ongoing until mid-May.

Israel enforces control by violent suppression of justifiable resistance. The self-styled "world's most moral army" is one of the most ruthless.

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