KATHMANDU, Feb 17 (IPS) – Romi Ghimire has a busy life operating a non-profit group devoted to Nepal’s rural folks, however she additionally feels pushed to do one thing about Gaza. “There are a lot of issues happening in the world, but right now the genocide in Gaza is the most urgent one,” she mentioned contained in the Palestine tent on the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Saturday.
“We’re watching it live…. we’re seeing it on a daily basis: every morning and evening I’m consuming it and I just can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t pretend that it isn’t happening,” Ghimire instructed IPS. “We have to raise awareness about it around the world because we are all the (Palestinians) have. They don’t have any arms or ammunition, any military — it’s just people like us that they have.”
“People like us” embrace the roughly 30,000 activists anticipated to attend the WSF, the annual world gathering of social activists, taking place this yr in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu till Monday. This block of the town centre is bustling with activists, speeding to achieve a scheduled workshop or bumping shoulders with friends from 90+ nations amid white tents arrange as short-term lecture rooms in a fairground.
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, in response to an assault on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, is one of probably the most mentioned points.
On Friday, Dr Varsen Aghabekian spoke to 30 activists from Nepal, South Asia and past. The former Commissioner General for the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, Aghabekian detailed the historical past that has culminated in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, stressing the deep roots of the present assaults.
Demographic technique
For instance, in Mandate Palestine (because it was recognized in 1947), Palestinians made up 93% of the inhabitants and Jewish folks have been 7%. By 2023 the make-up had modified dramatically, with Palestinians at 51% and the Jewish inhabitants equal to 49%, mentioned Aghabekian, labelling the method half of Israel’s “erasure”.
Historical “annexation” contains takeover of private and non-private property. In 1947, 90% of such property was owned by Palestinians; by 2023 that they had been relegated to 22% of historic Palestine.
Israeli legal guidelines and insurance policies “institutionalize the superiority and privilege the status of Jews,” added Aghabekian. They reserve the correct of self-determination in Israel solely for the Jewish folks, and declare Hebrew because the official state language, demoting Arabic, which had been the nation’s official second language.
“We rightfully call (the situation) apartheid but when we do that many western countries frown and say: ‘It can’t be!’… Israel is trying to project that an occupier state is a victim of our resistance and our violence (but) we have the right to resist as an occupied people who want to be liberated.”
Eventually Israel should make peace with the Palestinians, added Aghabekian. “If they are prospering and we are in pain there will not be peace. The Gaza genocide, despite its disasters, is an opportunity… even the US said seriously ‘maybe we should think about the two-state solution’. I think we’re moving toward that.”
Not solely is Israel misrepresenting its occupation and present assault on Gaza, the state of affairs has revealed the hypocrisy of western authorized, spiritual and cultural custom, argued Mitri Raheb, the primary president of Dar-al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, who spoke after Aghabekian.
Israel’s response to the Hamas assault has revealed the “warrior God,” not the God of peace, mentioned Raheb, citing a private instance. A German bishop he met counselled Palestinians to stay non-violent. But simply weeks later Raheb, who additionally served because the pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from 1987 till 2017, noticed the bishop on TV calling for western nations to offer Ukraine with tanks to counter Russia’s invasion.
Palestinians, he added, used to “believe in and fight for human rights because we thought they were international, they were for everyone. But I’m starting to question that. I think that human rights were meant for white Europeans, so they won’t kill each other any more, but it’s OK if the rest of the world is killed by the empire.”
“Business of colonialism”
Legal knowledgeable Wasem Ahmad dissected the financial construction that props up Israel’s occupation. “Israel has refined the art of colonization through what I call the best business practice of colonialism, which invites multinational actors and corporations to invest in their colonial project. And that provides an economic incentive to ensure that political positions are supportive of Israel.”
A human rights scholar, Ahmad instructed IPS he acknowledges the constraints of the human rights system. “The more you do this work the more cynical you become of the system as it’s proposed. (Human rights) look very nice on paper but when you try to put them into practice you realize that there are a lot of political obstacles to that realization and it has to do with the broader imperial interests at play.”
“Our role,” he continued, “is to push that system and engage it, and force the wheels of justice to turn. Either it works in our benefit or we expose it and over time that system will change, even if it requires a breakdown to rebuild.”
But opposing Israel’s colonization by the authorized system is just one strategy, added Ahmad. “The idea that I’m only going to rely on the legal mechanisms, ignoring that the law is a social construct connected to economic, political and cultural interests and beliefs in society ignores that reality.”
Despite his critique of the West’s authorized and cultural traditions, Raheb mentioned he was invigorated by the throngs of folks worldwide, and on the WSF, protesting Israel’s assaults. “Gaza was the wake-up call for all of us. And I think in the future this will just get stronger and stronger… Gaza galvanized the global South because it was the magnifying glass: suddenly we could see clearly. That was the turning point.”
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal supply: Inter Press Service
