Stephen Lendman is an outstanding anti-racist, humanitarian Jewish American analyst, writer, broadcaster and Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (see Stephen Lendman blog:: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ ) .
Stephen Lendman reviewing Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”: “Since the 1940s, they [the Palestinians] were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone. The shameful result is that Palestinians then and today have almost no rights including being able to live in peace and security on their own land in their own state that no longer exists. Survivors then and their offspring either live in Israel as unwanted Arab citizens with few rights or in the Occupied Palestinians Territories (OPT) where their lives are suspended in limbo in an occupied country in which they're subjected to daily institutionalized and codified racism and persecution. They have no power over their daily lives and live in a constant state of fear with good reason. They face economic strangulation; collective punishment for any reason; loss of free movement; enclosures by separation walls, electric fences and border closings; regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, loss of their homes by bulldozings and crops and orchards by wanton destruction and seizure; arrest without cause, and routine subjection to torture while in custody. They're targeted for extra-judicial assassination and indiscriminate killing; taxed punitively and denied basic services essential to life and well-being including health care, education, employment and even enough food and water at the whim of Israeli authorities in a deliberate effort to destroy their will to resist and eliminate those who won't by expulsion or extermination.”. [1].
Stephen Lendman on Israel’s slow-motion Palestinian Genocide (with a dramatic map illustrating the extent of territorial Palestinian Genocide) (26 November 2008): “They won't explain that Israel is obligated to provide essentials under Fourth Geneva's Article 55. It states: "To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other (essential) articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate." Israel continues to violate this law and all others…Today starving Gazans won't be silenced. They keep protesting, and according to Hamazah Mansur, head of the Jordanian-based Islamic Action Front's six-member parliamentary bloc: If conditions in the Territory worsens, "Arab rulers should expect an earthquake that would shake their countries and regimes." It's high time something shook them out of their silent complicity with decades of slow-motion genocide, now worse than ever in Gaza under siege. “. [2].
Stephen Lendman on Israel/Palestine today (July 2009): “B'Tselem is the Jerusalem-based independent Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (OPT) with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity. It was founded in 1989 to "document and educate the Israeli public, policymakers (and concerned people everywhere) about human rights violations in the OPT, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public (and elsewhere, especially among Jews), and create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and comply with international law. It conducts wide-ranging, carefully researched, and thoroughly cross-checked reports, most recently its June one titled, "Foul Play: Neglect of wastewater treatment in the West Bank." This article discusses its findings as further evidence of how Israel violates international humanitarian law as an occupying power. Because no global authority holds it accountable, over 2.8 million West Bank Palestinians suffer along with another 1.5 million under siege in Gaza for over two years and counting …Of the West Bank's 2.8 million Palestinians, wastewater for over two million of them goes untreated, the result of Israel's wilful neglect in violation of international humanitarian law and its obligation as an occupier.” [3].
Stephen Lendman on the Palestinian Holocaust (2011): “What Ilan Pappe described as "the ethnic cleaning of Palestine," Edward Said called its "holocaust," saying: "Every human calamity is different, but there is value in seeing analogies and perhaps hidden similarities." He called Nazi extermination "the lowest point of (Jewish) collective existence." Occupied Palestinians today "are as powerless as Jews were" under Hitler, devastated by "power used for evil purposes," not self-defense. As a result, they hang onto life by a thread, while Israel's military juggernaut systematically reigns terror against them, no one intervening to help. "Is this the Zionist goal for which hundreds of thousands have died," Said asked? Isn't it time for justice advocates to demand for Palestinians what Jews spent decades to achieve.
In his book titled, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Pappe documented Israel's master plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), a war without mercy:
-- depopulating villages and cities;
-- massacring innocent victims;
-- committing rapes and other atrocities;
-- burning, bulldozing, blowing up or stealing homes, property and goods; and
-- preventing expelled Palestinians from returning.
In all, systematic terror expelled about 800,000 Palestinians, killed many others, and destroyed 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods in cities like Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. It was genocidal ethnic cleansing, what international law today calls a crime of war and against humanity for which convicted Nazis at Nuremberg were hanged.
Under 44 years of occupation this June, Palestinians still experience daily institutionalized persecution with no power over their daily lives in a constant state of fear with good reason. They face:
-- economic strangulation;
-- collective punishment for any reason;
-- loss of basic freedoms, especially in Gaza under siege;
-- enclosures by separation walls, electric fences and border closings;
-- regular curfews, roadblocks, and checkpoints;
-- bulldozing of their homes, crops and orchards; and
-- arrest, imprisonment, and torture without cause.
Moreover, they endure:
-- assaults and extra-judicial assassinations;
-- punitive taxation; and
-- denial of basic services essential to life and well-being, including healthcare, education, employment and enough food and water at the whim of Israeli authorities, trying to destroy their will to resist.
With no effective power to resist, they're denied redress in international tribunals that ignore them, perpetuating their occupation, denial of basic rights and misery. ” [4].
[1]. Stephen Lendman, “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ian Pappe”, Global Research, 7 February 2007: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4715 .
[2]. Stephen Lendman, “Israel’s slow-motion genocide in Occupied Palestine”, Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinal, 26 November 2008: http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008/112608Lendman.shtml .
[3]. Stephen Lendman” “Dangerous Untreated Wastewater in the West Bank”, Stephen Lendman Blog, 17 July 2009: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ .
[4]. Stephen Lendman, “Commemorating the Palestinian Holocaust”, Rense, 11 May 2011: http://rense.com/general94/comm.htm .