Israel: a CORNERED RAT--why, because everyone knows they STOLE Palestinians' land, pure and simple

No, the UN did not create Israel – its war of ethnic cleansing did it​

Link: https://israelpalestinenews.org/no-the-un-did-not-create-israel-its-war-of-ethnic-cleansing-did-it/

ALISON WEIR JUNE 9, 2022 DEAN ACHESON, JAMES FORRESTAL, LOY HENDERSON, NAKBA, PARTITION PLAN, UNITED NATIONS

No, the UN did not create Israel – its war of ethnic cleansing did it

Palestinian familie flee their village of Tantura, May 1948. During its founding war to create a Jewish state in Palestine, Israeli forces committed numerous massacres like the one in Tantura and worked to expel the indigenous population of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Photo from National Library of Israel. (photo)

Consider these facts when you hear about Israel’s alleged “right to exist”…

By Alison Weir, reposted from If Americans Knew (images added)
The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.
In reality, while the UN General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.
Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.
Third, the US administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations, and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.
The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.
It was this armed aggression, and the ethnic cleansing of at least three-quarters of a million indigenous Palestinians, that created the Jewish state on land that had been 95 percent non-Jewish prior to Zionist immigration and that even after years of immigration remained 70 percent non-Jewish. And despite the shallow patina of legality its partisans extracted from the General Assembly, Israel was born over the opposition of American experts and of governments around the world, who opposed it on both pragmatic and moral grounds.
Let us look at the specifics.

BACKGROUND OF THE UN PARTITION RECOMMENDATION​

In 1947 the UN took up the question of Palestine, a territory that was then administered by the British.
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1945 map of Palestine. (photo)
Approximately 50 years before, a movement called political Zionism had begun in Europe. Its intention was to create a Jewish state in Palestine through pushing out the Christian and Muslim inhabitants who made up over 95 percent of its population and replacing them with Jewish immigrants.
As this colonial project grew through subsequent years, the indigenous Palestinians reacted with occasional bouts of violence; Zionists had anticipated this since people usually resist being expelled from their land. In various written documents cited by numerous Palestinian and Israeli historians, they discussed their strategy: they would buy up the land until all the previous inhabitants had emigrated, or, failing this, use violence to force them out.
When the buy-out effort was able to obtain only a few percent of the land, Zionists created a number of terrorist groups to fight against both the Palestinians and the British. Terrorist and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin later bragged that Zionists had brought terrorism both to the Middle East and to the world at large.
Finally, in 1947 the British announced that they would be ending their control of Palestine, which had been created through the League of Nations following World War One, and turned the question of Palestine over to the United Nations.
At this time, the Zionist immigration and buyout project had increased the Jewish population of Palestine to 30 percent and land ownership from 1 percent to approximately 6 percent.
Since a founding principle of the UN was “self-determination of peoples,” one would have expected to the UN to support fair, democratic elections in which inhabitants could create their own independent country.
Instead, Zionists pushed for a General Assembly resolution in which they would be given a disproportionate 55 percent of Palestine. (While they rarely announced this publicly, their stated plan was to later take the rest of Palestine.)
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Map of partition plan recommended by UN General Assembly. This was never taken up by the Security Council and therefore had no force of law. (photo)

U.S. OFFICIALS OPPOSE PARTITION PLAN​

The U.S. State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously, considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and US interests.
Author Donald Neff reports that Loy Henderson, Director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, wrote a memo to the Secretary of State warning:
“…support by the Government of the United States of a policy favoring the setting up of a Jewish State in Palestine would be contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the local inhabitants with respect to their form of government. Furthermore, it would have a strongly adverse effect upon American interests throughout the Near and Middle East…”
Henderson went on to emphasize:
“At the present time the United States has a moral prestige in the Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power. We would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves have enunciated during the period of the war.”
When Zionists began pushing for a partition plan through the UN, Henderson recommended strongly against supporting their proposal. He warned that such a partition would have to be implemented by force and emphasized that it was “not based on any principle.” He went on to write:
“…[partition] would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future…”
Henderson specifically pointed out:
“…[proposals for partition] are in definite contravention to various principles laid down in the [UN] Charter as well as to principles on which American concepts of Government are based. These proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race…”
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Some of the U.S. officials who opposed Zionist plans. BACK: legendary intelligence agent Kermit Roosevelt, U.S. statesman Dean Acheson, State Dept. Mideast Specialist Edwin M. Wright FRONT: diplomat and historian George Kennan, Director of Near Eastern Affairs Loy Henderson, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal flanked by Fleet Admirals King and Nimitz, 1945. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reported in late 1947: “A decision to partition Palestine, if the decision were supported by the United States, would prejudice United States strategic interests in the Near and Middle East.”
Henderson was far from alone in making his recommendations. He wrote that his views were not only those of the entire Near East Division but were shared by “nearly every member of the Foreign Service or of the Department who has worked to any appreciable extent on Near Eastern problems.”
Henderson wasn’t exaggerating. Official after official and agency after agency opposed Zionism.
In 1947 the CIA reported that Zionist leadership was pursuing objectives that would endanger both Jews and “the strategic interests of the Western powers in the Near and Middle East.”

TRUMAN ACCEDES TO PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY, OVER-RULES EXPERTS​

President Harry Truman, however, ignored this advice. Truman’s political advisor, Clark Clifford, believed that the Jewish vote and contributions were essential to winning the upcoming presidential election, and that supporting the partition plan would garner that support. (Truman’s opponent, Dewey, took similar stands for similar reasons.)
Truman’s Secretary of State George Marshall, the renowned World War II General and author of the Marshall Plan, was furious to see electoral considerations taking precedence over policies based on national interest. He condemned what he called a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which would cause “[t]he great dignity of the office of President [to be] seriously diminished.”
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US President Harry Truman with General George Marshall, Secretary of State. Marshall opposed Truman’s support of Zionism, calling it a “transparent dodge to win a few votes,” which would cause “[t]he great dignity of the office of President [to be] seriously diminished.” (photo)Marshall wrote that the counsel offered by Clifford “was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem which confronted us was international. I said bluntly that if the President were to follow Mr. Clifford’s advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President…”

Henry F. Grady, who has been called “America’s top diplomatic soldier for a critical period of the Cold War,” headed a 1946 commission aimed at coming up with a solution for Palestine. Grady later wrote about the Zionist lobby and its damaging effect on US national interests.
Grady argued that without Zionist pressure, the U.S. would not have had “the ill-will with the Arab states, which are of such strategic importance in our ‘cold war’ with the soviets.” He also described the decisive power of the lobby:
“I have had a good deal of experience with lobbies but this group started where those of my experience had ended….. I have headed a number of government missions but in no other have I ever experienced so much disloyalty”…… “in the United States, since there is no political force to counterbalance Zionism, its campaigns are apt to be decisive.”
Former Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson also opposed Zionism. Acheson’s biographer writes that Acheson “worried that the West would pay a high price for Israel.” Another Author, John Mulhall, records Acheson’s warning:
“…to transform [Palestine] into a Jewish State capable of receiving a million or more immigrants would vastly exacerbate the political problem and imperil not only American but all Western interests in the Near East.”
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal also tried, unsuccessfully, to oppose the Zionists. He was outraged that Truman’s Mideast policy was based on what he called “squalid political purposes,” asserting that “United States policy should be based on United States national interests and not on domestic political considerations.”
Forrestal represented the general Pentagon view when he said that “no group in this country should be permitted to influence our policy to the point where it could endanger our national security.”
A report by the National Security Council warned that the Palestine turmoil was acutely endangering the security of the United States. A CIA report stressed the strategic importance of the Middle East and its oil resources.
Similarly, George F. Kennan, the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning, issued a top-secret document on January 19, 1947 that outlined the enormous damage done to the US by the partition plan (“Report by the Policy Planning Staff on Position of the United States with Respect to Palestine”).
Kennan cautioned that “important U.S. oil concessions and air base rights” could be lost through US support for partition and warned that the USSR stood to gain by the partition plan.
Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s nephew and a legendary intelligence agent, was another who was deeply disturbed by events, noting:
“The process by which Zionist Jews have been able to promote American support for the partition of Palestine demonstrates the vital need of a foreign policy based on national rather than partisan interests… Only when the national interests of the United States, in their highest terms, take precedence over all other considerations, can a logical, farseeing foreign policy be evolved. No American political leader has the right to compromise American interests to gain partisan votes…”
He went on:
“The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict. It is to be hoped that American Zionists and non-Zionists alike will come to grips with the realities of the problem.”
The head of the State Department’s Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Gordon P. Merriam, warned against the partition plan on moral grounds:
“U.S. support for partition of Palestine as a solution to that problem can be justified only on the basis of Arab and Jewish consent. Otherwise we should violate the principle of self-determination which has been written into the Atlantic Charter, the declaration of the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter–a principle that is deeply embedded in our foreign policy. Even a United Nations determination in favor of partition would be, in the absence of such consent, a stultification and violation of UN’s own charter.”
Merriam added that without consent, “bloodshed and chaos” would follow, a tragically accurate prediction.
An internal State Department memorandum accurately predicted how Israel would be born through armed aggression masked as defense:
“…the Jews will be the actual aggressors against the Arabs. However, the Jews will claim that they are merely defending the boundaries of a state which were traced by the UN…In the event of such Arab outside aid the Jews will come running to the Security Council with the claim that their state is the object of armed aggression and will use every means to obscure the fact that it is their own armed aggression against the Arabs inside which is the cause of Arab counter-attack.”
And American Vice Consul William J. Porter foresaw another outcome of the partition plan: that no Arab State would actually ever come to be in Palestine.

PRO-ISRAEL PRESSURE ON GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEMBERS​

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Financier Bernard Baruch with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (seated). Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition. He also dissuaded FDR from issuing the “Hoskins plan,” a decree against Zionism that would have stated that public discussions and activities relating to Israel were seriously endangering the war effort and urged the Allies to immediately cease all such actions. FDR had signed the decree before yielding to the public and private pressure led by Baruch to abandon it. (photo)
When it was clear that the Partition recommendation did not have the required two-thirds of the UN General Assembly to pass, Zionists pushed through a delay in the vote. They then used this period to pressure numerous nations into voting for the recommendation. A number of people later described this campaign.
Robert Nathan, a Zionist who had worked for the US government and who was particularly active in the Jewish Agency, wrote afterward, “We used any tools at hand,” such as telling certain delegations that the Zionists would use their influence to block economic aid to any countries that did not vote the right way.
Another Zionist proudly stated:
“Every clue was meticulously checked and pursued. Not the smallest or the remotest of nations, but was contacted and wooed. Nothing was left to chance.”
Financier and longtime presidential advisor Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition. Top White House executive assistant David Niles organized pressure on Liberia; rubber magnate Harvey Firestone pressured Liberia.
Latin American delegates were told that the Pan-American highway construction project would be more likely if they voted yes. Delegates’ wives received mink coats (the wife of the Cuban delegate returned hers); Costa Rica’s President Jose Figueres reportedly received a blank checkbook. Haiti was promised economic aid if it would change its original vote opposing partition.
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Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter pressured the Philippines to support the partition recommendation. The Philippine delegate had originally said he could not believe that the General Assembly would sanction a move that would place the world “back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic documents of theocratic governments.” (photo)
Longtime Zionist Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, along with ten senators and Truman domestic advisor Clark Clifford, threatened the Philippines (seven bills were pending on the Philippines in Congress).
Before the vote on the plan, the Philippine delegate had given a passionate speech against partition, defending the inviolable “primordial rights of a people to determine their political future and to preserve the territorial integrity of their native land…”
He went on to say that he could not believe that the General Assembly would sanction a move that would place the world “back on the road to the dangerous principles of racial exclusiveness and to the archaic documents of theocratic governments.”
Twenty-four hours later, after intense Zionist pressure, the delegate voted in favor of partition.
The U.S. delegation to the U.N. was so outraged when Truman insisted that they support partition that the State Department director of U.N. Affairs was sent to New York to prevent the delegates from resigning en masse.
On Nov 29, 1947 the partition resolution, 181, passed. While this resolution is frequently cited, it was of limited (if any) legal impact. General Assembly resolutions, unlike Security Council resolutions, are not binding on member states. For this reason, the resolution requested that “[t]he Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation,” which the Security Council never did. Legally, the General Assembly Resolution was a “recommendation” and did not create any states.
What it did do, however, was increase the fighting in Palestine. Within months (and before Israel dates the beginning of its founding war) the Zionists had forced out 413,794 people. Zionist military units had stealthily been preparing for war before the UN vote and had acquired massive weaponry, some of it through a widespread network of illicit gunrunning operations in the US under a number of front groups.
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Fighters from Israel’s pre-state militia occupying the village of Deir Yassin after Zionist forces massacred over 100 of the village’s men, women, and children, April 1948. (photo)
The UN eventually managed to create a temporary and very partial ceasefire. A Swedish UN mediator who had previously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis was dispatched to negotiate an end to the violence. Israeli assassins killed him and Israel continued what it was to call its “war of independence.”
At the end of this war, through a larger military force than that of its adversaries and the ruthless implementation of plans to push out as many non-Jews as possible, Israel came into existence on 78 percent of Palestine.
At least 33 massacres of Palestinian civilians were perpetrated, half of them before a single Arab army had entered the conflict, hundreds of villages were depopulated and razed, and a team of cartographers was sent out to give every town, village, river, and hillock a new, Hebrew name. All vestiges of Palestinian habitation, history, and culture were to be erased from history, an effort that almost succeeded.
Israel, which claims to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” decided not to declare official borders or to write a constitution, a situation which continues to this day. In 1967 it took still more Palestinian and Syrian land, which is now illegally occupied territory, since the annexation of land through military conquest is outlawed by modern international law. It has continued this campaign of growth through armed acquisition and illegal confiscation of land ever since.
Individual Israelis, like Palestinians and all people, are legally and morally entitled to an array of human rights.
On the other hand, the state of Israel’s vaunted “right to exist” is based on an alleged “right” derived from might, an outmoded concept that international legal conventions do not recognize, and in fact specifically prohibit.

Originally published in 2011. Order print-outs of this article here.

For citations and additional information see: Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel, by Alison Weir. Weir is founder and executive director of If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. More articles are here and here.
 

Palestinian-Americans demand US government provide equal protection from Israeli violations​

Link: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/07/pale...li-violations/?ml_recipient=61151409291134917

Palestinians with American citizenship are calling for an investigation of discriminatory treatment by the State Department, as well as violations of US laws in service of the Israeli occupation.
BY MARIAM BARGHOUTI JULY 19, 2022

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivers a speech on U.S. foreign policy at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2021. (Photo: State Department Photo by Ron Przysucha)
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY J. BLINKEN DELIVERS A SPEECH ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE IN WASHINGTON, D.C., ON MARCH 3, 2021. (PHOTO: STATE DEPARTMENT PHOTO BY RON PRZYSUCHA)

Just hours before Joe Biden’s arrival at Ben-Gurion airport to ceremonial festivities headed by the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, a group of Palestinian-Americans gathered 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem to assert to the US president that they deserve protection from the US government in the face of ongoing Israeli violations.
Scheduled just ahead of Biden’s anticipated arrival, the offices of the human rights organization Al-Haq in downtown Ramallah were full of press as Palestinian-Americans held a conference under the banner of “equal protection requires equal attention” on Wednesday, July 13 to share the testimonies of Israeli violations against them.
The conference closed with four main demands from Palestinian-Americans:
  • To be afforded the same level of protection and intervention by the U.S Government for violations Israel commits against U.S citizens of Palestinian descent.
  • For the office of the Inspector General to open an investigation into the conduct of the State Department, especially the U.S embassy in Israel and its consular services. This conduct includes the discriminatory treatment of U.S citizens of Palestinian descent, and a consistent failure to adequately respond when confronted with Israeli violations against U.S. citizens, including but not limited to cases of torture, mistreatment, assault, land confiscations, denial of entry, family separation, child abuse, and killings.
  • For the U.S. government to investigate Israel’s potential violations of existing U.S. laws, including the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act, and to end U.S. weapons funding to Israel due to Israel’s consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including gross violations against U.S. citizens.
  • For the U.S Treasury Department to investigate U.S. 501(c)(3) charities that fund Israeli settler organizations that are directly involved in dispossessing Palestinians (including some U.S. citizens) of their land and housing rights.

Equal protection requires equal attention“​

In light of the American duty to protect and safeguard the rights of its citizen across the globe, Palestinian-Americans came together to shed light on the continued neglect by American administrations to secure the rights of dual US-Palestinian citizens as well.
In a press note, Palestinian-Americans–independent of any factional affiliation–noted that “the freedom of some people should not come at the expense and oppression of others. Likewise, the conviction to principles and values should not be diluted crossing from one shore to another.”
Palestinian political analyst and US citizen, Fadi Quran, spoke to Mondoweiss about the campaign, whose “goals are to ensure we put an end to this racist approach, and in so doing, [to] help further Palestinian rights across the board, including protecting property and pursuing accountability.”
The demand for the US government to cease its support of Israeli apartheid and persecution of Palestinians, including US citizens, was also echoed by Knesset members, including Dr. Ofer Cassif of the Joint List.
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TLAIB’S STATEMENT ON BIDEN VISIT
“I would like to express my solidarity and empathy with you and with the Palestinian people as a whole in your just struggle against Israel’s occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing–and for liberation, statehood and just peace,” Dr. Cassif said in a statement he shared ahead of the conference.
American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib also released a statement during the conference in reference to the president’s trip. “Actions speak louder than words, and the President’s decision to push ahead with this ill-conceived trip demonstrates just how much work we as believers in human rights, equity, democratic governance, and peace have left to do to make these issues real priorities for our national leaders,” the statement said.

U.S. collusion against American citizens

In reflecting on US-Israeli relations, Quran highlights the duality of American foreign policy when it comes to Palestinian rights. “When it comes to Israel, decisions are not based on any values or even national interests—decisions are made based on the short-term political interests of the politicians in power, who are lobbied and even bullied by AIPAC,” he said.
The arrival of Biden to the region was not to initiate new efforts, but rather to formalize matters that have been already discussed throughout the year. Biden’s trip may therefore be seen more as a signing ceremony.
Whether you are an American citizen, a Palestinian-American citizen holder, as long as there is Palestinian in the word, there is always going to be discrimination.
Sahar Ibrahim
The trip was paved by a series of US senior diplomats visiting the region to meet with various representatives, including Palestinian and Israeli senior officials.
In April, US Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman met with Israel’s Minister of Regional Cooperation in April of this year in order to deepen cooperation between Israel, Bahrain, UAE, Sudan, and Morocco. While another trip in December of last year, American Assistant Acting Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Yael Lempert, paid a visit to the region and met with Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas. Lempert also met with Israel’s then Foreign Minister (Prime Minister as of the time of writing), Yair Lapid.
Following this, on 11 June–mere weeks after the killing of Al-Jazeera’s veteran Palestinian-American correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank–representatives from the US State Department also met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli representatives.
Dr. Cassif had noted this in his statement, remarking that, “even when it comes to Palestinian U.S citizens, their rights, wellbeing, and even their sheer lives (e.g., the late Shireen Abu Akleh), the U.S governments seem to be giving priority to Israeli whims over democracy, rights and justice.”
Indeed, US discrimination when it comes to protecting its citizens became more visible with the killing of Abu Akleh. US Spokesperson Ned Price said as much in a statement issued by the State Department: “The [US Security Coordinator] found no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.”
Sahar Ibrahim sharing her testimony during the “Equal rights requires equal attention” conference held on July 13, 2022.
SAHAR IBRAHIM SHARING HER TESTIMONY DURING THE “EQUAL RIGHTS REQUIRES EQUAL ATTENTION” CONFERENCE HELD ON JULY 13, 2022.
With the failure of the US government to hold the killers of someone as notable as Shireen Abu Akleh–who was not only a US citizen, but was also killed despite wearing her PRESS jacket–there is concern over the potential corruption of the US in its differential treatment of its citizens.
Sahar Ibrahim, 58, who testified against the violations she faced as an American citizen, told Mondoweiss: “whether you are an American citizen, a Palestinian-American citizen holder, as long as there is Palestinian in the word, there is always going to be discrimination. Meaning nothing will be done about it.”

State Department discrimination​

Reflecting on the Biden trip and its results, researcher and analyst Ubay Aboudi said that “the Biden administration continues its attack on the Palestinian political narrative and our basic rights.”
However, beyond narrative and representation is an economic layer that is important in the US-Israeli relationship. “If you see the White House statement…they are saying economic peace,” Aboudi told Mondoweiss. “The same idea that Netanyahu stated in 1996.”
The concept of economic peace, similar to Trump’s echoes of “economic prosperity,” does not address the issue of American military aid to Israel.
The bullet which killed Abu Akleh, and the army which was found responsible for killing US citizen Omar Assad, 78, were not created in a vacuum. They are sustained and made possible through the continued support of US military aid.
“For ages the U.S has invested considerable financial, military and diplomatic aid in order to ensure Israel’s ‘safety” and ‘security,’” Dr. Cassif stated. Yet, it is the monetary contribution of the US that continues to widen the gap between Palestinians’ capacity for protecting themselves and Israel’s practices of disproportionate use of violence.
In negating not only Palestinian rights, but specifically the protection of US citizens, there is more potential for the violation of US laws in carrying out American foreign relations with Israel.
Fadi Quran goes on to explain: “discriminatory policy means the State Department is likely in violation of US laws in how they respond to Israeli abuses of Palestinian-Americans.”
In a similar address, Dr. Cassif stated that “U.S aid serves Israel in maintaining and strengthening Jewish supremacy, discrimination and oppression of the Palestinians – primarily in the 1967 Occupied Territories, but also within the State of Israel per se.”
I think in any other context…you would be able to sue the government, or…sue the state of Israel for these types of violations.
Ubai Aboudi
For years, Palestinians have been demanding that the US cease its military aid to and support of Israel. Currently more voices join in demanding that American tax dollars are no longer funneled into the development of Israeli military technologies that are used in committing crimes against humanity.
“The Biden government promised a foreign policy that prioritizes human rights, yet they are failing to even protect the human rights of their own citizens when they are of Palestinian background,” Quran explained.
In fact, prior to Biden’s arrival, Black and Palestinian organizers demanded that he cancel his trip to the region, dubbing it a “war-crimes tour” not only in visiting Palestine but also in light of Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemenis.

Rectifying the impact of US policy​

In a sorrowful tone, Sahar Ibrahim thinks about the 1.2 out of 1.8 acres of land she inherited from her father in Ramallah, now taken by the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El: “five dunums [0.5 hectares] are going to go to a road that the settlers are trying to build.”
“As a Palestinian-American I have the right to own land here, and I’m requesting it because they don’t have the right to take it,” Ibrahim emphasized.
Palestinian citizens of the US are now demanding that their representative government take new steps in rectifying the negative impact of US policy. More than this, there is recognition that as citizens, their votes are also pivotal in US elections.
Reflecting on the past practices of US administrations, Ibrahim told Mondoweiss: “As a US citizen….I have the right to vote for anyone I want. I voted for Obama in the hopes of something to be done.” Frustrated in recognizing she had also voted for Biden, she continued to note: “I didn’t see anything being done. As an American citizen holder, I have realized it’s always promises…but there is nothing done about it.”
“I think in any other context, other than the US, you would be able to sue the government or take actions, or maybe sue the state of Israel for these types of violations,” Aboudi explained.
He clarifies that this is not about giving Palestinians preferential treatment–“it is upholding the law and trying to hold Israel to account using a second nationality to Palestinians.”
 
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