By Ranjan Solomon
18 March 2022
Israel’s expulsion mode, denial of family reunification, Gaza’s growing chaos, and dual standards on BDS on Israel and Ukraine.
Israel persists in its expulsion mode of political oppression. It has been happening year after year beginning 1948. Mass expulsions by the regime against Palestinians have always had catastrophic penalties. In the political lectionary of Israel, ethnic cleansing is routine and carried out without the blink of an eyelid. The international community has, after all, seemingly licensed it by turning a deaf ear and blind eye. The resultant ordeal should have qualified as war crimes some decades ago and a couple of bigwigs thrown into jail for long sentences. Soon the High Court will legitimize the dispossession in eight villages and of 1,300 people. Anything in the corridor to removal will be bulldozed, regardless of whether they are homes, or schools, or wells, or anything of utility to Palestinian survival. Palestinians painfully watch as this happens but are unable to cut short the designs of the occupier for most part.
Alongside this, the enormous uncertainty of family reunification in the face of impending legislation is creating one more painful wound the effects of which will leave scars on families. These moves proceed, despite, the UN Secretary General’s request to “further facilitate family reunification of all citizens and permanent residents of Israel.”
Ironically, Gaza continues to bleed in many new ways despite the attention that the world has been urged to take note of. More hunger, poverty, and now, the growing phenomena of individual indebtedness of people who borrow and can barely pay back. As a report from Electronic Intifada outs it: “Under a 2005 law, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza may be imprisoned for up to 91 days per year if they do not repay debts.”
A report on the Palestinian condition these days cannot conclude without juxtaposing the plight of Palestinians and the war in Ukraine. Swift to push BDS on Russia, Palestinian advocacy for retailers to stop selling Israeli goods has been met with unlawful prosecution. Such are two faces of global solidarity. The whole situation in terms of how different nationalities are treated by Ukrainian authorities has shown up racist differentiations and double standards in the West.
Ranjan Solomon
Source: palestineupdates.com