Israel’s Terror Rampage

By Dr. Elias Akleh

If anybody is still having any doubt that Israel (government and citizens) is a terrorist state par excellence then the latest events during the last two months alone in occupied Palestine should convince him of this fact. For the last two year the Israeli government has been tightening its deadly siege against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army had violated the latest seize-fire agreement with its military raids into and bombardment of the Strip. The latest closure of Gaza, the tightest ever, is starving its 1.5 million Palestinians, depriving them of drinking water, and necessary fuel to keep their daily operations going. The Israeli government is conducting a meditative mass murder operation against Gaza residents while the whole world is silently and complicity watching and the American media is distorting the facts. (Watch the facts in Gaza).

Similar to their government, and adopting its ethnic cleansing policies, Israeli citizens, especially the extreme fundamentalist religious Jews, have been, since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, attacking the Palestinian indigenous landowners, forcefully and collectively occupying Palestinian homes and evicting the owners out, murdering whole family members, burning their fields, poisoning their water wells, shooting their farm animals, totally razing whole Palestinian towns, and building their own colonies on top of their ruins. Encouraged by the American unconditional support and by the UN silence, armed and financed by the fundamentalist extreme religious Shas and Yisrael Beitenu Parliamentary Parties, and brainwashed by extremist Yishuv Rabbis, the Israeli settlers (terrorists) had escalated their terror attacks against Palestinians throughout whole Palestine; in the 1948 occupied Palestine and in the West Bank.

Last October extremist religious Jewish residents of the Palestinian city of Akka (Acre), who were forcefully implanted in the old town in the middle of Palestinian residents and in the suburbs around the city, had perpetrated a wave of attack against their Palestinian neighbors, fired at them with automatic weapons, and set fire to some Palestinian homes. All this was happening under the sight and protection of Israeli police and soldiers, who arrested any Palestinian trying to protect his home. Watch their terror in Akka here.

The most dangerous Israeli terrorists are those religious extremist colonizers (settlers) in and around the West Bank Palestinian city of AL-Khalil (Hebron). Some well-armed 500 – 600 extremists and Yeshiva (religious school) students had forcefully occupied a couple of buildings in the heart of Hebron city where about 200,000 Palestinians live. These terrorists are protected by thousands of heavily armed Israeli soldiers 24 hours a day. To guarantee their freedom of movement large parts of the town are made off-limit to Palestinians. Many other religiously fanatic Israeli terrorist had confiscated large areas of farm land around the city and built their own colony called Kiryat Arba.

The majority of the Israeli colonizers in the Occupied West Bank are followers of the teachings of the religiously extremist Rabbi Abraham Kook, considered the first Rabbi of Israel. He teaches that the Jews should hasten the coming of their awaited for Messiah through acts violence and bloodshed, permissible and encouraged by the Torah, to cleanse the “Promised Land” from all Goyims (non-Jews, Palestinians), destroy their homes of worship (AL-Aqsa Muslim Mosque), and to build the third temple for the Messiah to live in.

These teachings are allegedly based on the Talmud and are taught at the Mirkaz Harav; a Judaic religious college in Jerusalem. According to these teachings the Palestinians have three choices: life long total obedient slavery to Israel, complete transfer out of the country, “lest they remain a thorn in your side”, or the Old Testament-style total annihilation. Similar versions of these fanatic teachings are taught to Israeli youth in their elementary and high schools. Throughout the history of Israel, since the birth of Zionism, Israelis had adopted and followed these teachings.

Israeli colonizers in and around Hebron follow these teachings religiously. They sanctify their Sabbaths through violent attacks against Palestinian residents. Every Friday night and Saturday, these terrorist colonizers, accompanied with their children, fully armed and under the protection of the Israeli soldiers, descend on Palestinian neighborhoods, smash their cars, break their windows and throw Molotov bombs in their houses, break into shops and set them ablaze, shoot at every Palestinian they may encounter, vandalize homes, schools and institutions, steal properties, draw racial and hatred graffiti on walls and doors of homes, churches, and mosques,, vandalize Palestinian cemeteries and draw star of David on graves, and provoke Palestinians with hate slogans such as “Death to Arabs”, and “Mohammad is a pig”.

When Jewish cemeteries and temples are vandalized with graffiti, Jew around the world and the Western World cry anti-Semitism, yet when Israeli Jews draw hate graffiti on Palestinian mosques, churches, and cemeteries no body cry anti-Palestinian, anti-Christian, or anti-Muslim.

Such silence and complicity had encouraged the Israeli terrorist to keep attacking Palestinians. In 1994 the Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein, encouraged by such silence, did not hesitate to sneak behind Muslim worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and empty his machine gun in the back of Muslim prayers while kneeling in prayer. Last week hundreds of fanatic Yishuv (religious school) students were called on to occupy a Palestinian home in Hebron to stop the police from evicting some armed Israeli settlers, who forcefully occupied the home claiming its purchase. The Israeli High Court found the deeds a forgery and ordered the house evacuated. In response hundreds of Israeli terrorists descended onto several Palestinian cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, smashing cars and beating Palestinians. In Hebron, itself, Jewish terrorists attacked Palestinian residents, set their homes on fire, and injured many of them. Few days ago some of these armed settlers attacked Palestinian homes and shot some of them point blank. The shooter was released for only one night and was released next morning. To see the shooting incident and many other settlers’ terrorist attacks click here.

Another similar confrontation between Palestinians and extremist settlers seems to be imminent in the Palestinian city of Umm al-Fahm, home to about 45,000 Palestinians. The Jewish National Front, a far-right group closely associated with the Hebron settlers, has acquired a Supreme Court permission to march through the city. The group’s leader Baruch Marzel stated “We will march through Umm al-Fahm with flags to send everyone a message that the Land of Israel belongs to us”. Many of the marchers will carry their guns issued to them as settlers. Such provocation, scheduled for this Monday December 15th, will spark violent confrontation.

Driven by a crazy warmongering prejudiced god, who elevates one group of people over the rest of his creation, and who orders his chosen people to perpetrate a bloody genocidal cleansing of his promised land in order to build him a mundane house to live in, Israeli politicians are ready to do anything in order to accomplish their deluded dream of a pure Jewish Greater Israel, from Nile to Euphrates, without any Christian or Muslim Goyims.

The behaviors of these many Jewish fanatic groups are considered by any official laws and standards of any country in the world as terrorism. For the last sixty years the Palestinians have been faced with organized Jewish terror supported by major political and religious parties in the Israeli parliament. This is a state sponsored terror. It is a government policy that every Israeli leader supports and calls for. Their real intentions and policies become so transparent and apparent during election time, when all of them call for the expulsion of Palestinians. Just listen to what the Israeli Foreign Minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, addressing a high school students in Tel Aviv and promising that she would “encourage” those they call Israeli Arabs to move out of Israel to the state of Palestine once it is established.

Israel is a terrorist state. Many people recognize it as such. This is apparent in the international solidarity the Palestinians are receiving from all over the world. The international political bodies have yet to acknowledge this fact, and if they don’t one wonder what kind of ethics and morality that drives their sense of justice and freedom they claim they are fighting for.

Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.