By: Ousainou Mbenga
Is the pogrom unleashed by Israel on Gaza inherent or learned behavior? A contextual brief history of the creation of this belligerent and bellicose monster, Israel that its imperialist creators can’t even control is of significant importance. How else can Israel’s comportment be characterized but belligerent and bellicose with its “scorched earth policy” of destruction against non-combatant Palestinians in their futile search of Hamas? Israel has defied the “Geneva convention”, United Nations and told the U.S.; “screw you”!
The fact of the matter is that Israel has been out of control since its inception by violently displacing the indigenous Palestinians and banishing many of them in the neighboring countries of Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. And those that remained are confined primarily in the Gaza strip and West Bank. Israel has waged wars against all its neighboring countries in the hunt and pursuit of Palestinian freedom fighters. Invoking the “ holocaust victims”, Israel skillfully hides behind the “Never Again” slogan, constantly utilized to justify its military aggression and mudsling all critics as “anti – Semitic.
ZIONISM COLLABORATES WITH APARTHEID
The creation of the state of Israel should be of interest to Africans, in that, at the onset of the crumbling of the British Empire, following the second imperialist war (World War II) and the emergence of the newly “anointed” imperialist victor United States of America; Uganda, a portion of the British East Africa landscape was a proposed offer as the “Jewish” homeland. We can only wonder and speculate how the “Uganda scheme” of the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain and the “Balfour Declaration” of Arthur James Balfour, the then British Foreign Secretary who supported the Zionists would have played out in history as yet another “settler colonial state” in Africa. But to the victims of the “Nazi holocaust”, Uganda was not a holy site enough for the reparations they demanded and deserved. Palestine was the most appropriate piece of land, the holiest of all the lands the “guilt – ridden” Europe and the United States of America promised Hitler’s victims. Thus began the displacement of Palestinians and the entrenchment of Israeli Apartheid.
The unprecedented support of the Palestinian struggle for liberation by Africans, particularly from South Africa is not by happenstance. It stems from the memory of the remarkable collaboration between the state of Israel and the Apartheid regime. Chaim Weizman, Israel’s first president and General Jan Christian Smut who also held multiple cabinet portfolios in the Union of South Africa settler colony supported each other’s state laws to suppress the displaced indigenous populations of South Africa and Israel respectively. This relationship runs deep in the veins of Israel and apartheid that the Zionists established a “kibbutz” – “Jan Heights”
in honor of Smut.
Israel and Apartheid South Africa, the two strategic bastions of European imperialism collaborated to such an extent of obtaining nuclear weapons, as quietly as it has been kept. And while the U.S and its allies campaign against nuclear proliferation, especially in non-European countries that are under constant threats to “denuclearize” or suffer consequences of sanctions, the two Apartheid regimes, Israel and South Africa were exempt. Subsequent to the “arms negotiation”, as opposed to an arms struggle against Apartheid and the ascension of the African National Congress (ANC) onto the “saddles of power”, it is said that comrade Fidel Castro during his visit to South Africa asked Nelson Mandela “where are the nuclear weapons that the Apartheid regime attained”?. There has never been a satisfactory answer about those nuclear weapons to date. In order to keep the “class peace”, the ANC government will go to any length to preserve the meaningless peace to stay in power while the miserable conditions of Africans continue to get worse. The recent submission of the charge of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by South Africa – ANC government is an example of the deep seated painful memory against Apartheid in South Africa. If this act of “bravery” against the untouchable Israel was not inspired by “petit bourgeois radicalism” for domestic popularity to win the upcoming elections, the ANC government must submit a more appropriate charge for genocide in the Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Sahel and Haiti. We, Africans were the first to “Charge Genocide! The ANC should act on its threat to submit this charge of genocide against Israel to the U.N, the bully pulpit of U.S imperialism and finally to the ICJ. This might set a precedent to force our demand for reparation on the agenda.
This intrusion into the ICJ by Africans to bring colonialists on trial is just another tactic in the overall African revolution but it must not be left to African governments alone. The masses of the people must become more meddlesome in the affairs of the state. In a recently conference in Germany, the Chancellor, Olaf Scholz was truculent in his unconditional support for Israel but oblivious as his predecessors about the genocide the off springs of Nazi Germany committed in Namibia against the Herero and Namaqua Africans between 1904 and 1908. Namibia must be willing to put reparations on the agenda
The white settler colonies in Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa share one commonality with the “ white European Jewish” state of Israel, which is to cleanse the territories of the indigenous inhabitants and claim ownership through rape, plunder and pillage.
As barbaric as the white settler state of Israel has been since its inception in 1948, they know how to fight for reparations as an entitlement and they’ve been getting it to date.
As for us Africans, we are yet to coined the word to describe what has happened to us from the barbaric attacks of the Arabs, Europe and America. Even though we use “Genocide and Holocaust” to describe our misery, none of these equate to what happened to Africans – the “destruction of Black African civilization”. In fact, the word genocide came into the vocabulary in 1944 around the period of the second world war (WWII).
Therefore, our demand for reparations sends jolts up the spines of Europe and America. The dismissive response to our claim for reparations is that slavery happened a long time ago, let’s get over it and move forward. Even your favorite US president, Barack Obama opposes reparation to African people who built America and the world economy. But what do you expect if African presidents, the likes of Abdoulie Wade, former president of Senegal oppose reparations. In contrast, anyone who dares to oppose the reparations (militarily, economically and politically) that Israel gets from the imperialists will be banished to the gulags of “anti – Semitism”.
AMERICA LIKES THUGS!
The guilt – ridden Europeans, especially Germans, Americans and those afraid of being called anti – Semitic, make the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas the focal point of the 75 years occupation of Palestinian land. Anything prior to this recent attack by Hamas is dead history. The United States of America, “the greatest purveyor of violence” has always admired thugs, the likes of Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, Augusto Pinochet of Chile and countless others. By far Israel, is the greatest monster America and its lapdog Europeans allies ever created and cannot control it any longer from this bellicose behavior in this region called the “middle east”.
The Biden administration, like the ones that preceded him, celebrated the terror Israel unleashes in the “middle east” by sending more arms and ammunition. This bombardment will not stop until Hamas “says uncle”, like Ronald Reagan used to put it to anyone that challenged U.S hegemony. The U.S ruling class will defend Israel to the point of taking over the war to provoke Iran into a war Biden thinks he can win since he lost the war in Ukraine. The vast majority of credible historians have agreed that Roosevelt’s “New Deal” following the second imperialist war rescued capitalism and anointed the U.S as a superpower. For Biden, he said he is quietly working on Israel to ease up on the senseless destruction. He is planning for his “New deal” to rebuild what Israel has destroyed in Gaza if he survives the election.
Finally, who will sanction Israel when the U.S and its European allies that created the United Nations which serves as the “veto bully pulpit” against powerless nations. In its 79 years of existence, the United Nation vetoed all resolutions that are critical of Israel’s bellicose behavior towards Palestinians and all its neighboring countries. Therefore, the U.N is the least likely institution to guarantee Palestinian freedom as long as the imperialists dictate the narrative at the security council. By now, the U.N would have dispatched its “peace keeping force” had this savage bombardment been happening in other oppressed countries. As expected, both Israel and its creators dismissed the charges of genocide and consider the ICJ unqualified to pass judgement on the “chosen people”. Following the footsteps of his predecessors, Benjamin Netanyahu dug Israel into a hole that it can never survive this catastrophe. As it was with Apartheid South Africa, so will it be with Apartheid Israel. The Israeli settler colony is no longer tenable and has no credibility left to the rest of humanity. No amount of bombings will save Netanyahu and his gang of thugs even with the escalation of violence in the West Bank.
FREE PALESTINE AND PUT THE ISRAELI STATE ON TRIAL
