It was both heartening and disappointing to read the latest statement from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Heartening because it focused on the &ldquoescalations of violations by Israel the occupying power and its attempts to prejudice Al-Aqsa’s legal and historical status&rdquo. Israeli incursions at the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa are not only about imposing the apartheid state’s debatable sovereignty over the mosque they are also about setting the scene for the destruction of Al-Aqsa as it stands today &mdash the Qibli Mosque the Dome of the Rock Mosque and all of the other Islamic buildings and facilities &mdash and replace it with a &ldquotemple&rdquo. It is the focus of the Zionists preparing the way for the False Messiah known in Arabic as Al-Masih Al-Dajjal. We should all be very concerned about this.
The OIC statement was disappointing because it reiterated the organization’s support for the moribund &ldquotwo-state solution&rdquo by calling on the &ldquointernational community&rdquo to enable the &ldquoestablishment of [the Palestinians&rsquo] independent state on the borders of 4 June 1967&hellip&rdquo This might be considered to be the Muslim world merely being pragmatic and accepting the fait accompli of the Zionist state of Israel founded in occupied Palestine in 1948. However it ignores the fact that the &ldquopeace process&rdquo kicked off by the now infamous Oslo Accords in the early 1990s from which the &ldquotwo-state solution&rdquo stems led to Palestinians making every single concession to the occupation state. Israel never makes concessions and it is supported in this by the same &ldquointernational community&rdquo which the OIC and other appeasers call upon to bring about justice for the people of occupied Palestine.
It must be unique in modern history for the victims of aggression ethnic cleansing and occupation to have to negotiate with the aggressors ethnic cleansers and occupiers to get a modicum of justice to be grateful to get some crumbs off the occupation table. Palestinians are told to negotiate with the people stealing their land and killing their families and neighbors even though the odds are stacked against them and have been since day one of the occupation which started in 1948 not 1967. It was completed in the June 1967 war that was the endgame and yet again it was a war which was started by the aggressive settler-colonial state of Israel.
Support for Israel flies in the face of international law which forbids the acquisition of territory by force of arms. It also prohibits annexation of territory taken by force and yet who describes the city of Jerusalem as occupied territory? The OIC for example limits its mention to &ldquoEast Jerusalem&rdquo which was occupied by Israel in 1967 and not the whole city which the 1947 UN Partition Plan &mdash over which the Palestinians had no say and from which Israel claims legitimacy &mdash dictated should be an international zone and not part of either the proposed &ldquoJewish&rdquo or &ldquoArab&rdquo states.
The OIC also mentions the &ldquoborders of 4 June 1967&rdquo &mdash the day before Israel attacked and destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground and started the Six Day War &mdash but there was never an internationally-recognized &ldquoborder&rdquo in place at that time. The de facto border was the so-called &ldquoGreen Line&rdquo the 1949 Armistice Line separating the nascent occupation state from what was left of the Palestinian West Bank. The latter was administered &mdash a euphemism for occupied let’s be honest &mdash by Jordan while Egypt ran the Gaza Strip until the 1967 war. The notion that there was some sort of official border is therefore entirely false and is intended to deceive. Indeed Israel remains the only UN member state never to have declared where its borders are. And it has never fulfilled the requirements of its UN membership notably to allow the Palestinian refugees to exercise their legitimate right to return to their land.
The elephant in the room of such &ldquocalls to the international community&rdquo made by the OIC and repeatedly the Palestinian Authority is that support for the &ldquotwo-state solution&rdquo to the &ldquoconflict&rdquo between Israel and the Palestinians basically condones the ethnic cleansing of 750000 people in occupied Palestine before and after the &ldquodeclaration of independence&rdquo of the Zionist state of Israel. The state was founded on the &ldquoJewish terrorism&rdquo of the Irgun Stern Gang Palmach and Haganah terror organizations responsible for attacks on Palestinians and the British Mandate occupation authorities in the run up to 1948 including the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which killed 91 people and the massacre at Deir Yassin in which at least 107 Palestinians including women and unborn babies were slaughtered.
These terror gangs went on to form the nucleus of the &ldquoIsrael Defense Forces&rdquo. The IDF has carried on with this terrorist legacy for more than 75 years: the 1953 Qibya massacre is but one example when Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon’s command killed at least 69 Palestinians two-thirds of them women and children. Today the IDF stands by and watches while illegal Jewish settlers attack and kill Palestinians in the occupied West Bank just as it facilitated then stood by and watched as a fascist militia slaughtered up to 3500 Palestinian men women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon over three days in September 1982. All of this makes a mockery of the claim to &ldquoPurity of Arms&rdquo as the &ldquomost moral&rdquo army in the world yet another of the many Zionist myths about the rogue state of Israel.
It’s time for the international community to either admit that it supports Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity &mdash and that international law is meaningless &mdash or grasp the Zionist nettle and enforce the law to end the impunity with which the apartheid state has been allowed to operate for decades. Until that happens &mdash and I am not holding my breath &mdash the OIC and other such statements are a total waste of time.
– Ibrahim Hewitt is MEMO’s senior editor.
