Not surprisingly, Israel has surfaced as one of the only countries int he world not to help the millions of refugees that are fleeing from the terrorism of the Islamic State and Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad. And, Israel is building a wall to block them from entering their occupied nation, but not along the Syrian border. The new Apartheid Wall will be along the border with one of two stupid Arab countries that signed worthless peace agreements with Israel, Jordan
By Ray Hanania
covering Chicago
City Hall
(1976-1992)
As the refugees started pouring out of Syria to escape the conflict and violence there, only Israel declared it would not provide shelter to those in need.
Instead, Israel announced it would build a wall, something it has done in the past to strengthen the presence of its Jewish citizens while undermining the position of non-Jews under its military control.
Israel’s rightwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a known extremist who has been accused of committing war crimes similar to what many of the Syrian refugees are fleeing.
No one was surprised Netanyahu and Israel’s extremist government would also exploit the opportunity to build another concrete wall, similar to the Apartheid Wall that is now used to reinforce its claim on more occupied West Bank land.
The new Israeli Wall won’t be built along the Syrian border, where Israel captured and still occupies land in the Golan Heights that has been expunged of its non-Jewish residents. The new Wall will be built along the border with Jordan, one of two Arab nation’s that stupidly signed peace agreements with Israel.
Israel’s absolute shamelessness in exploiting this crisis to strengthen its own selfish and colonialists policies is unparalleled. But Netanyahu is good at making the defenseless look like criminals and terrorists, a strategy that permits his military a brutal impunity in attacking and killing scores of Arab targets at one time.
Syrian refugees are not terrorists. International aid groups describe the refugees as almost 90 percent are women, old people and children. In fact, according to Mercy Corp, more than 50 percent of the refugees are children.
There are moderate voices in Israel, drowned out by the crescendo of growing extremism. But those voices are faint, overshadowed by Netanyahu’s piercing inhumanity.
Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition and the morality that is lacking in Netanyahu’s government, has called for Israel to shelter some of the refugees.
“Jews cannot be apathetic when hundreds of thousands of refugees are searching for a safe haven,” Herzog told the Israeli media this week.
But they are. The government that the majority of Israelis elected government is apathetic, reflecting the mindset of the majority of Jews in Israel who have not only turned their back to the needs and rights of non-Jews (Christians and Muslims) in their own country but have buried their heads in the sand as Israel’s military brutality assaults the civilian population in the occupied territories which include the Gaza Strip (which is surrounded and controlled by Israel), Jerusalem, and the West Bank.
Netanyahu would not be able to be so cold were it not for the coldness of the majority of Israelis who have put the annexation of land in the occupied lands and shameful discriminatory policies against non-Jews above the opportunity to achieve a regional peace through the establishment of a Palestine State.
Israel’s lack of humanity is reflected once again in a shining light of reality that the entire world can see, despite Israel’s ability to manage its image in places like the United States where the mainstream media is under the control and bullying of its activist lobbies and where the U.S. Congress is in a policy headlock that puts Israel’s interests before the interests of the American people.
Israel’s powerful lobby has convinced the vast majority of the members of the U.S. Congress that rejecting peace and brutalizing civilians in the Gaza Strip, where 500 children were killed during last year’s Israel invasion there, and the constant assaults into the West Bank, is the better option to peace.
Israel’s destabilization policies in Palestine and its rejection of peace is not the cause of the regional crisis, but a major contributing factor that the Islamic extremists use to recruit their followers. The forces of the Islamic State continue to grow like a disease spreading through the Islamic World.
Maybe Israel doesn’t realize that it has the choice to be a part of the moderate Middle East or that it could one day be surrounded totally by religious fanaticism that it helped feed. Israel’s hatred of peace is blinding.
There are more than 8 million refugees that have been displaced over the past four years by the violence between the Islamic State, the brutal regime of Syria’s dictator, President Bashar al Assad, and the weak rebels who claim to be fighting for Democracy.
Several Arab countries have stepped up to provide relief and shelter to the refugees. There are, according to Mercy Corp, one of the largest organizations providing assistance to the impoverished and brutalized civilian refugees, 630,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan in two camps, Za’atari, which opened in 2012, and in Azraq which opened last year.
There are 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, 1.2 million in Lebanon, 250,000 in war-torn Iraq, and 135,000 in Egypt.
Hundreds of thousands more are making their way north into Europe, where the European Union is formulating plans to help them. Many nations are seeking to help the refugees. But, not surprisingly, not Israel.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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