The Sunday Mail
Tawanda Musarurwa
Israel’s continued aggression towards Palestine is underpinned by colonial interests and is similar to apartheid regimes of the past, Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Zimbabwe Dr Tamer Almassri has said.
In recent weeks, reports say Israel has intensified its offensive against Palestine, with increased air strikes in northern and central Gaza resulting in the loss of communications and internet connectivity across the Gaza Strip.
Dr Almassri said the ongoing conflict goes back to the establishment of the Jewish state, and its expansionist policy that has always been backed by colonial powers.
“Israel is an apartheid state. When they came to our area after escaping from the oppression in Europe, we received them as guests.
“Later on they made a coalition with the British occupation in Palestine after 1917, and they tried to expand, to build their settlements and bring more immigrants who had escaped from discrimination in the West,” he told The Sunday Mail.
“And we received them. When the holocaust happened in Europe, the same colonial power tried to reward the Jews, but from our pocket by sending them to Palestine.
“So, the Zionism project is built on an idea that Palestine is ‘free land’ with no people.”
In recent days, the West, led by the United States has called for the implementation of the two-state solution – which pictures an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, west of the Jordan River – as a means to resolve the conflict.
But Dr Almassri said the two-state solution has already been shown to be unworkable, given the disposition of Israel.
“When we accepted the two-state solution, we accepted that deal to ensure stability.
“But Israel later assassinated the Israeli Prime Minister in 1995 because he signed to make peace with Yasser Arafat, and after nine years they killed Yasser Arafat also.
“They (Israel) do not believe in peace and they want to expand the settlements in West Bank, and now they want to displace the Palestinians from Gaza Strip.”
In 1993, then US president Bill Clinton brought together Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to discuss the agreement, which became known as the Olso Accords.
The Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Zimbabwe said the state of play in the Gaza Strip is strikingly similar to the apartheid regime that existed in South Africa and South West Africa between 1948 and the early 1990s.
He said:
“The mentality of colonialism is built on expanding and stealing the land. And we have seen this before in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa; the mentality of apartheid – just put the original people in a small area and take all the land.
“Unfortunately some colonial powers are trying to protect the last apartheid regime in the world by supporting the Israeli regime. “And they even classify the freedom fighters in Palestine today as terrorists, because they did the same in South Africa and in Zimbabwe. It’s a mentality, its copy and paste.”
Dr Almassri said Israel is a military base for colonialism in the Middle East.
“Because the reaction that we notice nowadays from some countries who have very bad history in colonialism and occupation, show us that the Israeli regime was born as a military base for colonialism,” he said.
Even as the United Nations General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution that calls for a humanitarian truce in Gaza, the United States voted against the resolution.
International non-governmental organisation, Amnesty International has said Israel’s oppression of Palestine is indeed an apartheid system.
“Amnesty International’s new investigation shows that Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis.
“This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law,” said Amnesty International.
“Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.”
Dr Almassri said the international media has framed the conflict incorrectly, albeit dishonestly.
“Actually what is happening in Gaza, to describe it correctly, is a genocide. And we should be aware about the definitions that the Israeli and the American propaganda use; it is not a war between Israel and Hamas. Hamas is a part of the Palestinian people. It’s an Israeli war against all the Palestinians.
“As at this moment, over 7 150 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of them are women and children. Yesterday (Thursday), there were 67, and we update the numbers minute by minute; about 3 000 are victims are children under 16 years.
“And over 2 500 victims are women, most of them mothers and some of them pregnant. We have now about 20 000 Palestinians injured; 1,4 million Palestinian people displaced from their homes. No place is safe in the Gaza Strip.
“They destroyed almost 250 000 Palestinian homes and flats. We have 35 hospitals and seven of them are out of service. Israel has attacked 12 of them. They cut electricity, fuel, water, internet, food. We don’t have anything and even anything coming from Egypt to Palestine they will attack it.”
He said Israel is using forbidden weapons, such as white phosphorus bombs.
Dr Almassri said the immorality of the Israeli aggressors is also shown by how they have killed journalists and UN employees, as well as attacked hospitals and schools.
He added:
“The Palestinian people are suffering a genocide. I don’t know when the international community will move. How many Palestinian children should be slaughtered by Israeli apartheid occupation to force the international community to take action?
“If you want to compare their reaction to what is happening in Ukraine, you will discover immediately how much they have hypocrisy.”
He said the same countries that claim to be the embodiment of the principles of democracy and human rights are encouraging the occupation and providing Israel with weapons.
Dr Almassri said Palestine appreciates the solidarity of progressive countries and groups, even within Western countries.
He thanked Zimbabwe for its support:
“We want to thank the leadership of Zimbabwe, represented by His Excellency Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa, Cabinet and freedom fighters in ZANU PF. We thank all of them for the great support that they have shown against the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip.
“Zimbabwe’s solidarity has reached all the Palestinian people.”
