LETTER: Israeli arms trade is pertinent given war in Ukraine

Your recurring propagandist, Allan Wolman, evidently needs some education (“It’s time for some facts and figures,” March 7). The 1917 Balfour Declaration, which according to Zionists purportedly legitimises the state of Israel but also Israeli apartheid atrocities towards Palestinians, specified:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine [note Palestine] of a national home for the Jewish people… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” [again note Palestine].

Even Golda Meir described herself as a Palestinian and carried a Palestinian passport — until she subsequently decided “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people”.

As a Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme for Palestine & Israel peace monitor, I happen to have been in Sheik Jarrah in East Jerusalem on the very day in October 2009, and witnessed the outrageous behaviour of Israeli thugs, led by Israeli police, who invaded the Al Kurd's home and took over the front portion.

I was actually standing on a garden chair in the neighbour’s garden and watching over the garden wall. Like the other 27 properties in Sheik Jarrah, the Al Kurd's property was allocated by the UN to them and other Palestinian families until such time as they could return home to their properties in Jaffa, Haifa and other Palestinian towns.

On December 11 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 194 and its provisions included: “...refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property”.

When joining the UN, Israel committed itself to implementation of resolution 194. Instead, like virtually every other Israeli government obligation under international law, Israel still denies the Palestinians the right of return to their homes and country, whereas Jews from around the world are given immediate Israeli citizenship, despite having no genetic or DNA connection to Palestine.

As Mr Al Kurd told me, he and his family would be happy to leave Sheik Jarrah if only they could return to their old home in Jaffa. Except, of course, “right of return” does not apply for Palestinians.

I was last in Israel/Palestine in 2017, having been invited by the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, whose Hamushim project with Israeli human rights lawyers exposes Israeli arms trade atrocities around the world. Pertinent today given the war in Ukraine, Haaretz newspaper in July 2018 reported: “Israel has armed anti-Semitic regimes such as the generals’ regime in Argentina, which murdered thousands of Jews in camps while its soldiers stood in watchtowers guarding the abducted prisoners with their Uzi submachine guns.

“In the case of Ukraine, forces using Israeli weapons are openly stating their support for racist and anti-Semitic ideas. The Azov militia was established in Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the Crimean peninsula in 2014. The militia’s emblems are well-known national socialist ones. Its members use the Nazi salute and carry swastikas and SS insignia.”

South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Kenya, Ethiopia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are only a partial list of countries in Africa where Israelis also serve as proxies on behalf of the US and its Pax-Americana destabilisation strategies.

Terry Crawford-Browne
World Beyond War – South Africa

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