While cities around the world host daily demonstrations expressing support for the Palestinian people and condemning the brutal actions of the Israeli regime in Gaza, there are occasional, less prominent gatherings in support of Israel as well. One such event unfolded outside the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, on November 15, 2023. This event occurred nearly 40 days after the start of the Zionist army's relentless attack on Gaza, resulting in the tragic killing of 12,000 people from continuous bombings.
During this demonstration, one of the speakers, while expressing deep sorrow at the "hostage-taking" and "warmongering" of Palestinian resistance group Hamas, called for the necessity to stop the bombings of Gaza's children. In response to him, a chant gradually emerged from the crowd: “No ceasefire!” “No ceasefire!”
The speaker continued his remarks nervously, but it did not seem that anyone among the demonstrators harboured ill feelings toward this chant. How is it possible that, after almost forty days of relentless slaughter with more than 5,000 children killed in the besieged Gaza, some still oppose the cessation of bombings in that city? (Today, December 19, 2023, the number of martyrs in Gaza has surpassed 18000, including about 10000 children)
Systematic ruthlessness
While the chant heard at the November 15 demonstration may seem unusual to most people globally, those who have heard the phrase “mowing the lawn” from the Zionist regime authorities for years, describing the imposed killings in Gaza, find it unsurprising. Zionists and their supporters in the United States and the occupied territories exhibit a similar approach toward the Palestinians. This “No ceasefire” approach in Washington D.C. is manifested in the laws and regulations of the Zionist regime — a systematic and ruthless approach.
With the approval of “the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law” in the early 2000s, Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank practically lost the right to travel with spouses who did not possess the occupying regime’s citizenship. The clear goal of this law was to prevent the entry of new Arab citizens into the occupied territories.
In 2011, the Knesset passed a new law allowing residents in the Negev and Galilee settlements to expel Palestinians from small towns with a Jewish majority on the pretext of being "not suitable for the social life of the community."
One of the latest of these laws was approved in 2022, titled "Jewish Nation-State Basic Law," wherein the government is obligated to provide welfare to Jewish members and citizens while considering Arab descendants as second-class citizens.
Where does this “ruthlessness” come from?
The laws reflect the desires of the inhabitants of the settlements within the Zionist regime. The root of this ruthlessness can be observed in the rhetoric and legislation of the Zionists, emanating from the deep-seated racism within this regime and its structural framework.
A 2022 poll indicated that the majority of Israeli Jews favor segregation from Arabs. In the same year, more than 400 racist incidents were recorded in the judicial system of the Israeli regime, with 32% of them targeting Arab descendants. This is noteworthy, considering that Arabs make up only 21% of the population of the occupied territories.
Another poll published by Israeli Channel 12 revealed that 83% of "Palestinians with Israeli citizenship" believe that the state practices “institutional racism” against the Arab community. Two-thirds say that they have faced discrimination within Israeli institutions.
68,000 Palestinians in 35 villages under the rule of the Zionist regime have been deprived of services such as water supply, electricity, healthcare, and education due to being “unrecognized” by the occupying regime. This discrimination is so severe that, following the Covid-19 pandemic, just 1.7% of the recovery packages were given to Palestinian local authorities.
Racism in service of plundering
Racism toward non-Jewish people has actively served the interests of the Zionist regime over the past seven decades. In 1948, on the day of the “Nakba,” Zionists expelled over 750,000 Palestinian Arabs from their neighbourhoods and homes, taking over their lands and residences. This aligns with the infamous slogan “Jewish rule from the Nile to the Euphrates.”
Since then, and even after the Oslo Accords, these expulsions have continued to the point where over 93% of Palestinian land is exclusively under Zionist control. Arabs, constituting 21% of the population under the rule of the Zionist regime, reside in less than 5% of the land.
From 1948 to the present, Zionists have established 900 new Jewish settlements, yet not a single new place of residence has been created for Palestinians. More than 95% of construction requests by Palestinians in the West Bank are politically rejected, whereas the approval rate for building permits and settlements for Jews stands at 70%.
This active and overt form of racism has played a significant role during Zionist regime's wars, providing a pathway to commit various war crimes through the dehumanization of all enemies of the Zionists. Yoav Gallant, the War Minister of the Zionist regime, declared two days after Al-Aqsa Storm operation: “We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.” Isaac Herzog, the President of the Zionist regime, held all individuals in Gaza accountable for Israeli army casualties on October 7, stating, “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible.”
Put together, these statements reflect the view that all people in Gaza and Palestine are regarded as human animals by the occupying regime, and the Zionist war strategy is aligned with this perspective. According to Zionists and their Western supporters, the war against the Gazan cannot be anything more than a battle akin to Australia's army combating the increasing threat of Emu population.
Gaza events continue to warn us
The Zionist dehumanization of victims in Gaza may be setting a new record in the world’s history. The Zionist massacre in Gaza may even surpass the calamities that fell upon Asian and African people by the destructive wave of neo colonialism.
Today, the same mindset that created European colonialism, is demonstrated in the relentless onslaught of bunker-buster bombs on schools, hospitals, and densely populated areas in Gaza, and it boldly mirrors the ruthless pursuit of surpassing records established by French occupiers in the massacre of millions of local people in Algeria or the genocidal atrocities perpetrated against Native Americans by European invaders!
On November 19, 2023, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei stated, “The Zionist regime is a manifestation of racism. The Zionists call themselves the superior race and consider the rest of humanity — people from all walks of life who are not Zionists or Jews — to be an inferior race. That’s why their conscience allows them to kill thousands of children without feeling guilty. They act as if they have killed several thousand animals! This is the truth of how the Zionists are.”
The characteristic behaviour of the Zionist regime has led people and media outlets to promptly label it as an “apartheid regime.” The situation has advanced to a juncture where Benjamin Pogrund, a journalist residing in the occupied territories, after years of resisting against labelling the Zionist regime as apartheid, now acknowledges that the regime is aligning with the path of South African apartheid. Individuals like him in the occupied territories are keenly aware of how the demise of an apartheid government will unfold, and with the symptoms of decay becoming apparent after Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, they can no longer remain silent about these signs.