‘Hidden hands’ stoked Mandalay anti-Muslim pogrom

For years I have been saying that most of the anti-Muslim pogroms and genocidal activities inside Burma (or Myanmar) owe their origin to government. They are sanctioned by the government and often the terrorist Buddhist monks (esp. those affiliated with the 969 Fascist Movement) have been utilized by the regime to polarize public opinion against Muslims. 


It is no accident that after his release from prison, Buddhist monk Wirathu has now become the face of Buddhist terrorism, whose 969 fascist movement is at the forefront of Nazi-like blitzkrieg against unarmed Muslims. With the vast support he and other racist Buddhist monks enjoy within the broader Buddhist community, these SS Nazi type monks have been able to rally Buddhists to attack, kill and burn Muslims. Police and other security forces, if they did not participate in such heinous crimes themselves would often time stand unperturbed, as if nothing went wrong, or that they have no business to stop such horrendous crimes of savage Buddhists. 

Since May of 2012 starting with the savage lynching to death of ten tablighi Muslims by Rakhine Buddhist mob, we have witnessed how the Buddhist terrorists have went on to rampage to exterminate Muslims, often time led by Buddhist monks and security forces. 
In July of 2014, Muslims in Mandalay were viciously attacked and killed by a Buddhist mob. Justice Trust is an international human rights organization that partners with lawyers and activists in Myanmar to strengthen local communities fighting for justice. It found 'hidden hands' (read: government hand) in the attack. Here below is the report:

The Justice Trust has just released a report, “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence in Myanmar: Case Study of the Mandalay Riots,” documenting the use of organized gangs of armed men to commit anti-Muslim riots under the guise of spontaneous mob violence.

The NGO held a press conference in Bangkok on March 23 to release the report.

“This report shows what most Burmese have known for a long time – that religious hatred between Buddhists and Muslims is being stoked by hidden hands and manipulated as a pretext for maintaining their grip on power,” said U Thein Than Oo, a Mandalay lawyer who serves on Justice Trust’s steering committee. “We have seen this script many times before – the deployment of plainclothes forces [Swah Ah Shin] rather than uniformed soldiers to commit national-scale political violence, and the scapegoating of minorities to divert public attention away from the country’s real needs.”

Drawing on six months of research by a team of local and international lawyers, the report analyzes the riots that shook Mandalay in July 2014 – the latest in a series of communal attacks across the country – and places these riots in the context of previous waves of communal conflict carried out under past military regimes.

The Mandalay riots closely followed every element of this pattern, starting with a false charge of rape spread on Facebook. But unlike in previous riots, where large mobs developed and the violence spun out of control, local people in Mandalay refused to participate despite the best efforts of outside agitators. In fact, local monks, activists and journalists arrived and tried to contain the situation. Without the protective cover of a sympathetic crowd, the outside agitators were exposed, the stage-managed nature of their violence was made visible to the public, and the overall damage was limited.

“The Mandalay riots were designed to appear as a spontaneous outbreak of mob violence, but in fact were perpetuated by an organised gang of armed men brought in from outside Mandalay to enact a pre-determined script written and stage-managed by hidden hands for political ends,” the report says.

The report states that: “The case of Mandalay therefore provides the clearest evidence yet of a deliberate political strategy to foment anti-Muslim violence, as well as the best example of countering this strategy through a local early warning system to mobilize an immediate on-the-ground response.”

According to multiple corroborated eyewitnesses, the Mandalay riots were carried out over two straight nights by a small group of men on motorcycles who rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods. This took place in plain view of fully armed riot police, who followed the rioters and watched the mayhem unfold without taking action.

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Following an eruption of what the report calls “genuine communal antagonism” in Rakhine State in 2012 that saw over 250 people killed, subsequent outbreaks of violence – in Meiktila, Mandalay and Lashio, among others – have occurred across the country in areas that had no history of communal conflict. The report says they follow a similar pattern of events, including rape allegations, speaking tours by Ashin Wirathu and visits by gangs of fomenting outsiders. They also appear timed to divert attention from other political issues.

“If you’re busy thinking about the so-called Muslim threat in Myanmar, you probably won’t be worried about the widespread land grabs taking place, resource extractions by multi-national corporations, the upcoming 2015 elections, and much-needed reforms to the constitution,” U Thein Win Aung, an analyst from Mandalay, said in the report.

“Lots of people recognise that the 969 movement has a history of inciting riots … and once Wirathu posted the [rape] allegation to Facebook, the local civil groups alerted others to the coming storm,” said Roger Normand, executive director of Justice Trust.

Mandalay is far from the only orchestrated incident. Myanmar has a long history of military regimes employing the “dual threat of external intervention and internal disintegration” to ensure control, according to the report. Famed examples of such diversions include General Ne Win’s anti-Chinese riots in the 1960s to distract from a countrywide rice shortage, and Buddhist-Muslim tensions after democratic mass uprising in 1988.

“Buddhist anti-Muslim actions in Myanmar are not new – they have surfaced periodically in recent decades,” said Southeast Asia historian Peter Coclanis.

“Adding to … historical factors, obviously, are more immediate factors having to do with ethnic scapegoating, the desire to ramp up Buddhist Bamar national feeling [and] short-run political advantage in the run-up to the election.”

In January, US assistant secretary of state Tom Malinowski warned that by inflaming radical religious divides Myanmar is stoking the flames of a fire it isn’t ready to handle.

“The use of religion in particular, to divide people - whether it is done for political or any other purposes, is incredibly dangerous, particularly in an election year,” he said.

However, Mr Normand from Justice Trust said such chaos might be exactly what the crony networks of the “hidden hands” are trying to whip up for their own benefit.

“For some, the minority hard-liners, sectarian riots spinning out of control will likely improve their electoral chances, but for those with a vision of long-term good for the country it’s very dangerous,” he said.

“Once these things are out, they cannot just be pushed back in the bottle.”

Links to the plight of the Rohingya people

Click here, here, here and here for some videos on the plight of the Rohingya people of Myanmar that are more than a year old. Nothing has improved for them and simply worsened. Also click here for more details.

For Dr. Gregory Stanton's speech if the Rohingya Muslims are victims of genocide, click here.

For the video of the destruction of a Muslim township in Meiktila, where many Burmese Muslims once lived, click here.

Life in Occupied West Bank - through the eyes of a Jewish American

Click here or here to see this video.

300 days of Modi’s rule in India - executive summary by John Dayal

Hindus make up roughly 80 percent of India’s 1.24 billion people, while very roughly, 13 percent (161 million) are Muslim, and 2.3 percent (28.5 million) are Christians; 1.8 percent (22.3 million) are Sikhs and millions identify with other religions groups. 


The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is one of India’s largest Hindutvadi/ Hindu chauvinist/nationalist organizations in the world. In recent years, the members and leaders of the VHP in collaboration with Dharam Jagaran Samiti ("Religious awakening committee"), a Hindu activist group affiliated to the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and part of its family of organisations Sangh Parivar, have been running a program called ghar wapasi. The goal of ghar wapsi is to bring members of minority religious groups—mostly Muslims and Christians—“back to Hinduism, back to their original home,” says Dharm Narayan Sharma, central secretary of the VHP. And he makes no apologies. “This is the work of India,” he told. 


Last year, the Muslim residents of the Vednagar slum in Agra were told by a local Hindu activist that, under a development programme of the Narendra Modi government, if they attended a havan (a Hindu sacrificial ceremony), they would get ration cards and other basic amenities. Some 250 people attended the ceremony. When the ritual was over, the participants were told that they had all become Hindus. The 8 December conversion program was organized jointly by Dharam Jagaran Samiti and the Bajrang Dal, the militant wing of the largest Hindu organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs). (See picture at the bottom for the ceremony.)

In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Rajeshwar Singh, the head of a local right-wing Hindu organization Dharam Jagaran Samiti, announced that his group’s goal is to “free” India of Muslims and Christians in the next five years. Former BJP MP and senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ram Vilas Vedanti has announced to organize a grand “ghar wapsi’ for over 3000 Muslims at Ayodhya in February.

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Here below is the executive summary of "300 DAYS - Documenting Hate and Communal Violence under the Modi Regime" by JOHN DAYAL, which has recently appeared in the Internet.

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The rape of a 70 year old Nun in West Bengal in an attack on a convent and school in February 2015 sent shock waves throughout India, and the world. “Protect not just Cows, but human beings also,” said Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference. At least 43 deaths in over 600 cases of violence, 149 targeting Christians and the rest Muslims, have taken place in 2014 in India till March this year, marking 300 days of the National Development Alliance government of Mr. Narendra Modi. The number of dead is other than the 108 killed in Assam in attacks by armed tribal political groups on Muslims. Desecration and destruction of churches, assault on pastors, illegal police detention of church workers, and denial of Constitutional rights of Freedom of Faith aggravate the coercion and terror unleashed in campaigns of Ghar Wapsi and cries of Love Jihad. Since May 2014, there has been a marked shift in public discourse. There has been a relentless foregrounding of communal identities, a ceaseless attempt to create a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The BJP leaders guaranteed to abuse, ridicule and threaten minorities. Hate statements by Union and state ministers, threats by Members of Parliament, state politicians, and cadres in saffron caps or Khaki shorts resonate through the landscape. But most cases go unreported, unrecorded by police. 

The Prime Minister refuses to reprimand his Cabinet colleagues, restrain the members of his party members or silence the Sangh Parivar which claims to have propelled him to power in New Delhi. Mr. Modi calls for a ten-year moratorium on communal and caste violence. His government soon declares Christmas to be a “Good Governance Day” in honour of the BJP leader and former Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee. There are fears at a severe whittling down of the 15 Point Programme for Minorities, a lifeline for many severely economic backward communities, and specially their youth seeking higher education and professional training. Anyway, Mr. Modi’s “assurance” to religious minorities is challenged and countered by Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the powerful Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, who asserts, repeatedly, that every Indian is a Hindu, and minorities will have to learn their place in the country.Speaking at the 50th Anniversary of foundation of its religious wing, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS Sarsanghchalak bluntly stated that “Hindutva is the identity of India and it has the capacity to swallow other identities. We just need to restore those capacities.” In Cuttack, he asserted that India is a Hindu state and "citizens of Hindustan should be known as Hindus". Sadhvi Prachi, a central minister, Members of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj and Adityanath are among those urging measures to check Muslims, including encouraging Hindu women to have from four to ten children each. In Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and other states, the terror, physical violence and social ostracizing of Dalit and Tribal Christians, in particular, continues. 
The 300 days have also seen an assault on democratic structures, the education and knowledge system, Human Rights organizations and Rights Defenders and coercive action using the Intelligence Bureau and the systems if the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act and the Passport laws to crack down on NGOs working in areas of empowerment of the marginalized sections of society, including Dalits, Tribals, Fishermen and women, and issues of environment, climate, forests, land and water rights. 















This report is focused on issues of communally targeted violence and the politics of hate and divisiveness that emanates from a thesis of religious nationalism.

The Story Behind the Beef Ban in Bombay and some Indian States

In an earlier article I mentioned how Hindutvadi bigots, protected and energized by the ruling BJP, have been making difficult the life of non-Hindus in the so-called secular India, which is a home to some 160 million Muslims and tens of millions of other non-Muslims. Rape has become a common feature in India making the country the most dangerous place to live and visit outside war trodden countries in our time. Even a 72-year old lady is not spared from such heinous crimes. 

Cow is considered sacred to Hindus. But when under the name of 'save the cows' the system allows making the lives of human beings unsafe it is not a civilized society. The life of human beings should be more important than anything else, including cows. But in Hindu India that common sense seems to be wanting. 

Forced conversion to Hinduism is now promoted by Narendra Modi's Hindutvadi regime.One sure way to implement such forced conversions is to take out the livelihood of the targeted minority. After all, there is nothing worse than hunger. And that is how the current ban on beef eating is used to marginalize Muslim merchants/traders, butchers, shop owners, cow-hide traders, restaurant owners/workers and others that had made a living with anything to do with cow. 

Nor should one ignore the dubious role of Kailash Satyarthi who shared the 2014 Nobel prize with Malala Yousafzai in marginalizing poor Muslims in India. He was another Hindu activist whose activities to ban child labor was directed mostly against Muslim carpet weavers. Carpet weaving has been a family business for generations with many Muslim weavers, passing on the skills to their children and grandchildren. With most avenues for upward mobility in economic and social ladder blocked for Muslim minorities in India since the independence of the country in 1947, many Muslims have resorted to such family oriented businesses to survive in today's India. Many poor and starving Muslim parents would send their children to work as child-labors rather than see them starve to death. Lest we forget discrimination against educated Muslims is very common in India. And education costs money, which many poor parents can't afford. And even if they can allow their children to have education in the primary and secondary level, a rational calculation on cost-benefit usually dictates them to see their children employed as child-labors. For many of children in India, working in carpet weaving facilities was a sure way to bring some food to the table of their home. Satyarthi's activism against child-labor targeted Muslim-owned businesses, which inevitably affected the livelihood of families of many poor Muslims. That story has not been sufficiently told. 

This observation of mine should not be thought of as an endorsement of child labor. What I am pointing out is that there is nothing worse than poverty. It is a threat to religion and everything we hold dear in our hearts. Unless that root cause is remedied, all efforts would only be addressing symptoms. 

Much of the Hindutvadi agenda these days in India includes economic strangulation of targeted minorities so that they would be forced to embrace Hinduism, the religion of majority Hindus in India. 

BJP's student wings and youth groups, like the Bajrang Dal under the guidance of BJP and its mother Sangh Parivar, are the vanguards in this campaign of terror, intolerance and marginalization of the non-Hindus. 

Please, read the news clip below from Syed Nazakat (Christian Science Monitor) for more info on the beef ban.

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With a strict ban on beef in Mumbai that has closed down meat sellers across India’s most cosmopolitan city, this nation is dealing with a sacred cow issue – literally. 

The new ban is the strictest ever in India and includes penalties even for possessing beef. Breaking the law, which languished for five years before getting passed under a conservative ruling Hindu party, brings a fine and up to five years in prison.

Many Mumbai meat sellers are on strike in response, and eateries that feature kabobs and minced-meat delicacies in the Muslim quarter are losing customers. Some have closed. 

If the social agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, takes further hold, the beef ban is likely to spread to other states and add to recent Hindu-oriented policies that have made an impact on school curricula, language requirements, and even played a role in watching a BBC film on rape. A centuries-old sectarian battle is shifting to new grounds, say many analysts and intellectuals.

Cows are considered sacred by Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's 1.2 billion population. But Muslims and Christians and many of India's tribes and castes are beef eaters. In states like Kerala in the south and West Bengal in the northeast, cattle slaughter is legal and beef is eaten regularly – even by Hindus.

“This is not about protecting cows. It is all about playing politics,” says M. B. Rajesh, a member of parliament from Kerala. “What one should eat or wear are personal choices and they simply cannot be imposed.”

Prime Minister Modi, a professed vegetarian who led his BJP Hindu party to a landslide win in last year's general election, has long spoken against beef exports and has expressed hope for a national ban on cow slaughter. Last spring, many Indians took this as only campaign rhetoric.

But the states of Maharashtra where Mumbai is situated, and Haryana, where beef was recently banned, are ruled by his BJP party.

Ironically perhaps, India is the world's second-largest producer of beef after Brazil. Yet due to religious sentiments and bans in various states, most of India's beef is exported to countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Egypt.

Much of the meat now sparking political divisions is not actually from cows. Much of it is from water buffalo, which in Hindu mythology is the “lord of death” and not regarded as holy.

To be sure, there is no national ban on beef; every state has its own laws on cow slaughter and beef sales. The issue is fraught; in some states, cow slaughter has led to communal clashes and police have at times arrested butchers for violating the law. But even in states with bans, beef is easily found to purchase. In Delhi, for example, where there is a ban, restaurants regularly serve beef. 

The hardest hit group in India are the Muslims who have a corner on the beef business and feel themselves targeted by the ban.

“The ban will render tens of thousands of people jobless,” said Mohammad Ali Qureshi, president of the Mumbai Suburban Beef Dealers Association. “What are we going to do? The [beef] industry doesn't  know how to deal with this. We are all worried about future."Given the sensitivity of cow slaughter, influential Indian Muslims have appealed to the civic nature of their constituency and asked that Muslims avoid cow slaughter on Eid, a Muslim festivalt.

Resentment surfaced recently in Mumbai after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, a Hindu nationalist group tied to Modi’s ruling party, allegedly shut down several meat sellers. The VHP has now launched a “save the cow campaign” in Kerala and in a number of other states. 

UN asks Myanmar to end discriminating minorities

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Special Reporter on the human rights situation in Myanmar Wednesday warned against categorizing Rohingya Muslims as “illegal aliens” and called for addressing the continuing discrimination against the country’s minorities. Click here to see the full report below:

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“During my last visit in January 2015, I witnessed how dire the situation has remained in Rakhine state,” Ms Yanghee Lee said during the presentation of her first report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The conditions in Muslim IDP [internally displaced persons] camps are abysmal and I received heart-breaking testimonies from Rohingya people telling me they had only two options: stay and die or leave by boat,” she said.

Ms Lee, the expert, cautioned against any provision in the Rakhine Action Plan that would classify Rohingyas as ‘illegal aliens’ and subject them to possible prolonged internment in camps or removal from the territory.

The expiry at the end of this month of the temporary white cards held by many Rohingyas as identity documentation “further increases their vulnerability,” she said The expert called on the country’s authorities to address ongoing challenges to the democratic reform process “before they undermine the success achieved so far.”  “I was very disturbed by reports on 10 March that excessive and disproportionate force had been used against students and other civilians and that 127 people were subsequently arrested,” she said.

Ms. Lee welcomed the release of some detainees but also called for the immediate release of all the others. Further, Ms. Lee drew attention to the pressure on human rights defenders, including prosecutions under outdated defamation and national security laws, which have a “chilling effect on civil society activities.”

“I am concerned journalists are still being interrogated and arrested, and that 10 journalists were imprisoned in 2014. This needs to stop if Myanmar wants to create a meaningful democratic space,” Ms. Lee said in a press statement.

While noting that economic development had benefited some in the country, the expert urged the Government to ensure that “others are not left out” and called for “a human rights-based approach to development programmes.”  Ms. Lee also expressed concern over the alarming escalation of fighting in the Kokang region, where over 100 civilians are reported to have died and tens of thousands have been displaced.  “Even during a state of emergency, the Government has an obligation to strictly uphold fundamental human rights,” she reiterated.

More needs to be done to address the underlying issues at the heart of the conflicts, including discrimination against ethnic minorities. Four bills currently before Parliament risk increasing tension, she emphasised.
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Here is another news clip on the fate of 800,000 Rohingyas inside Myanmar:

The fate of an estimated 800,000 Rohingya Muslims is uncertain as their temporary residence permit expires by the end of this month, the UN's special envoy for Myanmar warned today.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said, "There are about 800,000 (white card holders) Rohingya. But by the end of this month if it (white cards) expires and they have to turn it in and enter another process by May, it is very troubling because there has been no significant plan or portrayed in any reports that I have seen of what this entire process will mean and how it will affect the white card holders".

 

According to the 1982 Citizenship Law, the white card - a temporary residence permit- is one of the many colour-coded cards used by the government to signify the status of a resident of Myanmar.

 

Though the white card holders were allowed to vote in 2010 and 2012, however, a notification from President Thein Sein's office recently said the cards would expire on March 31.

 

White cards holders will now be required to hand them over to the authorities by May 31 and apply for citizenship.

 

The decision came after a huge controversy which followed after the Myanmar president granted white card holders the right to vote in a referendum on constitutional amendments.

 

The decision was met with much uproar from nationalist Buddhist monks.

 

"Although some of the Rohingya have been living for generations but since they could not prove their status when the 1982 Citizenship

Law came into effect (they got a white card)," Lee noted.

In Myanmar, more than 80 per cent of the population are Buddhists and about four to five per cent are Muslims.

"Among the Muslims, whereas the Kamans are considered an ethnic group, the Rohingya are not, according to the 2008 constitutional reforms. There are many, many implications of this on their political participation," said Lee.

Speaking of the abysmal conditions in the volatile Rakhine state, Lee said, "I have stressed on numerous occasions that Rakhine Buddhist community's grievances should be fully heard and understood. But that does not mean the Rohingya should be overlooked".

In her first report to the UNHRC since her appointment in June 2014, Lee states, "Both government and Rakhine Buddhist representatives explained that the term Rohingya has no historical or legal basis and that to validate the Rohingya as an ethnic group could allow a claim of indigenous status and corresponding rights under the Constitution".

"The government has therefore insisted that persons identifying as Rohingya be classified as Bengali, which links their ethnic origins to Bangladesh," it states.

Lee said in that though Myanmar has made advances, there are "worrying signs of backtracking" on human rights.

India had supported Myanmar at the UNHRC during the presentation of the report, saying "Democratic institutions in any country take time to acquire deep roots".

Are you surprised with Netanyahu’s statement?

The apartheid state of Israel had her Knesset election Tuesday where the Likud Party of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu captured 30 seats, more than any other party. It is very likely that Netanyahu will be invited by Reuven Rivlin, President of the State of Israel, to form the new coalition government. On Wednesday, he was congratulated by Isaac Herzog, leader of the Zionist Union, whose coalition seemed a front-runner in the polls just a couple of days earlier.

So, what made the dramatic shift in Israeli public opinion in favor of Netanyahu, a highly polarizing figure in Israel, who had portrayed himself as the only politician capable of confronting Israel's numerous security challenges and yet, watched his standing plummet in recent weeks? Herzog, on the other hand, had focused on the country's high cost of living and presented Netanyahu as imperious and out of touch with the common man and vowed to revive peace efforts with the Palestinians, repair ties with the U.S. and reduce the growing gaps between rich and poor, confidently predicted an "upheaval" was imminent.

As Netanyahu's poll numbers dropped in recent days, he appeared increasingly desperate and stepped up his nationalistic/ anti-Palestinian rhetoric in a series of interviews to local media to appeal to his core base, which is made up of hardcore Zionists and settlers of the occupied territories. Netanyahu also complained of an international conspiracy to oust him, funded by wealthy foreigners who disliked him.

During a campaign stop on Monday in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa (a Jewish settlement that Netanyahu helped to build during his first term as prime minister in 1997; the sprawling district now houses more than 20,000 settler residents), Netanyahu promised to increase construction there, saying it was “a way of stopping Bethlehem from moving toward Jerusalem.” The strategy was aimed at attracting voters from nationalistic rivals. Speaking to the NRG news website, Netanyahu said that turning over the occupied territory to the Palestinians would clear the way for ‘Islamic extremists’ to take control and attack Israel. "Whoever ignores that is burying his head in the sand. The left is doing that, burying its head in the sand time after time," he said in the video interview.

When asked if that meant a Palestinian state would not be established if he was elected, Netanyahu replied, "Indeed." Netanyahu criticized peace talks in 1999 under then-prime minister Ehud Barak, who announced his endorsement of the Zionist Union party on Monday. Barak was “willing to give everything away,” he said.

It was the latest - and clearest - attempt by Netanyahu to renounce his earlier support for Palestinian independence, which he first laid out in a landmark 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University. At the time, he said, "If we get this guarantee for demilitarization and necessary security arrangements for Israel, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be willing in a real peace agreement to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state."

Netanyahu said Monday that after the election, Israel will face international pressure to pull back to the 1967 lines. “We must establish a strong national government headed by Likud in order to fend off these pressures.” In his speech on Monday, Netanyahu warned that the Zionist Union would give up the area to make way for a Palestinian capital.

“If Tzipi [Livni] and Boujie [Herzog] set up the next government, Hamastan 2 will be established on these hills here,” he said, pointing to the surrounding landscape. [“Hamastan” is a term used by some Israeli politicians to refer to the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Hamas since 2007, two years after Israel pulled out of the territory.] “We are preventing it (by) developing upscale neighborhoods here for tens of thousands of Israelis,” he said. 

Netanyahu vowed to increase construction in the Occupied East Jerusalem, and said the city would never be divided. “We will continue to build in Jerusalem, we will add thousands of housing units, and in the face of all the (international) pressure, we will persist and continue to develop our eternal capital,” he said. Yes, with the support enjoyed from the ‘Amen Corner’ within the US Congress and the all-powerful Israeli Lobby, he can afford to be bullish and arrogant about such assertions.

As I maintained all along, like other Israeli leaders before him, Netanyahu never accepted the idea of an independent Palestinian state. Hypocrisy has been in their DNA. Like his predecessors, Netanyahu – who is one of the worst mass murderers and lying and deceiving individuals to rule the apartheid state – was no different in such hypocritical assertions that he was a man of peace who believed in the creation of an independent Palestine. Well, until Monday. [But don’t be surprised if he flip-flops his position now that he had won the election to save his government from US ‘reassessment’ of Israel-US relationship.]

For public image and wider acceptability of their position within the international community the Israeli leaders, however, have succeeded in selling the idea that the Palestinian leaders are the ‘real’ problems who are opposed to the two-nation theory – a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. And thanks to the pro-Israeli news media in the West, the Israeli leaders were portrayed as the good guys!

Facts have been just the opposite of such make-beliefs. Over the last 48 years, since the annexation of the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli actions on the ground were always contradictory to such vocal claims. True to their innate Zionist expansionist roots, the Israeli leaders have been constructing illegal settlements in violations of UN Resolutions non-stop and changing the demography of the Occupied Palestine since the day one. Netanyahu, threatened by the prospect of losing to Herzog, showed his true ugly self when he declared that he would never allow the emergence of the Palestinian state, not in his watch anyway. 

I am glad that after all these years of living behind the mask, and mastering the evil art of hypocrisy, he had the guts to exhibit where he stands on this critical issue. This way, the Palestinian people and the rest of the international community should have no illusions about him. They would be foolish to expect anything positive coming from this war criminal. His cover has been blown away by none but himself. 

A colonial enterprise can never resist the temptation of being a colonizer. And the state of Israel has been a colonial enterprise since the days of Theodor Herzl (father of political Zionism), and its leaders the brain children of Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) – the colonial master who colonized the vast territories of southern Africa in the 19^th century. Being opposed to national liberation movements around the world, it was all too natural for Israel to ally herself with other governments and entities that were opposed to liberation - from South Africa’s apartheid regime to the death squads of Central and South America Even the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) – an Iranian exile group of Marxist terrorists – was an ally of Israel in its fight to topple the popular Iranian government. 

9/11 has been a God-send for Israel in every way imaginable. It allowed many American lawmakers who were previously neutral on the Israel-Palestine conflict to chime with the 'Amen Corner' - the Israel-firsters within the US Congress - the chorus - "We’re all Israelis now!" If you would recall, Netanyahu did not mind exhibiting his euphoria for the tragedy. He told an audience at Bar Ilan University then, "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” [Many so-called conspiracy theorists still believe that Israeli Mossad had a hand in that tragedy.] Al-Qaeda’s act, he averred, had “swung American public opinion in our favor."

Interesting comment given the fact that the American lawmakers have always been pro-Israel with very little sympathy for the plight of the uprooted and disadvantaged Palestinians! [Their own colonial enterprise has prepared them well to be supportive of the Israeli enterprise at the exclusion of the indigenous people.] What Netanyahu really meant was that 9/11 had allowed Israel to pushing the US to fight her dirty wars – beginning with its criminal rampage in Iraq, let alone giving Israel carte blanche to commit atrocious war crimes in Gaza. Since 9/11 Israel has benefited enormously from the support it has enjoyed in the USA and the western world.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, it would be interesting to see how the Israel-firsters within the US Congress and government would re-position to Netanyahu's statement about Palestine. Will they be more interested in doing the damage control for their criminal buddy or punishing the state of Israel for being opposed to the declared policy of the USA government since the days of Nixon?

Fat chance! As the saying goes: hell may freeze but the support for the Israeli state within the 'Amen Corner' and by default, the US Congress and government will not taper. That is how complete the Israeli occupation or control of the US Congress has become in recent decades! That is a sad commentary, but it is the harsh fact.

If the world leaders are serious about finding genuine peace in the occupied territories, they must treat the state of Israel the way South Africa was treated in the last phase of her apartheid years. No ifs and buts!