It’s time to end the crisis in Palestine - EDITORIAL

n November 29, 1947, in its collective wisdom, the UN General Assembly via Resolution 181 planned the carving up of what was originally Palestine, into two states - the state of Israel and the State of Palestine.   
The partition plan allocated 55% of what then constituted Palestine to Jewish settlers who constituted around 30% of the population, and 45% to Palestinians who constituted 70%. The plan specified borders for new Arab and Jewish states and an area of Jerusalem which was to be administered by the UN under an international regime. The UN plan to carve out the State of Israel in what was originally Palestine was opposed not only by the Palestinians but by all Arab states and people.  
The United Nations which was set up to prevent conflicts world-wide in the aftermath of World War II, had with a stroke of the pen so-to-say, created a major zone of conflict which persists to this day.   

Within months of the General Assembly resolution and before the founding of the state of Israel, Jewish settlers carried out numerous attacks on Palestinians, depopulating and razing villages. The attacks were followed by teams of cartographers being sent out to give the now depopulated towns and villages, new Hebrew names. Even rivers and hills were renamed. It appeared to be an effort to wipe out all vestiges of Palestinian habitation, history, and culture. These villages are occupied by Israel and are part of what is today known as Israeli-occupied Territories.  
It is often believed the conflict escalated after Arab States entered the conflict, the fact was and is that a large number of attacks on Palestinian civilians were perpetrated before a single Arab country ever entered the conflict.   

The Israeli militia attack on the village of Deir Yassin typified the massacres. On April 9, 1948, around 120 fighters from the Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin comprising around 600 people.  According to a count conducted by International Red Cross representative Jacques de Reynier, apart from bodies left lying in the streets, 150 corpses were found in one cistern alone, among them people who had been either decapitated or disembowelled. Several villagers were taken prisoner and may have been killed after being paraded through the streets of West Jerusalem. There were also cases of mutilation and rape.   
In the aftermath of the massacre around 470,000 Palestinians fled the area and its neighbouring villages. A month later on May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion –Israel’s first Prime Minister- declared the establishment of the State of Israel.  

Since then, Israel has continued to set up illegal settlements on Palestinian lands, which it still occupies and continues to acquire and illegally confiscate private Palestinian lands and houses. To make matters worse in January 2017, Israel passed a new law which gives any Israeli citizen the right to take over any Palestinian house land or orchard in the Occupied Territories for him/herself.  Whereas the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 181, set apart 45% of the then Palestine, to be part of a future State of Palestine; after the 1967 ‘6-day War’, Israel commenced building settlements of exclusive Jewish ethnicity on Palestinian lands.   
Today, the rump State of Palestine has no contiguity; Israel today illegally occupies 22.6% of lands originally allocated for the State of Palestine and continues the illegal annexation of private Palestinian land. Israel also limits water consumed by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Territories and prevents the building of new homes for Palestinians living in these territories.  

Despite the United Nations repeatedly upholding Israel’s construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel continues to expand its exclusive Jewish settlement building programme in Palestinian territories. Palestinians today live in circumstances similar to that of non-white South Africans in the era of apartheid in that country.
 To put an end to the evil apartheid regime in South Africa, the countries and people’s of the world had no option but to impose a boycott of South African goods and services until it dismantled the structures of apartheid.  
Ultimately apartheid was brought to an end on April 27, 1994, when South African people of all races were able to vote for the first time in a national election, and the restrictions that defined Apartheid had been abolished.  
Today, once again, the world is faced with a similar situation in Palestine where a system of laws has been instituted to ensure the strict segregation of people and the domination by an Israeli minority. It’s time to end the new apartheid. It’s time perhaps, to call for a boycott of Israeli products until the intransigent regime come to its senses.