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Rakyat Post
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Rakyat Post
Knowing The History Of Israel-Palestine: Right Of Return And Right Of Self-Defence
Subscribe to our FREE This article first appeared in UN Resolution 181 is well-known as the resolution that unjustly partitioned Palestine. Another resolution, Resolution 194, recognised the Palestinians' right of return to where they had been expelled from. The breakout of hostilities following Resolution 181 led to the appointment by the UN of a peace mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte. The Israeli government agreed to his appointment as Bernadotte was president of the Swedish Red Cross and had been instrumental in saving many Jews from the Nazis during World War Two. Bernadotte arrived in Palestine on 20 May 1948, five days after the establishment of the state of Israel. What the Israelis did not expect was for Bernadotte to demand the unconditional return of all the Palestinian refugees and for the country to be redivided. Bernadotte made his recommendations to the UN. A paramilitary Zionist group responded by assassinating him in September 1948 while he was carrying out his official duties. In a sense, there is tragic irony here. Bernadotte paid with his life for trying to stand up for the Palestinians. He had survived the Nazis when he courageously negotiated the release of so many Jews. But when he courageously tried to secure the rights of the Palestinians, he could not escape death at the hands of the Zionists. This was just one example of Zionist Israeli terrorism. Ilan Pappe's book Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (from which much of the above account is taken) and other sources give a well-established history of Zionist Israeli acts of terrorism from the very birth of the state. What continues today in Gaza is part of a history of Israeli state terrorism that has simply never ended. Bernadotte's work, nevertheless, left a legacy – UN Resolution 194, adopted in December 1948 (after the establishment of Israel) by the same UN General Assembly that had voted for partition in November 1947. A key part of the resolution was its recognition of the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes. This has been ignored by Israel as it has with many other UN resolutions. This is an example of what has become habitual Israeli intransigence made possible by US military and diplomatic support over the years. Israel's admission to the UN in May 1949 was on condition it would accept Resolution 194 ( But that acceptance came to nothing. Israel's word could not be trusted – a trait that would be repeated time and again. The principle of an expelled people's right of return was again more recently underlined by a July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice to the UN General Assembly that Israel's presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful. But again, this has been ignored. Right of self-defence? The 'tropish' question often asked is, doesn't Israel have the right to defend itself? The question is conceptually illogical. In his Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe quotes Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi: 'The native people of Palestine like the native people of every other country in the Arab world, Asia, Africa, America, and Europe, refused to divide the land with a settler community.' This was in the context of a process that disrespected the Palestinians with circumstances forced upon them. Thus, at its root, the confiscation of land came with the loss of dignity, freedom and self-determination. A subjugated people cannot but be expected to revolt and resist – which is what the Palestinians have been doing ever since. Self-defence is when you are the victim of someone else's actions, and you therefore have to defend yourself. If you and your family are robbed and under threat, and you act against the robber to wrest back your property and remove the threat to your family, who is exercising the right of self-defence? You? Or the robber who thinks he is defending himself against your actions? And so it is with Israel and Palestine. Israel inserted itself into a situation by aggressive and violent means. Its victims, the native Palestinians, have always been far weaker and at a disadvantage. Some of this weakness has been due to internal problems. But that does not change the fact that a dominant force with imperial support came and forcefully displaced them and, over the years, sabotaged them. Thus, the real point is, it is the Palestinians who have the right to resist and defend themselves. Israeli 'retaliation' is not self-defence. It is force used by an occupier to enforce its illegal occupation. (Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem has been ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice and by UN resolutions.) So long as the root causes of dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people are not addressed, there will be one form or other of fightback or resistance. It may take the form of Hamas, Hezbolah, Islamic Jihad, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) or the Houthis with new incarnations to come. And all that time, there will not be the safety and security that Israelis themselves want. * That is why a lasting solution has to be a just political solution that recognises root causes and not one imposed by overwhelming armed might, which has now escalated into genocide in Gaza. (* It is enlightening to note the twisted ways in which Israeli leadership works, currently personified by Benjamin Netanyahu. He was quoted telling his Likud colleagues in March 2019: 'Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.' ( It also has to be noted that the Palestinians have not, contrary to unfair stereotyping, always only resorted to violent resistance. In many instances over decades, the Palestinian leadership has shown readiness to negotiate and compromise including recognition of the state of Israel. But Israel has always not responded in kind thus allowing it to continue using its might to increase its occupation of Palestine and to crush the will of the Palestinian people.) – By Tong Veng Wye, Aliran member. READ MORE: Share your thoughts with us via TRP's . Get more stories like this to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter.
The Independent
05-02-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Sweden school shooting latest: Suspect named as police question motive of lone gunman who killed 10
Swedish media names Rickard Andersson as suspected shooter Swedish outlet Aftonbladet has named 35-year-old Rickard Andersson as the suspect behind the massacre of 10 people in an Örebro school. He lived a lonely life and suffered with mental problems, the outlet reported. Andersson had received a license for four hunting rifles, and documents from the Swedish National Service Agency show he had been repeatedly told he was not eligible for military service after he came of age, it added. His relatives was also described by relatives as a 'loner' who 'doesn't seem to like people'. Andersson changed into a green military outfit in the school toilets, and was warmed with three guns and a knife as he carried out the horrific mass killing. Police are yet to officially name the suspect, but a police source also named him as Andersson to Reuters news agency. Alex Croft5 February 2025 16:35 Watch: Sweden shooting witness recalls chaotic, bloody aftermath of violence Alex Croft5 February 2025 16:19 In pictures: Royals and politicians pay respects at memorial service Alex Croft5 February 2025 15:53 Swedish Red Cross steps in with psychosocial support for Örebro residents The Swedish Red Cross will provide psychosocial report to those affected in Örebro, the organisation said. "This is distressing for everyone involved,' secretary general Ulrika Modéer said. 'The incident impacts not only those directly affected and their families but also the wider community, including people evacuated and parents concerned for their children's safety.' Red Cross staff will be stationed in three locations around the city to support anyone who needs it. 'Experiencing anxiety and worry is a natural response. The most important thing now is to show each other care and compassion,' Ms Modéer added. Alex Croft5 February 2025 15:34 Royals and prime minister join memorial service The King and Queen of Sweden were joined by prime minister Ulf Kristersson at a memorial service for those killed in the Örebro shooting. Senior politicians from parties in the Riksdag - Sweden's parliament - also joined the service in St. Nicolai Church. A minute's silence was followed by singing and joint prayer, before candles were lit, Expressen reported. "The sun is shining outside, but in our hearts it is dark," the priest who is conducting the service said. Alex Croft5 February 2025 15:14 Watch: Sombre scenes as Swedish royals and Prime Minister visit school shooting scene Alex Croft5 February 2025 14:46 Öresund Bridge to light up in memory of the dead The Öresund Bridge, the 7.8 kilometre cable-bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden, will light up tonight in memory of those killed in the school massacre. 'Special mourning lights' will be adorn the bridge to commemorate the dead, the bridge announced. "Two pylons are extinguished while two pylons are illuminated with the colors of the Swedish flag, which is intended to symbolize a form of half-mast flag flying," it added. The lighting will begin at dusk on Wednesday and turn off at sunrise on Thursday. Alex Croft5 February 2025 14:32 Relatives of suspected gunman say 35-year-old was a 'loner' - report The man suspected to be behind Sweden's worst ever mass shooting was a 'loner', relatives have told Swedish media. Police are yet to confirm the identity of the dead shooter, who they believe turned the gun on himself on Tuesday afternoon. 'We haven't had much contact with him in recent years. As a child he was different but lively. He did well in school. In recent years he has had a hard time,' the relative told Aftonbladet. He has not had much contact with his immediate family in recent years, the relative added. 'He sometimes comes along when his siblings come home and it's Christmas Eve or something else to celebrate. His mom and dad are out traveling a lot, so he usually takes care of their dog. He spends a lot of time at their house,' they added. Another relative painted a similar picture: 'He keeps to himself a lot. He's a loner.' Alex Croft5 February 2025 14:16 Watch: Swedish King says Sweden is "standing behind" families of school shooting victims Alex Croft5 February 2025 14:07 'Grieving is hard to do alone', says King Carl After laying perfect white flowers at the makeshift memorial commemorating those slain in a depraved mass shooting, Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf issued a call for national unity. "A grieving process is hard to do alone," he told reporters. "I think all of Sweden feels it has experienced this traumatic event. 'We have come here to show our sympathy and we are thinking of the deceased, but also of course their families, loved ones. The relatives are not alone, we are with them,' he added. Alex Croft
BBC News
27-01-2025
- BBC News
Holocaust Memorial Day: 'Nobody believed their accounts'
Eighteen-year-old Mascha Nachmansson, an outstanding student and rabbi's daughter, is dreaming of going to university. But Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany has just invaded Poland and his troops are about to descend on the city, tearing apart Mascha's life forever. It is the first days of September 1939 in the Polish city of Lodz (Łódź), the bustling heart of the country's textile industry. One of 12 children raised in a loving family, Mascha has already witnessed the antisemitism that has followed her community for hundreds of years. But the horror of what happened to her next will not be revealed for decades, her daughter Jeanette Marx said. "Some survivors used to say they did try to talk to people immediately afterwards, and say what had happened to them, but people just looked at them as if they were totally mad, delusional," Jeanette says. "'These things can't happen, you know. You grew up in in the civilized world. You grew up in Europe. These things don't happen in Europe.' "So nobody believed them, and they stopped talking." Jeanette says it was only through a recording made by a school in the 1970s, showing Mascha describing her experiences to a group of children, that she learned the full truth of what had happened. The powerful footage shows a middle-aged Mascha sharing the horror story of her family being forced to move to the overcrowded Lodz ghetto with more than 200,000 people - her parents and two siblings later perishing from the rampant disease. Another sister was murdered in the gas chambers at the Chełmno concentration camp, she the horrific conditions for five years, Mascha was then sent to Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps towards the end of the war, describing them as "hell on earth".She left Auschwitz after being "bought" by an ammunitions factory near Berlin to carry out forced labour. Allied forces were now bombing Nazi Germany, with the area where the factory stood heavily targeted and the management abandoning Jewish prisoners to fend for themselves because, as Jeanette explains, "they knew once these prisoners had been killed there would be others" to replace them. After rescue finally came in early 1945 at Ravensbrück, Mascha was taken by the Swedish Red Cross to Malmö, where she was granted refugee status and later met her husband, a Swedish Jewish much of Mascha's later life, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was not recognised, her daughter says, and she was instead "diagnosed with all sorts of things".Mascha went on to educate herself in multiple languages, became a kindergarten teacher and raised two daughters. But the signs of PTSD were clear and she would "immediately stiffen up" if she heard a dog bark, her daughter remembers. "Dogs to her meant barking when she arrived in Auschwitz - the cattle wagon doors were unbolted, they were greeted by dogs barking and Nazis shouting 'get out quick'."Sometimes, my dad called us into the the kitchen, where my mother was sitting shaking, crying," Jeanette said."He didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to do. All we could do is hug her and sit with her." The long decades of silence about the Holocaust also followed Dr George Garai, a Hungarian Jewish man raised in Budapest. He too was 18 when the Nazis occupied Hungary in was forcibly sent to a labour camp and then Mauthausen Concentration Camp, before he was forced to undertake a four-day death march to Gunskirchen Concentration Camp where he was struck down with never spoke about the horrors he faced during the war but, as a journalist, he wrote what he called his "CV" - a hugely detailed autobiography - in the in this document, he could not tell the full truth of what he had experienced. He had hidden his account of the death march - a time during which, he wrote, he had been "touched by death". These were details he felt were too painful for his family to memoir of the horrors he faced was only revealed in the last few days of his life, when he urged his family to share what he had been through with the world. It is from this extraordinary account that his granddaughter, Ella Garai-Ebner, now shares the story of his life with thousands of people through the charity Generation2Generation. "He spoke about three miracles in his life," Ella said. "The first was that his dad, who was extremely unwell, was able to make it to his Bar Mitzvah when he was 13. "The second miracle was that he survived, in his words, the horrors of Mauthausen and the murderous death march."The third is the one that really gives me chills, which is, in his own words, that despite everything he went through he was able to have a wonderful life and meet an incredible woman and raise two beautiful daughters."In May 1945, having managed to survive to the final days of the war, George was liberated from Gunskirchen. "He really acknowledged the the miracle of his survival, and also the miracle of everything that came next and he had a happy life," Ella life saw him flee Hungary in the mid-1950s, eventually settling in England - where he worked at the Jewish Chronicle - after time spent in Sydney embarking on a journalism career and meeting his wife, Anna, a fellow Hungarian Jew who had herself been hidden in an orphanage during the Holocaust. But genocide in the 20th Century did not end with the defeat of Nazi Germany. Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers the victims of more recent atrocities; in particular, this year marks 30 years since 1995's Srebrenica massacre in Srabovic-Ryan never got to meet her biological father, Salčin, who was just 17 when he was murdered during the mother, Azmira, also a teenager at the time, was three months pregnant. She was transported to the city of Tuzla where, having lost most of her biological family, she gave Una up for adoption.A Bosnian-British couple raised her before moving to the UK for Una to attend school. She had no contact with her biological family until a Facebook message sent by her adoptive mother in 2012 to her birth mother finally reached her four years later in Australia, where she had settled after the conflict and started a family."It was so surreal, because I had kind of accepted at this point that I wasn't ever going to meet her," Una says. "But it was kind of the opposite, she did really want to find me."In 2017, Una was finally able to travel to Australia to meet her biological family and, after continuing her search, managed to find her paternal family still in Bosnia, who had never known she existed. "I'm the only child my father had and I'm kind of the main thing left from my father," she said. "So I think they look at me and they think 'wow, like you are the piece that's connecting us to him', and I just hope that they can see my father in me." Growing up in the UK, Una says there was little understanding - and somewhat downright disbelief - from people about her previous life in Bosnia, echoing the experiences of Mascha before is part of why, she says, its is so important for her and other survivors to share their stories. She says Holocaust Memorial Day is "not just to remember people who have died", but "the survivors as well, and the resilience of those survivors". Una, Jeanette and Ella will share their loved ones' stories at a ceremony at Bristol's City Hall says - 80 years on from the liberation of the Holocaust survivors - there is a "fear that such a horror could be repeated or forgotten, and history is doomed to repeat itself."I think through education, through sharing my grandpa's story, through knowing that survivor stories are being shared and heard, and the awareness and tolerance that I hope this teaches, that fear lessens bit by bit."Una, from Yate, says it will be "an opportunity for us to educate ourselves about the dangers of what hatred can do"."After the Holocaust, they said 'never again' but the Bosnian genocide happened 30 years ago and there have been other genocides since such as Rwanda and Cambodia." Jeanette says her "message" to others "is that the murder of six million Jews and many other minorities carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators did not happen within a week or two, or even a year."There was a slow development of exclusion, lack of respect, looking at somebody who's not like you as as somebody who's not worth the same as you. "I particularly feel that the young generation who are exposed to social media I hope they understand that certain messages that are pushed through social media need to be challenged, because if one doesn't challenge it, it won't take long before these sentiments and these ideas that people throw around will take hold, and from one small act it builds up."She hopes for a world in which her mother Mascha's philosophy can win through: "You concentrate on what's valuable in life, and that's family good values, charity, friendship, education and respect."
