There should not be an honorary consul for Guyana in Jerusalem

Dear Editor,

Israel does not deserve an honorary consul for Guyana in Jerusalem after the storming of the Gaza flotilla. Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, including the UN, the United States and the EU, as Israel’s capital. Since 1975, Guyana has been a member of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian people, and in the past the Government of Guyana has been very vocal in its condemnation of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands and an ardent supporter of a Palestinian homeland.

Most European countries condemned Israel’s storming of the Gaza Flotilla. The condemnation was sharp and stiff, and it also came from many prominent European Jews. The American Zionist lobby AIPAC and Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, went to work around the clock to save Israel from shame. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, according to an editorial in the Israeli daily, Haaretz, did the same. Haaretz wrote, “In an effort to evade responsibility for the crisis, the prime minister is distorting the nature of the criticism against his government and has plied it as hatred of the Jews.”

The Zionist lobby went further; they branded the people on board the Gaza flotilla including Germans, British and Scandinavians as Hamas supporters.  Interestingly, US President Barrack Obama did not give Israel unconditional support during the Gaza flotilla crisis. Such a move many speculate would mean a green light for Israel to attack Iran.

Israel’s storming of the Gaza flotilla that killed ten civilians is a heinous crime that must be strongly condemned. Moreover, it has been revealed that some of the Israeli footage of the storming of the Gaza flotilla has been cooked. Israel confiscated all cameras and mobile phones in an effort to spin the event in its favour.  Israel also claimed that the flotilla was carrying weapons.  But, aside from an assortment of sticks and kitchen knives, no weapons were found aboard any of the ships seized by Israel.

The radicalization of Israelis and their public support to solve the occupation of Palestine and the Golan Heights through force brought a right-wing oriented government into power headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, in coalition with small religious parties. Religious Zionists exert great influence in Jerusalem today. Israel is not a democracy in a true sense. A democracy does not occupy a people for 60 years and practise apartheid. I was in Israel and I saw aspects of the brutal occupation. The daily humiliation of the Palestinians can’t be comprehended fully unless one experiences it.

Israel has lost the moral high ground and no longer can milk the war on terror to continue its brutal occupation of 4 million Palestinians.  Israel is no longer the eternal victim.

The Jews today own a sovereign state that is armed with nuclear weapons.  Democracies that respect the rule of law don’t offer to sell nuclear weapons. Documents now reveal that Israel offered to sell apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons. So while the world’s super powers worried about nuclear Iran spreading weapons of mass destruction around the world, they failed to look at Israel’s weapons of mass destruction and its past discussions about selling them to apartheid South Africa. The storming of the Gaza flotilla pushed South Africa to recall its ambassador to Israel a few weeks ago.

The Israeli government today is controlled by Zionists who seek a greater Israel and will never accept peace because they refuse to accept a two-state solution.   It is now more evident that Israel is not serious in forging peace with its neighbours and is merely buying time under the disguise of security and fighting terrorism to turn Gaza over to Egypt and flush the West Bank Palestinians into Jordan.  This was and is the Zionist programme that is alive.

Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)