Like hegemon USA and its Western vassals, Israel is a fantasy democracy, never the real thing.
Indisputable and proved again on August 18, Lapid regime occupying forces forcibly entered and rampaged through the offices of six Palestinian human rights organizations — for the “crime” of supporting and defending what’s mandated by international humanitarian law.
Targeted organizations included:
Al-Haq
Addameer
The Bisan Center for Research & Development
Defense for Children International-Palestine
Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC), and
Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC).
The Health Workers Committees office was also violently raided.
Reporting on the Jewish state’s affront to the rule of law, Al-Haq said the following:
“The incursion, raids, pillage and closures, are the latest in a pattern of repressive attacks by Israel.”
They oppressively target “Palestinian civil society organizations,” (ones) advocat(ing) for human rights and international rule of law.”
Time and again, they “call(ed) for an end to Israel’s aggressive 74-year colonial and apartheid regime.”
It ruthlessly “denies the collective right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and the right of refugees to return” to their homeland as international law demands.
Throughout its pockmarked history, Israel repeatedly turned truth on its head by designating organizations in support of human and civil rights as “terrorist” groups.
In November 2021, an illegal Israeli military order trampled on the rule of law as follows, saying:
“(E)very member of the institution ‘Al-Haq Institution’ or ‘Al-Haq’…is an illegal organization in the meaning of the defense regulations.”
Al Haq responded to the police state diktat as follows, saying:
Per order of Israeli war minister, Gantz, IDF military commander, Yehuda Fox, “led an armed incursion into Ramallah to forcibly close the six organizations.”
The action was an “attempt to quash the work of human rights defenders, in serious violation of the right to freedom of expression and association.”
“Such orders infringe upon and overreach into the work of human rights organizations and civil society, exceeding the competence of the military commander under Article 43 of the Hague Regulations (1907).”
It also flagrantly breached “fundamental humanitarian rights and guarantees of protected persons under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949).”
The Thursday pre-dawn raid began when IDF thugs “forcibly blasted through the locked security door of Al-Haq’s offices, bursting the door from its hinges and raiding the premises, setting off the alarms.”
They also “bludgeoned and broke the front door of the nearby Episcopal Church, leaving long shards of exposed broken glass, sponge-grenades, and several teargas canisters, rubber coated and live bullets around the property.”
Every room of Al-Haq’s offices were violently stormed with committing maximum damage in mind.
Israeli storm troopers “rummaged through files, scattered and displaced accounting folders, knocked over coffee cups leaving spillages, and trashed offices and bathrooms.”
They destroyed large maps of historic Palestine as existed before the disgraceful 1947 UN Partition Plan.
See below.
After raiding and trashing Al-Haq’s office in flagrant breach of the rule of law — an Israeli speciality — the IDF “completely seal(ed) off the office with a “reinforced iron door” to prevent entry.
The Lapid regime warned that “those administering the organization, must shut (it) down, refrain from managing it and keep it shut, from the moment of receipt of this order.”
Defending the rule of law since 1979, Al Haq and other human rights groups mentioned above are considered “illegal (sic).”
Al-Haq warns that, “in targeting Palestinian civil society organizations, Israel is dismantling the very fabric of the Palestinian society.”
It’s “systematically removing the critically vital monitoring and oversight institutions, necessary for a viable and functioning society based on the principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
In 1947 when Palestinians comprised two-thirds of the population, Jews one-third, the UN unacceptably granted 56% of the historic land to the latter, 42% to the former.
At the time, Jerusalem was designated an international city (a corpus separatum – separate body) under a UN Trusteeship Council.
Under international law, Jerusalem is an international city.
In June 1967, Israel illegally occupied it.
On July 30, 1980, the Knesset introduced the Jerusalem Law, illegally annexing it as Israel’s unified capital.
On March 1, 1980, UN Security Council Resolution 465 declared the following:
“(A)ll measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity.”
“Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant (Fourth Geneva) violation…and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
On July 4, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development (and) have been established in breach of international law.”
Since 1967, nothing changed. Settlements continue expanding on stolen Palestinian land — with intent to Judaize all valued historic Palestinian land.
Arabs have been and continue to be illegally and forcefully displaced to make way for exclusive Jewish development.
To its disgrace, the international community ignored flagrant Israeli breaches of international law time and again — with few exceptions to the rule.
Millions of Occupied Palestinians are among the most ruthlessly oppressed people worldwide.
It’s been this way throughout 74 years of Israeli history — a war-making gangster state, pretending to be democratic.
Like its Western counterparts, democracy as it should be in the Jewish state is abhorred and not tolerated by its ruling regimes.
A fantasy version alone exists.
The Stephen Lendman Blog 
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