Chambers of Commerce and civil society urged to appeal

Former MP M.M. Zuhair has appreciated SJB leader Sajith Premadasa’s recent condemnation of Israel over the massacre of Palestinians.

The following is the full text of his statement:

In the context of the serious allegations of genocide made in protest marches worldwide, including in Israel, United States and Britain as well as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the UN Secretary General repeatedly demanding immediate ceasefire, the refusal of Israel to cease fire, deserves the condemnation of all who value human life, irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or religion.

At a meeting last Thursday in Batticaloa, Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa while condemning the unceasing Israeli massacres of thousands of Palestinian civilians, named “Israel as a terrorist State” and called for an immediate ceasefire! This call is timely and will be well received by millions of Sri Lankans as the widening of the conflict in the Arab world would adversely affect the economic interests of Sri Lanka. It is time that Sri Lankan civil society and chambers of commerce joined in urging for an immediate ceasefire.

This was the second time in two months that the SJB leader called for a ceasefire and declared Israel as a terrorist State! The previous castigation of Israel occurred on 13th May, at a protest march at Liberty Circle, Kollupitiya, in Colombo, when the SJB leader named Israel as a terrorist State annihilating with impunity the Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Of course there are those who are appreciative of Israel, for selling arms and ammunitions to Sri Lanka during the 30 year war with Tamil tigers, even as Israel deceived Sri Lanka during the war by training the LTTE on how to kill the Sri Lankan soldiers, as revealed by ex-Israeli Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky in his 372 page book ‘By way of Deception’ published in the United States.

SJB’s Batticaloa declaration happened at a time when Israel’s Ambassador Naor Gilon with residence in New Delhi was in Sri Lanka. A media release by the President’s office said the Israeli Ambassador had ‘cordial discussions’ with President Ranil Wickremesinghe. President’s Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor on National Security Sagala Ratnayaka also attended the meeting but no further details of the matters discussed were revealed.

Palestine and its people have been oppressed and terrorized since 1917, when the British government, the then occupying colonial power, promised the World Zionist Federation founded in 1897, to support the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine.  Palestine belongs to the Palestinians! The British had no ownership or prescriptive rights to gift to the Zionists, a country which it had occupied by force.

For the next 31 years following the 1917 illegal and abusive British announcement, not less than five Zionist organisations, some trained and supported by British forces, infiltrated Palestine and terrorized the Palestinians to flee. Palestinians then were mostly shepherds, fishermen and farmers with no fire power to resist. According to a 1923 census, Palestine comprised 80% Arab Muslims, 11% Arab Christians and 9% Jews. In 1948 Israel became the first racist State in the world to be established through terrorism!

The UN from day one, betrayed the Palestinians by recognizing Israel as a UN member State in 1948, virtually overnight! The UN ignored its own Charter! The then Security Council became the first violator of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in December 1948 by ignoring Palestine as a recognizable State. Never did the UN SC thereafter recognize Palestine as an UN Member State! In 2012, after 64 long years, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine “Non-Member Observer State” status in the UN. Shockingly, the UN is yet to recognize Palestine as a fully- fledged member with voting rights in the UN!

Meanwhile for the past 76 years, every Israeli government continued oppressing the Palestinians to abandon their homeland. Palestine was reduced to an open prison for the owners of the land, while the foreign European Zionist settlers’ occupying force controlled all parts of Palestine.

 During the last nine months the world continues to witness live media coverage of the virtually real-time murder of over 140 Palestinian civilians every single day and the destruction by bombing Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals and even cemeteries, while the greatest land robbery of our times is taking place by the Netanyahu led terrorist State, Israel. Most of Western media outlets are incredibly misleading the world, naming the Palestinians and Gaza’s democratically elected Hamas government, resisting the Israeli aggression of their homeland, as ‘terrorists’!

The number of officially counted Palestinians murdered by the Israeli regime with the complicity of mainly the US, UK and some EU countries  exceeds 140 per day for the past nine months, without the figures for those dead under the rubbles of bombed buildings, schools and hospitals being counted! The UN Security Council has failed to stop the Israeli murders of the Palestinians but that certainly will not be the end of Palestine, with the whole world becoming pro- Hamas and pro-Palestine.”