Today the most liberal regimes in the world, those of the advanced Western countries, are typically liberal democracies. Today liberalism is almost invariably coupled with democracy. Liberal democracy is generally understood to be a system of government in which people consent to their rulers, and rulers legally have to respect individual rights. Do liberal democracies respect human rights in the whole world without racial discrimination? What stance have liberal democrat governments taken in response to the occupation of Palestine by Zionists?
Claims of liberal democracy
Liberal democracy is every day throughout most of the developed world. At a minimum, liberal democracy has the following characteristics :
- Widespread political participation by adult citizens, including minority groups that include racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic, and economic minorities;
- Secret ballots and frequent regular elections;
- Broad freedom of individuals to form and support political parties, with each party free to present its views and form a government;
- Governments that can alter, interpret, and enforce laws to suit (within limits) the majority’s preferences;
- Adequate guarantees of individual and minority rights, especially in areas such as freedom of speech, press, conscience, religion, assembly;
- Limited governmental powers
Liberal democracy in Britain and the United States
Liberal democracy owes its origins to particular philosophic doctrines and constitutional developments, mainly in Britain and the US. According to Britannica, Liberal Democrats was a British political party in 1988. It is a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The Liberal Democrats won only 6 per cent of the popular vote in elections to the European Parliament in June 1989. They trailed badly in national opinion polls.
Role of Britain in the occupation of Palestine
In 1917, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. The British had also promised Arab nationalists that a united Arab country would result if the Ottoman Turks were defeated. In 1920, Britain assumed responsibility for Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate. During the next two decades, over 100,000 Jews entered the country. During this period, the British Army’s operations in Palestine were mainly directed against militant Arab groups. Arabs were against the mass Jewish immigration. (National Army Museum).
The situation in the Middle East after the Balfour Declaration was all in the mutual interests of the Zionists and the British. The British first used the Arab force to defeat the Ottoman government. They deceived the Arabs and promised independence from the Ottoman government. The allied forces defeated the Ottoman government. The new country of Turkey, which was built on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, was limited to Asia Minor. The countries Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine emerged due to this disintegration.
The Allies divided the newly independent countries among themselves under the pretext of paving the way for the countries to assume government positions themselves. The Allies put each country under the leadership of a European country. Palestine became under the supervision of Britain.
Britain did not pave the way for the Palestinians to form a government. It set the stage for the migration of the Jews of the world to Palestine. They provided weapons for the Jews and somehow evacuated Palestine. They equipped the Jews with guns and facilities and left the Palestinians. Britains suddenly announced that they would evacuate Palestine on May 15, 1948. That was the beginning of the Zionists’ occupation of Palestine.
Zionism-Palestine conflict
According to Aljazeera, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories. The territories included the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip. The state of Israel also seized the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
In the 1967 War, Israel delivered the “Naksa” to the neighbouring Arab countries and Palestinians’ armies. The “Naksa means setback or defeat. Palestinians lost all that remained of their homeland. The Naksa was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process. The process entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The Zionist-Palestinian conflict dates back to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan. The plan sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War. The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced.
Oppression in Palestine
Since the occupation of Palestine, there has been oppressive behaviour toward the Palestinian people. According to the UN News, Michael Lynk says a profoundly discriminatory legal and political system in the Palestinian territory. The system privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements. These illegal settlements are in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Michael Lynk is the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian occupied territory.
Mr Link said that more than three million Palestinians live under an oppressive rule of institutional discrimination. They don’t have a path to an actual Palestinian state that the world has long promised is their right. Another two million Palestinians live in Gaza, regularly described as an ‘open-air prison. The Palestinian people in Gaza do not have adequate access to power, water or health. They have a collapsing economy. They cannot freely travel to the rest of Palestine or the outside world.
Israel so intentionally prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another. Mr Link added that for more than 40 years, the UN Security Council and General Assembly have stated in hundreds of resolutions that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful. They have said that Israel’s construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements is illegal. They have emphasized that Israel’s denial of Palestinian self-determination is against international law.
Issue of Palestine and liberal democracy
Palestine (Zionists’ occupation of Palestine) is the scandal of western democracy. The trade makes all western democratic action and thought open to criticism and accusation. The work shows that liberal democracy is not a doctrine of universal freedom but a means to justify dominance. If ‘universal’ values do not apply to everyone, they are cultural biases. Democratic values and rights are off-limits to Palestinians. Thus western democracy is open to the charge that its ‘freedoms’ are a prejudice. Its freedoms are a means by which the robust chain the weak. Palestine is thus the litmus test of western democracy and its advocates, a test that they currently fail (Aljazeera).
To sum up, liberal democracies ignore the oppression and cruelties against Palestinians. Instead of helping Palestinians to protect their rights, they help Zionists by occupying Palestinian lands! Zionists’ occupation of Palestine is a stain on the history of liberal democracies.
