Only few weeks after the apology of Kevin Rudd, the newly elected Prime Minister of Australia, to the Aborigines, the indigenous inhabitants of Australia, he was party to a motion in Parliament describing Israel as a "robust democracy" and a "custodian of freedom" in a region abounding in autocracies and theocracies!
Opposition Liberal party leader Brendan Nelson said that in a region "characterized more by theocracies and autocracies, Israel is the custodian of the most powerful of human emotions – that is hopeful belief in the freedom of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly ".
All this was expressed in the aftermath of Israeli Killing of over 130 Palestinians in Gaza, 39 of them were children, and 12 women and the rest were young men in their twenties aspiring to live in peace and dignity on their own land. The question that came to mind upon reading the disappointing news of the motion in the Australian Parliament was whether Kevin Rudd and his colleagues want to wait for 200 years to apologize from the Palestinians as they apologized from the aborigines, but only when it becomes too late and almost of no value to a people and culture who have been almost completely destroyed. If the world expressed its absolute shame of the way the “stolen generations” were treated in Australia, it should be more ashamed of the “slaughtered generation” in Palestine that is being collectively punished and ethnically cleansed in the most abhorrent racist policies adopted by any state in the world, including the past apartheid regime in South African.
From Historian speaks about ethnic cleansing
A unique opportunity to hear renowned Israeli historian Dr Ilan Pappe speak about his recent book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is offered on March 29.
Pappe, whose parents fled Nazi Germany, received his doctorate at Oxford University and was senior lecturer of political science at Haifa University in Israel, academic director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva, and chair of the Emil Tourma Institute.
He is currently chair of the Department of History at the University of Exeter and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.
The controversial historian believes the only way to force Israel to end its occupation of Palestine, is to boycott his country. So last summer, his family packed their belongings and moved to Britain.
He has said he feels like public enemy number one and receives death threats by phone almost every day.
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