It is true that Israel operates outside the minimum standards of international and humanitarian laws, but it is the responsibility of the international community to protect Palestinians, whose lives remain precious even if Israel disagrees.
It is time that those who have paid far more attention to the Israeli narrative abandon such illusions and, for once, listen to Palestinian voices, because the truth of the victim is a wholly different story than that of the aggressor.
Whether right-wing, left-wing or center, Israel is committed to its military superiority, its racism and to the military occupation more than ever before. The sooner we accept this fact, and quit subscribing to the illusion that change in Israel will happen from within, the sooner the Palestinian people will finally achieve the justice they need and deserve.
Palestine Chronicle editor, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, delivered a speech at Casa Arabe on Thursday, as part of the Palestine Week, which was organized to commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
On the occasion of the Palestinian solidarity week in Madrid, Palestine Chronicle editor Ramzy Baroud delivered a lecture at the Universidad Complutense of the Spanish capital.
Without that genuine and engaged Palestinian intellectual, the world’s priorities will continue to gravitate towards Israeli priorities, towards US interests and their subsequent fraudulent language about ‘peace,’ security’ and such.
Though it is ultimately the people who liberate themselves, international solidarity is essential to the process of national liberation. This was the case in South Africa, and will surely be the case in Palestine, as well.
The truth is, for as long as Israel maintains its military occupation of Palestine, and as long as the Israeli military continues to see Palestinians as subjects in a mass ‘security experiment’, the Middle East—in fact, the entire world—will continue to pay the price.
From the destruction of Palestinian wells to the poisoning of trees, to the demolishing of entire ecosystems to make space for Israel’s apartheid wall, to the use of depleted uranium in its various wars against Gaza, Israel has been on an unrelenting mission to ruin Palestine’s environment in all of its manifestations.
The truth is that a thousand or a million more statements by western governments will not end the Israeli occupation, or even slow down the pace of Israeli military bulldozers as they uproot Palestinian trees, destroy homes and construct yet more illegal colonies.
The Biden Administration is proving to be but a soft facade to the same policies enacted by the Trump Administration. Only, this time, the Palestinian Authority, for self-serving reasons, does not seem to mind.
Israel continues to target Palestinians as a people, downgrades their language, dismantles their institutions and systematically destroys their culture. This is rightly referred to as cultural genocide, and it is our moral responsibility to stop it.
Speaking out for Palestine in America is no longer a charitable and rare occurrence. As the future will surely reveal, it is the “politically correct” thing to do.
In post-Abbas Palestine, Palestinians must reflect on this tragic history and, instead of aiming for easy fixes, concentrate on finding common ground beyond parties, factions, clans and privilege.
Zakaria Zubeidi is not just a single person but a whole generation of Palestinians in the West Bank who are caught up in an impossible dilemma, having to choose between a painful, but real, struggle for freedom and political compromises, which, in Zakaria’s own words, ‘have achieved nothing’.
Until Israel abandons its foolish ‘security’ fantasies, there can never be true peace in Palestine, neither for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, nor for the Israeli occupiers.
Considering the disproportionate number of Palestinian casualties which, at times, push Palestinian morgues in Gaza to full capacity, it is inconceivable what Israeli soldiers, army generals, and politicians want exactly when they speak of ‘untying their hands’.
It is obvious that what is currently taking place in Jenin is indicative of something much larger. Israel knows this, thus the exaggerated violence against the camp.
Africa is also the heart of the most powerful anti-colonial trends the world has ever known. A continent of this size, complexity, and proud history cannot be written off as if a mere ‘prize’ to be won or lost by Israel and its neocolonial friends.
Israel is now at a crossroads. It can only win back the support of US Jews if it behaves in such a way that is consistent with their moral frame of reference. Hence, it would have to end its military occupation, dismantle its apartheid regime and reverse its racist laws.
The protest in Beita is a protest for land rights, water rights and basic human rights. Bani-Shamsa and, later, Salim, were killed in cold blood simply because their protests were mere irritants to the grand design of colonial Israel.
The truth is, for us, Palestinians, the Olympics are not an ethnocentric exercise. Our relationship to it is not simply inspired by race, nationality or even religion, but by humanity itself.
By calling an ice cream company ‘terrorist’ for simply adhering to international law, Herzog has revealed the growing lack of credibility and absurdity of the official Israeli language.
As Israel continues to experiment with controlling the Palestinian population, it would be shameful if the international community continued to remain silent. This moral outrage must end.
The PA has proven to be an obstacle in the face of Palestinian freedom, with no credibility among Palestinians. It clings on to power only because of US and Israeli support
So far, Bennett has proven to be another Netanyahu. Yet, if Israel’s longest-running prime minister ultimately failed to convince Israelis of the merit of his political doctrine, Bennett’s charade is likely to be exposed much sooner, and the price, this time, is sure to be even heavier.
While the Americans and the Israelis are busy engaging in the ever-familiar ritual of ‘putting lipstick on a pig’, the Palestinians remain irrelevant in all of this, as their political aspirations continue to be discounted, and their freedom delayed.
Whatever that is, it will surely be situated within the familiar context of Netanyahu’s angry army of Israeli right-wing zealots aided and abetted by Christian fundamentalists in the US and elsewhere. He may have won America, but — for now — he has lost Israel.
It will not be easy to deconstruct the seemingly endless edifice of lies, half-truths, and intentional misrepresentations of Zionist Israeli colonialism in Palestine.
Netanyahu struggled to redeem his image. It was too late. As strange as this may sound, it was not Bennett or Lieberman who finally dethroned the ‘King of Israel’, but the Palestinians themselves.