The majority of American politicians, journalists, pundits and most commentators have decided that the war between the Zionist forces and the Palestinian resistance started on October 7th 2023. Not over 76 years ago, or more.
They totally ignore the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in 1947 – 48, when 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and displaced with no chance of return to their homes and land. They also ignore the 560 towns and villages that were razed to the ground and the Palestinian inhabitants of those towns and villages either massacred or kicked out.
They totally ignore the many wars that were started by the Israelis against their Arab neighbours, that resulted in 1967 with the occupation of the entire landmass of Palestine, the Golan Heights and part of the Sinai desert and culminated in the creation of a further 350,000 Palestinian refugees.
They totally ignore the fact that the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, which promised the Palestinians peace and a free independent state yet did not produce either. They were nothing but a sham to facilitate yet more land theft, along with the inevitable theft of natural resources.
They totally ignore the fact that since this so-called ‘Peace Process’ the land that was allocated for that supposed state, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, have been visibly shrinking on a daily basis.
They totally ignore the fact that since those signatures of the Oslo Accords on the lawn on the White House, not one Palestinian has been allowed to return. On the contrary, over 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers have moved into the West Bank, making the creation of any kind of Palestinian state virtually impossible.
They totally ignore the fact of the 5 million Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation who are suffering from the worst form of Apartheid.
They totally ignore the fact that the Israeli Armed Forces go in and out of the West Bank at will – terrifying, frightening, killing and maiming and destroying everything in their path. Especially in my hometown of Jenin.
They totally ignore the Israeli Occupation Forces, sweeping in and out of Palestinian towns and villages in the middle of the night, capturing men, women and children to throw them into prisons, often using torture, with no charge or trial.
They totally ignore the fact that periodically, the fascist Israeli government confiscates swathes of Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank, establish illegal Jewish-Only settlements and fill them to the brim with belligerent, armed, far-right settlers, who continuously attack, harass and intimidate the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants as the Israeli army looks on.
They totally ignore the fact that on many occasions, including last month, the Israeli Knesset passed laws prohibiting the creation of any form of an independent Palestinian state.
They totally ignore the fact that in the last decade or so Israel has frequently attacked neighbouring Arab Sovereign states, Syria and Lebanon.
As for the tragedy of Gaza:
They totally ignore the fact that since 2005, when the Israeli Occupation Forces affected a tactical withdrawal from Gaza, they sealed it from land, air and sea and put the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza on a strictly controlled survival diet.
They totally ignore the fact that Gaza has been pummelled by the Israeli armed forces in 2008, 2012 & 2014 with thousands of Palestinians killed and maimed and their homes and infrastructure destroyed.
They totally ignore the fact that nothing could come in or out of Gaza, including the sick and infirm, without prior Israeli approval. Such approval is rarely granted.
At this very moment, I would like to invoke a segment of a speech that President Obama made to Israeli students in Tel Aviv on March 21, 2013.
“Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their home. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer.”
Yet, Mr President, occupation and expulsion has been and continues to be the modus operandi of the fascist Israeli government.
After all the above, and believe me, there is more, what are we, the Palestinians to do? Just lie down and take it?
On the 7th October last year, the resistance movement in Gaza said, “no, we will not lie down and take it anymore.”
They attacked the settlements on the periphery of their concentration camp, killing an estimated 1200 people and capturing 250 more. And all hell broke loose. It’s been 10 months of the Israeli killing machine, rampaging through Gaza, killing, at a minimum 40,000 people, mostly women and children, destroying 80% of the infrastructure of Gaza and making 1.5 million Gazans homeless. And the carnage continues.
What do those American politicians, journalists, pundits and commentators do? In unison, singing from the same old hymn sheet, “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
The Palestinians have no rights at all.
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Haganah Militia. He lived in London for 53 years before coming to Perth two years ago. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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