Tags
Britain, France, Gaza, Gaza Genocide, Genocide, Israel, palestine, Palestinian State, politics, Western Imperialism
The catastrophic situation of the people in Gaza, which was unbelievably horrific long time ago, is getting ever worse. After two years of mass killing every day, the ruthless destruction of all the essentials for human existence, the systematic blatant violation of all human values and humanitarian laws, finally, much too late, all international “observers” and “experts” agree that what is going on in Gaza is Genocide, Forced Starvation and Ethnic Cleansing. The genocide in Gaza is live-streamed to the whole world, thanks to the effort of thousands of Palestinian journalists and activists, who put their lives in immediate danger, confronting Israel’s systematic killing of whoever tells the truth to the world. Humanity is shocked by the relentless cruelty and horrors.
Something should be done… The only thing that should be done NOW is stopping the genocide, ensuring free access to humanitarian aid, and complete and unconditional withdrawal of Israel’s genocidal occupation army from the whole of Gaza. Every human being with a minimum of conscience knows that.
To stop the genocide, we, humanity, should change the equation that makes this genocide possible. All possible pressure should be applied against the Israeli war machine (and all of Israel is part of this war machine) and against its master and prime supporter, the United States of North America. Only practical steps that would make the cost of eternal war crimes too heavy might force them to stop.
The pressure on the western imperialist powers that participate actively in the genocide, by supporting the Israeli war-crime machine in all practical ways, militarily, economically and politically, is accumulating. So, they also felt that they should do something. Of course, their first instinctive response was to oppress the local public and silence voices supporting Palestine. They use the mainstream media and social networks to cover Israel’s war crimes and vilify Palestinian resistance. But their attempts at distortion of reality can work only so far.
The last thing that those accomplices to the genocide would agree to do is stop supporting Israel. So, today, some of the most prominent of them found a new way to divert attention from their crimes by officially recognizing “the state of Palestine”. This recognition is somehow a symbolic victory for the Palestinians. When the issue of recognizing Palestine was before the British parliament, in 2014, I supported it as a small step forward. I still support the recognition itself, as it puts the recognizers a step farther from Israel’s position. But this formal recognition of a state that does not exist is absurdly meaningless in the face of the all-out onslaught against the very real Palestinian people on the ground, which they are doing nothing to stop.
Symbolic Steps
The recognition of Palestinian statehood is just the latest of mostly meaningless symbolic steps that were adopted by western powers as lip service to Palestinian rights, while they systematically support Israel’s war crimes and enforce its impunity. They use microscopic tweezers to identify “violent settlers” and enact symbolic toothless sanctions against them, ignoring the fact that their violence was never possible without the active support of the occupation army. The distinction of a few “violent settlers” is used to distract from the fact that all the settlements on occupied lands are illegal, violent and part of the criminal policy of ethnic cleansing. To say nothing about the much wider massive terrorizing of the Palestinian population by the army itself, guided by the Israeli apartheid regime and sanctioned by its racist courts.
Similarly, they denounce “far right extremists” in the Israeli government, and threaten more toothless steps against them, as preventing them from visiting Europe. By this distinction they ignore the fact that all the Israeli government and state apparatus, including all the Zionist opposition, are willful participants in all the war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank, all around the Middle East and beyond.
By formally recognizing “the State of Palestine”, the advocates of “the two sate solution” want to legitimize the occupation and ethnic cleansing of 78% of Palestine in 1948, and to deny the majority of the Palestinian refugees, who were uprooted in the ’48 Nakba, the right of return. But the hypocrite western powers do not even mean to recognize an extremely limited “right of self-determination” of the Palestinian people, even not over the 22% of the land of Palestine that was occupied by Israel in 1967. Instead, they support the “right” of Israel to continue to dictate occupation-friendly leadership of the Palestinians. They recognize the totally bankrupt Palestinian authority that was built to serve the interest of the occupation against its own people. They even demand from it farther steps to be adjust itself to the liking of the occupiers. The Zionist rulers of Britain, France, Canada and Australia proud themselves that they suggest the best way to get rid of Hammas – as if the crime of resisting the occupation is the major problem, and they are outdoing Bibi in fighting it.
Yet, with all its fake symbolism, the formal recognition of Palestinian statehood is a retreat of these western imperialist powers, under the pressure of humanity and the people in their countries, to another trench, from which they intend to continue to defend the colonialist Zionist movement and support its crimes against the Palestinian people. The fact that they had to retreat from their traditional positions shows that our pressure is working. It also exposes the isolation of the US and Israel in their stubborn aggressive positions. It is a hard won and well deserved, so mostly symbolic, prize for a hundred years long struggle, and for the infinite suffering and resilience of the last two years.
The real change would not come through the good will of these hypocrite old-world imperialists. The real change would come by the people of the region, when they will gain real independence and unite to take control of their lives and interests. The imperialist powers support Israel as its excessive violence allows them to subdue and exploit the whole region. Till now the region’s rulers don’t see any option but to beg to the favors of their old colonial rulers. The heroic struggles in Palestine, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere shows that the people can take their fate in their own hands.
Free Haifa 