Israeli crackdowns on Palestinians are nothing new, this time, however, it was the holy mosque of Al-Aqsa that was desecrated in the attacks, causing thousands across the globe to come out in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Faraan: Pro-Palestine rallies are nothing new in Iran. But this year after 2 years of cancellations due to COVID, the annual Quds Day turnout was a matter of excited anticipation.
International Quds Day falls on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, during which rallies are held to keep alive the notion of resistance till the freedom of Palestine from the clutches of Zionist usurpers. Originally introduced by Iran, this year the day falls on April the 29th.
The plight of Palestine and how it started is no longer a secret to the world. It had nothing to do with the Arabs selling their land off to Europeans, who were, for all intents and purposes, Russian non Semitic Jews, as part of an old conspiracy to find European Jews a land of their own, which would serve as a Western base in the middle-east.
Towards the end of the 19th-century the creation of the Zionist movement resulted in many European Jews immigrating to Palestine. Jewish land purchase began as early as the1880s and continued until the establishment of what’s largely recognized as the State of Israel in 1948.
By 1944, the Zionists had acquired only 6% of the land in Palestine; although that’s beside the point, as private land ownership doesn’t warrant taking over the country you own land in. Despite this being a commonly held principle, this awareness hasn’t made things any better for Palestinians.
This could be put down to several factors: an increase in the US’s unjust and unfounded support for Israel, the KSA stepping in and facilitating US policy, other Arab states openly aligning with Israel; and a UN personalized by world powers with veto power. The support given by some Arab countries, I mean you cannot say that both of these two groups enjoy an authority in this game.
The US’s support can be rooted in many different things while countries such as the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, which have taken measures to normalize ties with Israel, is rooted in their desperation. The reason is that these countries are worried that they are going to lose the support of a big power called America because the US has announced that it is going to withdraw from the region.
Now, all these years, these desperate countries, which have always relied on a foreign power to keep their system of government in place, are seeking an alternative power to rely on. Palestinians have, of course, had to defend their rights and lives before a power-backed usurping force. And if that’s the actual cause of it, Israel decided to close its only crossing for Palestinian workers coming from the Gaza Strip.
This has been denounced as “collective punishment” of the impoverished territory’s two million residents who have lived under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade for nearly 15 years. It is needless to say that every now and then we hear in the news that one or two Palestinians have been killed or injured by Israeli soldiers. It doesn’t surprise anyone anymore.
But why does this killing and this conflict not end? It is because Palestinians have lost their lands to some bullies. The land of the Palestinians has been usurped and they have been deprived of their political and civil rights. This is the main story which includes all the killings and the demolition of houses. Israel has usurped their homeland and expelled them from their country. Palestine’s population is 14 million. Fifty percent of this population has been displaced.
The move to close the Gaza strip was announced on Saturday Apr 23, after the Israeli army accused Hamas, the group ruling the Gaza Strip, of firing three rockets into Israel a day earlier, as tensions have been mounting in Ramadan with the Muslim holy month coinciding with Jewish Passover, giving Jews an excuse to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque for prayer, which is forbidden for non-Muslims. The past few years have been an era of provocation, as former US president Trump, in 2017, the year of his election, simply cherry-picked Jerusalem out of the Palestinians’ garden, as the new capital of Israel.
