The conflict in Palestine has nothing to do with the perceptions of common sense and public opinion, which aim to reduce its dimension of libertarian struggle to a supposed “religious war” or “terrorism”. Those are the justifications used to refer to the effort of the Palestinian resistance to get rid of the oppression of the Zionist apartheid.
At the end of 2019, my book, Palestina: do mito da terra prometida à terra da resistência (Palestine: From the myth of the promised land to the land of resistance) was released. The book demonstrates that the historical and political issues of the conflict, which have lasted almost a hundred years, do not result from a political-religious dispute between Jews and Palestinians.
I demonstrate in the book that the conflict is part of a world context that evolved from the emergence of international Zionism. Zionism is a right-wing, Jewish nationalist movement created in nineteenth-century Europe that began to claim Palestine as a territory to establish a Jewish state – a theocratic aberration that materialized with the founding of “Israel” in May 1948.
Zionists and their apologists use all media and internet resources with their social networks to concretize this narrative and achieve their goal of creating a “smokescreen” on the relentless quest to eliminate the Palestinian people and their long history.
The “national home for the Jews” intended by the Zionists in 1897, or the purely Jewish state, is a strategy that includes the expansion of Jewish settlements and the consequent ethnic cleansing. This movement began in 1948 after the United Nations (UN) divided secular Palestine into two states and later provided the conditions for the creation of a “state” without borders, constitution, government, and nation.
The UN is responsible for the political means and the international endorsement of the Zionist colonial project, promoting the conditions that allowed the emergence of this monster that adopts all forms of violations, racism and genocide in Palestine and throughout the Middle East. Israeli leaders did not accept and respect the terms of Resolution 181/1947, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian state and gave special status to the holy city of Jerusalem.
After the founding of “Israel” in 1948, the Zionist terrorist militias unleashed the occupation of Palestinian lands and houses through the expulsion and physical annihilation of their owners. This event was known as the Nakba, an Arabic word for the tragedy that intensified with the so-called Six-Day War, a terrorist aggression by Israeli forces that took place between 5 and 10 June 1967 and occupied the Gaza Strip, the Sinai (Egypt), and the Golan Heights (Syria).
The main goal of the Jewish supremacy colonial project is the complete uprooting and destruction of Palestine for the exclusive benefit of the Jews. Such a project aims to recognize the State of Israel throughout the territory of historical Palestine without defined borders and in permanent expansion, transforming what is left of Palestine into small islands of land as if it were a mini-state – pulverized, surrounded, and suffocated by the occupier on all sides.
What Israel has been doing over the past 73 years is to contradict and violate international law by adopting a militarist, expansionist and colonialist policy in the Palestinian territories and the occupation of territories in neighboring Arab countries (Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon).
It is notorious that the aggressor has been Israel, which carried out asymmetric attacks against Gaza and the forces of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in 2008/2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, and in May of this year. Israel does this as a way to legitimize the occupation, illegally expanding the territory of the so-called “Jewish State”. Meanwhile, destroying the infrastructure of Gaza and creating chaos aimed at weakening the Palestinian resistance that has been fighting for 73 years for rights, dignity, and existence.
One of the best definitions of where the stalemate situation is heading, and to where this torrent will flow, was given by writer Ilan Pappé, an Israeli hated by the Zionists, who defends the idea that the only reasonable regime seems to be a democratic and secular state for all the inhabitants of Palestine. If such a solution is not found, the storm on Israel’s borders will increase with an even greater force.
According to Pappé in the article, “The two-state solution died a decade ago”, the Israelis may occupy the best cabin on the Titanic, but the ship continues to sink anyway. This is because everywhere in the Arab world, people and resistance movements are looking for ways to change archaic regimes and oppressive political realities. That day will also come for Israel.
There is an evident growth of Israel’s unpopularity around the world. The streets of several cities in different countries are frequent stages for demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause and outright repudiation of the Zionist apartheid actions. At the same time, the actions of international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), which launched an inquiry to investigate the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Gaza Strip, are positive steps for the Palestinian cause.
These are important actions in favor of the legitimate rights of Palestinians. However, all forces that defend justice and respect for international law must demand their countries, and especially the UN, to help put an end to the Israeli colonial occupation so that Palestinians can live with dignity in their ancestral land of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital.
For the Palestinian people who have struggled for so many centuries against occupations, it does not matter how long the Jewish supremacist apartheid remains in their land because the Zionists will be defeated, even with all the military apparatus and US support that “Israel” possesses. Palestinians stand with truth and justice.
Palestinians have an overwhelming desire to respect their most legitimate rights. They will fight until their rights are guaranteed by democracy, international law and justice, and until there is a promise of the refugees’ right of return, compensation, and permanence of all in the Palestinian land.
By Sayid Marcos Tenório
