Basic collective human rights – self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity, and sovereignty without outside interference – are essential and universally legitimate.
The current situation in Gaza and Israel did not come out of the blue. Read critical background left out of breaking news alerts…
The Palestinian death toll in 2023 has risen to 28 after the latest Israeli attack on the city of Jenin. After shooting Palestinians, Israeli soldiers (as usual) blocked ambulances from tending to the injured, as well as firing tear gas at the pediatric ward of a nearby hospital.
Israeli attacks continue against Palestinians, some of whom are exercising their internationally recognized right to resist occupation. Others are ‘collateral damage.’
Two Palestinian boys, aged 11 and 15, each lost sight in an eye after being shot by Israeli soldiers. The younger one has been denied entry into Israel to receive medical care because he is a ‘security risk.’ The older boy traveled to Jordan to try to save his eye.
A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli police after he allegedly shot and killed an Israeli. The Palestinian’s refugee camp was then invaded, his home ransacked, his wife & daughter arrested, and his 8-year-old son interrogated…
Gaza has become “uninhabitable,” not because of ecological disaster or Palestinian poor stewardship of the land, but because Israel chooses to destroy it by every means – poisoning, starvation, disease, poverty, medical neglect, and invasion – while the world stands silent.
Before the birth of modern Israel, Zionist groups – newly arrived in Palestine – engaged in armed struggle against the British military, whom they labelled as “occupiers.” But now that the tables have turned (and the UN has enshrined the right of armed struggle as a vehicle of indigenous liberation) the Israeli occupation refuses to recognize the Palestinian resistance as legitimate.
Israeli military lives lost, while tragic, are sacrifices made willingly by the occupier who is fully aware that the resistance is ongoing.
Palestinians’ struggle for self-determination is a difficult, costly march; yet history teaches there is simply no other choice. Silence is surrender. To be silent is to betray all those who have come before and all those yet to follow.
The illegal Israeli occupation continues its illegal collective punishment by demolishing the home of an alleged terrorist’s family and terrorizing the entire neighborhood.
Israeli water policy is diabolical: the water table beneath the West Bank is being siphoned off by Israel and rationed to Palestinian farmers, sold at exorbitant prices; Israeli soldiers destroy water pipes and greenhouses; Israel walls off the Jordan River itself from Palestinian use; and water is piped away from refugee camps into illegal settlements.
Amid all this injustice, Palestinians carry on with patience and dignity. To exist is to resist.