But the ‘Free Free Palestine’ movement will march on to end occupation – with or without Hamas
Large swathes of occupied Palestine territory (OPT) have been reduced to rubble and nearly 18,000 people have been killed in Gaza. Many were innocent children and women.
The punishment meted out was collective and disproportionate but the UN Security Council could not call a ceasefire because the US vetoed the resolution on 8 December 2023. Many more innocent children will die.
As if the misery inflicted on defenceless Gazans was not enough, the US is fast-tracking the delivery of 14,000 tank rounds to kill and maim more civilians and destroy their homes.
The carnage in OPT is arguably the lowest point in the conscience of the humanity since the holocaust. Ironically, in this instance Israel is the real perpetrator of the crimes albeit Hamas triggered the recent conflict with an attack on Israel including the atrocities against civilians, which of course deserves condemnation.
The litany of Israel’s wrongdoing is extensive: it continues to build illegal settlements; arms settlers; uses the army to protect the settlers; uses administrative detention to arbitrarily lock up Palestinians (including children) indefinitely without charge; confiscates private land; suffocates the Palestinian trade and economy; installs fences and checkpoints; separates family members; demolishes dwellings; assaults women and children; shoots at Palestinian demonstrators protesting against occupation; restricts supply of water to Palestinians; bombs the civilian population; and much more.
The State of Israel resembles a vampire squid on the face of Palestine with blood funnels strategically plugged to the vital organs. Masquerading as a victim itself, Israel is slowly but surely snuffing out life in OPT.
Like other colonised people in bygone days, Palestinians are resisting Israeli occupation. Hamas’s cross border incursion on 7 October 2023 can therefore be more usefully seen in the context of the fight for freedom from the brutal coloniser– Israel.
The whole world needs to know that Palestinians are the real victims in this conflict although the Israeli narrative falsely portrays the Jewish state as a victim.
Sadly, the mainstream Australian media has accepted the Israeli narrative which characterises Palestinians as “them” – barbaric and violence-prone people who have spurned Israel’s peace offers out of hate.
Israel’s settlement building program in OPT demonstrates clearly that it has no intention of allowing the Palestinians to establish a viable and independent state.
The Australian medias’ reporting avoids any reference to the root cause of the conflict – colonisation – and views Palestinian resistance and their freedom fighters through the lens of violence and terrorism.
Thanks to the social media, the world is able to see the atrocities committed by Israeli army in OPT first hand. Hence, a less edifying Israeli morality and ethics have come to light than what its propaganda machine have us believe.
Israel conflates criticism of the State of Israel and antisemitism and on that basis its supporters have attempted the styme free speech of the suppressed Palestinians and their sympathisers.
“From the river to the sea,” an innocuous protest slogan, has been branded as antisemitic by certain media and political commentators. Pressure is being imposed on ordinary citizens to desist from expressing their solidarity with the Free Palestine Movement.
Possession of a Palestinian flag and/or keffiyeh is being frowned upon as is boycott of Israeli product from OPT. Censorship and restraints are being imposed on the gentile!
The nub of the problem is that most Israeli Jews simply refuse to contemplate the possibility of acknowledging the victimhood of the oppressed Palestinians, who have been derogatively called “sub-humans”.
To do so means facing up to the historical injustice committed by Israel, from its ethnic cleansing of the country’s indigenous people in 1948 to the lie of “a land without a people for a people without a land.”
What Palestinians are demanding through their resistance movements, including the likes of Hamas, is for them to be recognized as the victims of ongoing crimes consciously perpetrated by Israel against them and the right to live with freedom and dignity like the rest of us.
Atonement for crime is a prerequisite for a durable peace between Israel and Palestinian. For Israeli Jews to accept this would naturally mean losing their own status of victimhood and the sympathies that they have built around the globe based on a false narrative.
Ms Jenna Price, a Jew and Visiting Fellow at ANU has put the blame for the ongoing carnage in Gaza on Netanyahu and his right-wing Government. “But Israelis keep electing deranged right-wing populists, and some of them on more than one occasion” as mentioned by Ms Price in the recent Age Publication. America who is the main benefactor for Israel is allowing Netanyahu run circles around American Middle East Policy and most of their potential or actual political leaders are guilty of fawning compliance to Zionists whims and fancies. Yes Ms Price did touch on the difference of a Jew and a Zionist. Sadly anti-semitism has risen the world over compromising the safety of the Jewish people, thanks to Zionist’s bloody-mindedness and American partisanship.