Israel/Palestine: current violence is rooted in oppression
Right now, the Palestinian and Israeli people and all of us with family on the ground fear the worst for our loved ones. We mourn the shattered lives of those who have already passed, and we commit now and always to a future where every life is recognized as precious and all people live in freedom and security.
After 16 years of Israeli military blockade, Palestinian fighters in Gaza launched an unprecedented assault, during which hundreds of Israelis were killed or injured, and civilians were taken hostage. The Israeli government declared war, launching airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children, and injuring thousands, bombing residential buildings, and threatening to commit war crimes against the besieged Palestinian population of the Gaza strip.
The Israeli government may have just “declared war,” but its war against the Palestinian people began more than 75 years ago. Apartheid and Israeli occupation – and US complicity in this oppression – are the source of all this violence. This is the very moment when we start the clock that shapes reality.
Over the past year, the most racist and fundamentalist far-right government in Israel’s history has — in the name of Jewish supremacy — ruthlessly and ruthlessly intensified its military occupation of Palestine: expulsions violent and house demolitions, massacres, military raids on refugee camps, relentless siege and daily humiliations. In recent weeks, Israeli forces have repeatedly stormed Jerusalem’s holiest Muslim sites.
For 16 years, the Israeli government has been suffocating the inhabitants of Gaza through a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, confining and starving two million people and denying them access to medical aid. The Israeli government regularly massacres the Gazan people; ten-year-old children living in Gaza have already been traumatized by no fewer than seven major bombing campaigns.
For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation of Palestinian land, applying an apartheid regime to the people who reside there. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds by Israeli soldiers in pre-dawn raids and detained without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinian homes are burned by crowds of Israeli settlers or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages have been emptied, with villagers forced to flee, abandoning homes, orchards and land that had belonged to their families for generations.
The bloodshed today and over the past 75 years is directly linked to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror wrought by Israeli military occupation. The US government is the major facilitator of Israeli violence and bears responsibility for the current situation. The endless flow of military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the United States enable and reinforce Israel’s apartheid regime. Those who continue to call for “unfailing” American support for the Israeli military are only paving the way for more violence.
The United States can no longer kick in. It is up to us, where we are, to end the complicity: we demand that the US government take immediate action to withdraw all military funding from Israel and to hold the Israeli government accountable for its flagrant violations of human rights and of its war crimes against the Palestinian people. We commit to intensifying our boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns to put an end to the billions of euros that corporations and private foundations pour into the Israeli war machine.
Inevitably, oppressed peoples around the world will seek – and achieve – their freedom. We all deserve liberation, security and equality. The only way to achieve this is to dry up the sources of violence, starting with the complicity of our own government.
Source: Jewish Voice for Peace
BM translation for the Palestine Media Agency
