On October 7th of this year, we watched in awe at the bravery and daring of Palestinian resistance fighters as they burst through the physical and metaphorical barriers surrounding them and ventured into the belly of the beast, taking on the Zionists deep inside the land they thought secure.
However, contrary to what Western media outlets would have you believe, the conflict did not begin that day, nor even this year. It is only the latest, the most daring, and the most successful, in a long series of acts of resistance to colonial settlement in Palestine, stretching back over a century. The facts will be known to many of you.
As with so many other oppressed nations throughout the world, the people of Palestine came upon the British, who in 1920, and with the blessing of the other world powers, added yet another group of people, and their lands, to an ever-expanding empire. The British vision and their affinity towards Zionism can be summed up in comments from a British former governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs, when he said that Zionist settlement of Palestine “for[med] for England ‘a little loyal Jewish Ulster’ in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.
Subsequently, it was within this entity that the genocidal Jewish supremacists we know as Zionists would begin to forge their own colonial creation. Not content with settling a foreign land, these colonists, overwhelmingly from Europe and the US, set about ethnically cleansing the local population with the goal of creating a Jewish State for Jewish people. When they turned against their British masters, the administration was quite happy to leave without too much resistance. These settlers would after all, serve their purpose.
The Nakba of 1948, saw more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, about half of the population, flee due to fears of Zionist violence or due to expulsion by terrorist militias. Approximately 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and many others faced a campaign of biological warfare, with village wells being poisoned to prevent the return of refugees. In areas which came under Zionist control, almost all trace of Palestinian culture was erased and replaced with that of the colonisers.
And so, for more than 75 years, aided and abetted by Western regimes Zionist settlers have illegally occupied Arab lands in Palestine and we find ourselves on the streets yet again, once more opposing Zionist attempts to finish what they started not so long ago.
It should not need to be said to any right-thinking person, because it is such an obvious statement, that Palestine has the right to resist this illegal occupation. If the history of the Zionist project in attempting to erase a people and culture is not justification enough for this resistance, myriad United Nations resolutions and International Law have repeatedly confirmed the right of all peoples to self-determination and the right to determine their own future. The fact that the western allies of ‘Israel’ on the UN Security Council (UNSC) did not veto these resolutions, many of them explicitly regarding Palestine, shows how extreme the Zionist position is.
Multiple UNSC resolutions through the years have repeatedly confirmed that Zionist settlements in the Occupied West Bank, in the Gaza Strip and in the Golan Heights are illegal. Again, to all reasonable people this would be unnecessary to point out. The apartheid system of settlements in these occupied territories rivals the most extreme examples throughout history.
A few examples:
- The ‘Jewish State’ bill, passed in 2018 allows the establishment of towns in Zionist occupied Palestine where residency can be restricted by religion or by nationality. It would be perfectly legal to prevent someone from living in such a town simply because they were not Jewish.
- In 2009, it was found that despite making up only 15% of the population of the West Bank, settlers were given access to over 80% of the fresh water in the region. A report by the French Parliament confirmed this 3 years later when it found that 450,000 Zionist settlers were using more water than more than 2.3 million Palestinians, and added that these settlers were deliberately destroying wells, reservoirs, and water purification plants in a disturbing echo of the events of 1948.
Which brings us to the aftermath of the events of October 7th, 2023. Zionist officials have put forward a version of events that would be hard to swallow had it been the stuff of fiction, because most of it was. In the days after the initial attacks, lurid stories began to be circulated of babies being beheaded by fighters, women being raped and civilians being massacred at concerts. As predicted at the time, these accusations were fabricated in order to gain the support of western governments and their more gullible citizens and unfortunately it worked. An initial death toll of more than 1,400 civilians was later revised to 1,200, most of whom turned out to be either active in the ‘Israeli’ military or reservists. Evidence has since emerged that the IDF themselves were responsible for the death of many civilians in their eagerness to kill Palestinian fighters.
The Zionist response has been nothing short of genocidal. As of the 2nd of December, at least 15,207 people have been killed, more than 70% of whom have been women and children. At least 40,000 people have injured in a campaign of indiscriminate carpet bombing that has wiped from the face of the earth entire neighbourhoods in densely populated cities. These attacks are aimed at forcing all people from the Gaza strip to neighbouring Arab states, in an attempt to finish what was started more than 75 years ago.
Yet inexplicably, in Ireland, much of the discourse coming from supposedly pro-Palestinian organisations and political parties has been on seeking a ceasefire between the Palestinian resistance and the Zionist occupiers. It is clear from all evidence that what Palestine needs is not a ceasefire, however much it may be welcomed as a temporary respite. It is certainly not for us here in the West to dictate to them what they should want or need. They tell us themselves what they need, and that is an end to the occupation and colonialism, not just of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but of the entirety of Palestine.
Outside of the minds of Western diplomats, and those who would fall for Zionist propaganda, there can be no talk of a two-state solution. The only result of such an outcome would be to permanently enshrine the illegal occupation of Palestine in law. We have seen the impact of dividing a nation in two here at home. For over 100 years the effects of partition in Ireland have been well documented and experienced by our communities. We know what it is to experience occupation. Given the disaster that partition in Ireland has been, it is surprising that erstwhile revolutionaries and supposedly pro-Palestinian activists would so passionately call for a partitionist solution in the context of Palestine. As our own experiences have shown us, a two-state scenario, far from ending resistance, would only sow the seeds of even greater backlash against those who helped to bring about a permanent occupation.
Lasair Dhearg has in all this time been making our position clear. There can be no compromise with imperialism here or abroad. The fight for national liberation in Palestine is a fight shared with those of us around the world who value the right of all peoples to self-determination and statehood, and freedom from occupation. “In our thousands and in our millions, we are all Palestinians.” The onus is on all of us who truly support the Palestinian right to statehood to support those who would resist any attempt to occupy their lands. We must call for a one-state solution, that of Palestine. From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with a capital at Al-Quds. Only then can we say that Palestine is free.
