For over 75 years, the people of Palestine have had to live in total trauma following the Nakba. For over 100 years, they have seen their land slowly but surely taken away from them by Europeans in what remains the last vestige of the European colonial project. For over 50 years, they have had to endure the fact that their partitioned land — land promised to them by the United Nations — has been slowly but surely occupied by these colonialists.
For 20 years, Gaza was made into what the Israeli Government labelled the largest open-air prison. For almost two years the people of Gaza have had to endure the bloodiest genocide of this century perpetrated by Israel and aided by the United States, Great Britain and the European Union
During this time, during this Holocaust of the 21st Century, we have witnessed refugee camps being bombed, we have witnessed women dying during childbirth, we have witnessed children dying on operating tables for want of anesthetics and anesthesia. We have seen men, both old and young, die as they try to get food for their families. We have seen some family members mourn as they cradle their dead, all of this live-streamed on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
No one can say in all honesty that they are unaware of the tragedy ongoing in Palestine. For the past two years, despite all attempts by the mainstream media, it has been covered, despite all attempts to hide it on social media it pops up, so what can we make of the fact that this genocide continues? What are we to make of the fact that governments in the Caribbean, a region with a history, both old and recent, of fighting oppression and injustice, remain silent and in fact do deals with the people committing these genocides?
As the world slips into chaos and fascism and other far-right ideologies come to the fore, it is incumbent upon the people and the governments that represent them to stand up in the face of fascist behavior, because it will, if left unchecked, come home and harm us. All around the world, especially in Jamaica, we see people willing or turning a blind eye to oppressive tactics and the subversion of people’s fundamental human rights. The fact that these rights are being infringed and subverted by the same people who maintain an apartheid state and see no issue with using information to execute doctors, nurses, teachers and journalists should leave us a bit terrified.
The silence as hospitals are destroyed, communities levelled, starvation tactics imposed, and the general glee this elicits from Israeli society should leave us terrified and wondering why our governments are in bed with these people. People are turning a blind eye towards what’s going on in Palestine, not because they are unaware or uninformed, they may be under-informed, not knowing the intricacies, but they know enough just by seeing these images. They do not care because they are of the false belief that it will not happen over here, that the images, while unfortunate, are happening over there in a faraway place
What they need to understand is that the same thugs who are murdering babies have access to our voter information. Now, if these people have no qualms about cutting off water to a whole population, if they have no qualms about using personal information to murder dozens of people in one airstrike or to simply round up suspected resistance fighters and their families, what do we think they will do with our information or turn a blind eye to if and when the information is used by locals for nefarious reasons?
Some are genuinely concerned but are worried that they may be labelled anti-Semites, as so many have been. This fear is a real one. We have seen Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and other luminaries labelled as anti-Semitic simply for standing up for Palestine or noting that what Israel is practising is the same as what apartheid South Africa practised. This fear, though, need not hold them back as countless Jewish organisations have and continue to come out and denounce the Zionist project and the genocide being carried out. We stand with the Jews when we oppose this genocide being carried out by people who claim to represent all Jews.
As Israel slowly loses legitimacy, it is incumbent upon people who believe in justice to hold them to account for their crimes. Rather than building hotels with them, we should be looking to boycott them, sanction them and divest ourselves from Israeli companies. We should be hounding their leaders, forcing them to head to the International Criminal Court of Justice, and we should be recognizing that the Palestinian people have the right to liberation, a right which includes the use of force to attain said liberation.
Those of us who still find these images traumatic and who still believe in international justice and solidarity with oppressed people must not lose heart. We must not go quietly into the night, remaining silent as atrocities are committed. No, we must use these moments to double down, demand justice and insist that we are correct. We must work for a world where these crimes are punished and those who carry them out face justice. We must not lose heart because that is what the oppressors want, they want to grind us down so much with images of dead, dying and destroyed places and people, but if the Palestinians, those on the receiving end of these bombs and bullets, can still fight for justice and a brighter future, we who are in their camp safe from the bombs must not lose heart and keep the fight going.
Israel will go the way of apartheid South Africa; it will disappear, and a new country will take its place. This is only a matter of time; how much longer the killing will go on is dependent on the bloodthirsty Israelis, but time is not on their side. More and more countries are recognizing this for what it is: colonialism, oppression and genocide. Even allies in the EU can no longer call it anything but those. We must keep the fight going. Palestine remains the issue and will continue to be the issue until there is one state for Palestinians and Israelis to live in, from the river to the sea, just as South Africa post-apartheid became a multiracial nation.
