CONTEXT
To fully understand the ongoing situation in Gaza, one has to understand the decades of oppression Palestinians have gone through. Beginning in 1917, the British government promised a “Jewish National Home” on Arab land in the Balfour Declaration. Following World War II and the Holocaust, the UN released a Partition Plan that would divide Palestine’s land into 56% belonging to the Jewish population and only 42% to Arab land. At the time the Jewish population was about 33% with many of them being recent immigrants while the Muslim and Christian population was the majority and indigenous to the land. The 1947 UN Partition Plan led to what we know now as the 1948 Nakba. Approximately 250,00-350,000 Palestinians were displaced and dozens were killed by Zionist militias during this time. May 15, 1948 is noted as the day Israel was established but is also a day of remembering the Nakba.
As the years have gone by, Israel has invaded Palestine through more brutal measures. In 1967, Israel took control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In 2007, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas attempted to take over Gaza. The following year, Israel broadened its sanctions and completely sealed off the Gaza strip. In 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 67/19 which gave Palestine the status of a non-member observer State in the UN, officially taking away the voices of Palestinians on the international stage. That same year Israel launched an 8-day military operation on Gaza. In 2014, Israel once again attacked the Gaza strip in one of the worst assaults since 1967. These constant attacks on Palestinian people demonstrate that Israel, along with the support of major powers, have been destabilizing Palestine for more than a hundred years.
October 7 was not the beginning of the Israel-Hamas “conflict”. What we are seeing today is a genocide against Palestinians that has been going on for years.
OCTOBER 7
On October 7, Hamas, a political and militant movement in the Gaza Strip, launched an attack on Israel for the first time in decades. 3,000 rockets were launched into Israel and Hamas was able to breach the Gaza-Israel barrier and attack military bases and civilians. Major countries immediately called this an act of terrorism. However, many people did not state that the root cause of this attack was to demand an end to Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip, the blockade, the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements, and the rise of violence against Palestinians on their own land.
GAZA
Since October 7, Israel has committed atrocities all over the Gaza strip with the approval of major global parties. There have been entire families wiped out from the registry since October 7, meaning that no person from that family has survived. Not a child, parent, aunt, uncle, or anybody. Roughly half of Gaza’s population is under 18 and since the Israeli attacks, children have had to face extreme acts of violence, famine, and even amputations without anesthesia due to limited resources.
People in Gaza are fleeing their homes and are forced to live in refugee camps where diseases are rampant. Minimal aid is able to enter Gaza as Israel controls everything that gets through the area. On multiple occasions, Israel has told Palestinians to flee areas through specific routes only to bomb those exact roads. When aid is allowed in, violence follows shortly after. There have been numerous cases where people trying to access food trucks have been injured by Israeli attacks targeting the trucks, with one of the deadliest events being called the “Flour Bag Massacre”. Israel has even gone so far as to bomb hospitals and kidnap and kill journalists, acts that are considered international war crimes.
Since the beginning of the attacks, Israel has pushed Palestinians further and further south and today most people in Gaza are in Rafah city. Israel has told civilians they would be safe in Rafah, but instead, Palestinians have continuously been attacked with nowhere else to go.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH GAZA
Yemen and Egypt have tried to help Gaza but have not been successful as Israel has control over Gaza’s borders and has the funding from global powers to “defend” themselves against anyone trying to help Gaza. Despite Yemen’s turbulent ongoing conflicts, they have done everything in their power to get on the offensive and stop Israel’s attacks, including blocking ships from entering Israel.
Since the attacks, people all over the world have called for a permanent ceasefire. Not only to stop the current attacks but to stop Israeli control of the Gaza strip and West Bank. Others who know the full history of Palestine, are asking for Palestinians to have their land back. South Africa experienced its own apartheid not too long ago so it makes sense that they would be the country to stand up for Gaza on the international stage. Yet, this isn’t the first time the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gets involved with Palestine. In 2004 they issued an Advisory Opinion regarding the legality of constructing the wall on Occupied Palestinian Territory.
U.S. INVOLVEMENT
Despite the U.S. constantly telling its citizens that there is not enough money for student debt cancellation, there seems to always just be enough money to fund or support Israel. Biden has even gone so far as to bypass congressional approval to ensure that Israel and Ukraine receive U.S. funding for more weapons.
However, now that elections are coming up there is suddenly an influx of money and resources ready to send to Gaza. The Biden administration is aware that there is a large number of uncommitted voters because of the administration’s lack of action to call for a ceasefire. In the recent primaries, hundreds of thousands people voted uncommitted, left their ballot blank, or wrote in a protest vote instead of voting for Biden. As a way to compensate, Biden only recently approved to send humanitarian aid by dropping it in the air into Gaza. This is merely the first attempt the U.S. has tried to be on the right side of history and only in attempt to say that the U.S. is not complicit in genocide. Some of the aid not only ended up going into the ocean but it killed five people amongst injuring others.
An important question to ask in this situation is “why is the U.S. even supporting Israel?”. The simple answer is for economics, trade routes, and more power in international politics. Israel has the support and funding of some of the world’s largest powers because of the access to oil and the geographical location of Palestine that would allow for easier trade routes. The U.S. has a long history of meddling in Arab land, which includes Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and more, which means the U.S. having control over Israel would give them easier access to these countries.
While these are obvious reasons for the U.S. being involved in genocide, there is another layer of connection between Palestine and the U.S. When we think of walls in the U.S. we instinctively think of the southern border here but the walls in Palestine trapping Palestinians are also U.S. funded. Israel also trains U.S. Border Patrol on how to operate the surveillance we use to surveil migrants at the border; also called the Pegasus Program, is also the same used to surveil Palestinian’s every move. There is a reason why both of these areas in the world are regarded as an open-air prison.
On top of the funding that goes into these systems of oppression there are also major companies profiting from the tragedy occurring in Palestine. For example, the same companies funding the genocide in Palestine are the same ones profiting off of prison labor in the U.S. This had led everyday consumers to boycott the targeted brands on the Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) list. Some of the top companies targeted have been Starbucks, McDonalds, and Disney. While not all of them were on the targeted BDS list, there has been proof of them financially supporting Israel in one way or another. As more people learned about the tragedies occurring in Palestine, the more their profits dropped.
CONCLUSION
While it is disheartening to hear tragic news of Palestine everyday, we have a moral duty to not look away. Journalists like Bisan remind us that fighting for Palestine means fighting for our very own freedom. Hamza, a man imprisoned in California, recently donated all of his savings to the Palestinian cause. Aaron Bushnell, an active duty soldier committed the ultimate act of solidarity by igniting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Bisan, Hamza, and Aaron are extreme examples of solidarity but there is always something we can all do. You can attend a local protest, donate to Palestinian causes, call your legislators, support palestinian businesses, and continue talking about Palestine’s history. It is up to us to fight oppression in any manner we can, no matter where it is occurring.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
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