Over 110 deaths in 2 weeks in Gaza and the complete destruction of all basic economic and social infrastructure. Almost 300 deaths and the destruction of all airports, main roads and bridges ensure âturning the clock back 20 yearsâ in Lebanon. This is only a glimpse on the toll that the Palestinian and Lebanese â as well the Iraqi and Afghani people â pay as Israel and the US attempt to force through their strategic plans for the Middle East, based upon colonization and oppression.
Palestine has long been a centre point of struggle for the people of the Middle East. As âdecolonisationâ gathered pace after the Second World War, Palestine was put under the claws of the Zionist movement as a âbulwark for the Westâ ensuring the region as a whole would remain subject to external influence. After more than 50 years of occupation, apartheid and expulsion, Israel hand-in-hand with Western powers, attempts to put a final blow to the resistance of the Palestinian and the Arab people against foreign dominance.
With the end of the Oslo process Palestinians made it clear they would not voluntarily accept the ghettos carved out for them by the Occupationâs Apartheid Wall. Cutting through the West Bank and around the residential areas, the path of the Wall and the fortified settler-only roads ensures the imprisonment of the Palestinian people. In Gaza an additional Wall joins that built in 1995 to enclose the people. The âfinal bordersâ of the âConvergence Planâ are supposed to run along these ghetto walls that silently destroy Palestinian lives day after day.
The bombs raining down on Gaza today are a clear message for all of our people within Palestine and those expelled in the Diaspora, that the Israeli plan for âfinal bordersâ imprisoning us on 12% of our land requires our surrender. This is to come from their bombs and our starvation. However, Gazaâs continued resistance shows that oppression and walls cannot extinguish the call for justice and freedom, and the determination of the people to struggle for it.
In Lebanon, Israel â which has not respected one of almost 100 UN resolutions, including resolution 182 which ensured its very creation – is focused on bombing the implementation of UN resolution 1559 into the country. Hezbollah shall be disarmed to make space for a weak puppet regime that follows the interests of Apartheid Israel and the US. Our refugees are to be passive and silent as the world attempts to erase their rights and existence. The attacks as well as US backing are a message to Syria and Iran that the âNew Middle Eastâ will be shaped according to the will of the US and they had better comply.
The Occupations in Iraq and in Afghanistan are clear military and political âfailuresâ costing scores of lives on a daily basis. However, the US-Israeli led western powers seem to believe that the extension and escalation of imperial aggression will subdue the people and their resistance in the Middle East.
Israelâs racist aims to further its entrenched apartheid system through ethnic cleansing are as virulent as the US dreams to control the entire Middle East.
The military machine rolls on and, in front of the daily scenes of killing and destruction, the US vetoes any UN response. The Arab âleadersâ are silent, alongside the quiet complicity of international community. It is the people who still pay the price and the people who continue resisting.
It is high time that Palestinians and our Arab nation felt the clear support of people of conscience from across the world.
Isolate Apartheid Israel!
Protest against the complicity and support to Israeli Apartheid in your countries, academies, organizations and institutions!
Stop governments from backing the war machinery in the Middle East!
Demand the immediate withdrawal of diplomatic representatives to Israel!
For updates and testimonies on the Zionist crimes in Lebanon & Gaza Strip, Click Here.