Tag: colonialism

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Zionists will always call us antisemitic by Nicki Kattoura

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If we recognize that these Zionist accusations cannot be appeased, why do we continue to respond to baseless, racist accusations?

The year 2023 is on track to be the deadliest in Palestine, with over 200 Palestinians having been murdered by Israel since the end of August. The United Nations has declared that the Gaza Strip has been uninhabitable since 2020. Last year Israel committed a war crime by assassinating journalist Shireen Abu Akleh when she was covering a raid at the Jenin refugee camp. A year later they raided that same refugee camp killing over 12 people, including three minors. 

Israel has been forcing Palestinians to destroy their own homes and then charging them demolition fees. Recently, a story dropped that 16 Israeli soldiers beat up and branded a Star of David on a Palestinian man’s face. Ceaseless violence, a ruthless military occupation and ongoing genocide are the daily reality for Palestinians.

No matter how many times I highlight these atrocities or how often I have written and rewritten these above sentences, the dominating discourse remains being about responding to accusations of antisemitism, so I am disengaging, and I urge you to disengage as well.

Continue reading at https://www.workers.org/2023/09/73683/

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Why ‘Israeli hummus’ infuriates Palestinians on Honi Soit

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As Israel’s government has been descending into straight-up fascism (far-right nationalist sentiment founded in Jewish supremacy which has been the very basis of the Zionist project from the beginning), it is abhorrent to be celebrating Israeli “culture” founded on the theft and appropriation of Palestinian thaqafa. In the past 8 months, Palestinians have faced the deadliest attempt of systematic genocide since the UN began reporting on Palestinian deaths in 2008. Palestinians don’t get the luxury of resting — both in Palestine and across the diaspora — instead we are constantly re-traumatised by news of raids, evictions, home demolitions, and assassinations of our freedom fighters. One of the only spaces where we can feel a sense of pride is through our culture — our thobes which are carefully embroidered with oral histories through the practice of tatreez, our dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance signifying celebration at weddings, and our hummus which is a simple dip that was able to unite the Levant (or before British & French divisions, balaad al shaam). 

Continue reading at http://honisoit.com/2023/09/why-israeli-hummus-infuriates-palestinians/

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Letters to Editor: Debating the Terms “Arab World” and “Arab Country” on Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

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Ida Audeh’s response: Gregory DeSylva seems to equate Jewish nationalism/Zionism with references to the Arab world (and use of the term “Arab country”). There is no basis for comparing the two. The former is a discredited supremacist 19th century ideology forged in another continent that can only be maintained through repeated acts of genocide and erasure, as Israel’s 75-year history demonstrates; the latter acknowledges an obvious reality, that Palestinians are part of a region. Because we are indigenous to the region, we have connections to other people in the region; we share history, culture and Arabic as a first language. Historic Palestine is located in the Arab world, a geography that Israelis often refer to as “a dangerous neighborhood,” in the way that colonizers tend to belittle the geographies they descend on. With predatory aspirations, their disdain for their surroundings is a clear indicator that they are alien to it. 

Continue reading at https://www.wrmea.org/2023-august/september/letters-to-the-editor-praise-for-fida-jiryis-stranger-in-my-own-land.html

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After settler pogroms, even worse genocidal violence to come by Maureen Clare Murphy

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That was also the plea from Lafi Adeeb, the mayor of Turmus Aya, after settlers set fire to more than 30 homes in the town, attempting to burn families alive.

“This is genocide, this is a war against us. Settlers carrying weapons and canisters full of fuel attack our small village and set fire to houses over the heads of their inhabitants,” Adeeb told the publication Middle East Eye.

“The attack was large and organized, with full protection and coordination with the Israeli army, which is working against us and protecting them,” Adeeb added.

Continue reading at https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/after-settler-pogroms-even-worse-genocidal-violence-come

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Against Normalisation of Israel: Webinar with Omar Barghouti and Tali Shapiro on Jewish Network for Palestine

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“So when we talk about anti-normalization, it’s not an intellectual exercise. People-families, children, parents- with lives, dreams, hopes, and aspirations- just like each and every one of you- their lives are at the end of every action we take when Israel is in question. There is no way to disentangle a colonized people from the regime that has propped itself on top of them. Any policy, any action, any transaction that Israel makes- economic, cultural,  academic- is at the expense of Palestinian lives and existence as a people. Because the colonial goal is the elimination of the indigenous identity so that the colonists may claim the place and its history. And by erasing the people, erasing the the sin of their erasure. This, of course is an oxymoron. But logic never stopped a genocide, sanctions do. “ (40:17)

“I have not said anything about the hundreds of thousands of Israelis protesting the government and the number of times they use ‘fascsist’… in the last couple of months, I’ve never seen the F-word being used so much  in the Israaeli media, it’s unbelievable. Of course it’ll be an extremely difficult period for Palestinians, as we’re seeing from Huwara onwards. It’s the first time that Israeli ministers openly support genocide. I mean all of them do. From the most liberal, who have committed acts that can qualify as possibly genocide- Rabin and Peres, you know, the Peaceniks. (Ben Gvir is much better than them, he has not yet committed any acts of massive ethnic cleansing; Rabin and Peres have.) So all of them agree, but now we have ministers openly saying things that everyone had hidden before.” (1:28:32)

Continue watching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFl5abYmjOk&t=9s

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UN experts say Israel should be held accountable for acts of ‘domicide’ by United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner

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The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.

… “The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.

… “Direct attacks on the Palestinian people’s homes, schools, livelihoods and water sources are nothing but Israel’s attempts to curtail the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to threaten their very existence,” the experts said.

… The experts have repeatedly raised concerns with the Government of Israel on these issues. No response has been received to date.

Continue reading at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/02/un-experts-say-israel-should-be-held-accountable-acts-domicide

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Israeli Apartheid: Tool of Zionist Settler Colonialism by Rania Muhareb, Elizabeth Rghebi, Pearce Clancy, Joseph Schechla, Nada Awad, and Maha Abdallah for Al-Haq

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While discussions on Israeli apartheid have become increasingly mainstream over the last three or more years, some aspects of Palestinians’ decades long mobilisation against Israeli apartheid remain absent or insufficiently
addressed in the current discourse. For some, apartheid has materialised only recently due to what is perceived as increasingly repressive Israeli government practices or the entrenchment of Israel’s prolonged military occupation since 1967. What this approach misses is a more structural understanding of Israeli apartheid as an inevitable outcome of settler colonialism in Palestine and the Zionist movement’s policy to eliminate the
indigenous Palestinian people through removal from the land. (p. 32)

… As of the time of writing, the year 2022 has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2005, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Since 1948, Israeli authorities have systematically resorted to lethal and other excessive force against Palestinians, targeting Palestinian lives, bodies, and livelihoods throughout historic Palestine. The denial to Palestinians of their right to
life has been integral to the Zionist settler colonial project and is part and parcel of its ‘logic of elimination’ of Palestinians. Israel’s widespread and systematic violation of the right to life of Palestinians has been a pillar of
its establishment and maintenance of an apartheid regime since 1948. Arbitrary deprivations of Palestinian life serve to create a repressive environment designed to undermine the exercise by the Palestinian people
of their collective rights. (p. 122)

Continue reading at https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2022/11/29/israeli-apartheid-webversion-1-page-view-option-01-1669748323.pdf

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Reassessing the British Mandate in Palestine: The Contribution of the British Mandate in Realising the Urban Dimension of Herzl’s Plan by Maha Samman on Institute for Palestine Studies

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“During the British Mandate the purchase of land in Palestine and the Jewish migration in groups increased, and continued until the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948. It paved the way for many other detailed ideas, plans and implementation through different means, including extensive use of military power and violence. 
I will talk briefly about Jerusalem now. As you know, several planning schemes were proposed, starting with Mclean 1918 [plan], and then the 1919 Patrick Geddes [plan], and the 1922 [plan], the 1930 [plan], and ending by the Henry Kendal’s 1944 [plan]. Despite some differences, all have proposed the development and the proposals for networks of roads in the western side of the city, concentrated open spaces, public parks; and restricted areas in the eastern part of the city. Outside old city walls the urban patterns that developed were diverse and influenced by the the centralized planning approach. Lands were bought by Jewish organisations and urban ideas designed by architects influenced by the modern European movement rapidly developed. A trend clearly called for in the Hertzel pamphlet. For Geddes, Jerusalem was an integral part of Jewish heritage, and developing plans to protect this heritage was of ought most importance… Crookston emphasises that planners were Jewish immigrants- and most planning staff in district commissions- employees already were Jewish, not Arab. This again shows the binary of making the Zionist dream a reality while making Palestinian reality a nightmare towards elimination… And if we look at  Jerusalem today, we see how these plans influenced planning with Israeli settlements.. the play with “ideal ideas” to achieve power, domination, and control within a colonial context, to use the urban dimension within the British and the Zionist spheres, until the British [retreated] and announced the Zionist state.”  [59:45]

Continue reading at https://www.facebook.com/palstudies/videos/856657845367093/

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From Mexico to Palestine: Resisting militarisation through transnational solidarity by Erick Viramonte

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The fighting companion from Palestine, linked resistance against Israeli colonialism with resistance against militarisation, especially in southern Mexico. He asserted that “Palestine is our future here in Mexico too, because it combines neoliberalism, colonialism, apartheid, corruption, war, crime, all in the name of law and order for some people against others.” He emphasised common trends in both cases, such as the divisive policies that underlined violence against compatriots, genocide, land appropriation, dispossession, advancement of mega-projects that bring crime, drugs and prostitution, and the instalment of fear among the population to sustain militarisation.

Continue reading at https://english.alaraby.co.uk/opinion/resisting-militarisation-mexico-palestine

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Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna by Ghada Sasa

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This article provides a comprehensive overview of Israeli green colonialism, denoting the apartheid state’s misappropriation of environmentalism to eliminate the Indigenous people of Palestine and usurp its resources. I focus on the violence of ‘protected areas’, encompassing national parks, forests, and nature reserves. This article argues that Israel primarily establishes them to (1) justify land grab; (2) prevent the return of Palestinian refugees; (3) dehistoricise, Judaise, and Europeanise Palestine, erasing Palestinian identity and suppressing resistance to Israeli oppression; and (4) greenwash its apartheid image… Israel’s genocidal aims are advanced by its dehistoricisation of Palestine – utilising protected areas – manifesting in the erosion of Palestinian identity and resistance to Israeli oppression (Abu-Sitta, 2011; Gandolfo, 2017: 196)…  

Continue watching at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02633957221122366