Message to Palestinian leadership: Biden is not our ally, only the people will liberate Palestine
Antony Blinken's visit to Ramallah was not welcome by the average Palestinian in Gaza. We needed a rejection of U.S. imperialism, but instead got handshakes that amounted to little more than talks between the landlords and the thieves.
PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS MEETS WITH US SECRETARY OF STATE ANTHONY BLINKEN IN THE WEST BANK CITY OF RAMALLAH ON MAY 25, 2021. (PHOTO: THAER GANAIM/APA IMAGES)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah was not welcome by the average Palestinian citizen in Gaza. What we needed from our leadership was a wholehearted demand to immediately end U.S. imperialism, but instead we got handshakes that amounted to little more than talks between the landlords and the thieves.
What is happening now in Palestine is a continuation of 1948, when Palestinians were dispossessed from our homeland which we have remained attached to since. Since then, despite violence and hardship that only gets worse on a daily basis, it has taken all means possible to express our rejection and resistance, and to achieve our mere basic human rights within the fragmented parts of our historic Palestine. And yet I can affirm, never before have the Palestinians been prouder than we are now, as we have stood as humans against the Israeli deprivation of our rights in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the unrecognized genocide in the Gaza Strip.
I am a Gaza-based Palestinian in my early 20s who is young enough to still anticipate a bright future worthy of the challenges and the sacrifice ahead, but old enough to have witnessed the different ways the occupation has dispossessed my family, and the ongoing massacres and destruction of my birthplace by Israeli F-16’s.
Over the last seven decades, the United States has itself stood, not only as an unequivocal ally of Israel, but also a significant complicit role player in the continued Israeli oppression of Palestinian land, identity, and people. The criminality of Israeli police in Jerusalem, and the Army’s attacks on Gaza, have never been clearer, and they should be held accountable by the world’s legal bodies. Because life in Palestine now is what it is because of U.S. support for Israel, the U.S. should be the first to act decisively in seeking justice and equality. Sadly, I know my hopes for American support for Palestine’s just cause against Israeli military occupation will not be met.
The recent $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States to Israel to keep on brutalizing Palestinians’ bodies, imprisoning them, and colonizing their lands non-stop, shows that the US government has Palestinian blood is on its hands. In addition, the US has also provided unwavering diplomatic impunity at an international level for Israel for its breaches and violations. This started from the early hours of the start of apartheid in Palestine 73 years ago and continues until today.
For these reasons, along with my fellow Palestinian activists, I see Blinken’s visit as a masquerade of politics and bad-faith diplomacy, attempting to break apart the long-standing Palestinian struggle and further entrench a settler-colonial and capitalist agenda that strikes at the trenches of the liberation movement wherever it is found in Palestine. Proof of this is in nothing more than the fact that even while this meeting was supposed to be in support of the ceasefire, Israel’s racially-discriminatory actions were still taking place simultaneously throughout Palestine with U.S. support for Israeli forces and settlers.
The US and Palestinian leadership: Anti-revolutionary pacifying forces
Palestinians reject the imposition of the United States as a broker for false “talks” between the colonizer and the defunct and corrupt leadership of Ramallah. We also reject any of the so-called well-intentioned efforts to allocate reconstruction money aid to Gaza which is only used to cover over the genocidal impact caused by the inhumane latest attacks on Gaza, which were supported by the U.S. in the first place.
What our leaders have to absorb is that our human suffering under continuous unprecedented fears and attacks every few years is not simply a statistic. The consequences last long, even longer than a leader might govern or dictate.
The events of recent weeks should have only strengthened the view of every lawful decision-maker in Palestine that we are not a country defined by political division or disorder or desperate actions, but rather a unified base of national resistance against the race-based discrimination and systematic policies of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid practiced by the occupier.
In reality, this country is ruled by military subjugation against protesters armed only with stones. These stones are just a small response to the brutality that has been passed down to the people from one generation to the next, made worse by the “defensive” military aid of our occupier’s allies.
Following the ceasefire, Netanyahu, commenting to the press, presented an aggressive promise with U.S. support and threatened a “very powerful response” if Gaza showed any resistance to the brutality of the Israeli government.
Blinken is in Ramallah to whitewash the recent result of this promise — the Israeli killing 254 innocent civilians, including 66 children, 39 women, 17 elderly, and 1,948 wounded. This is on top of totally devastating 576 residential units, and partially destroying 6,424 other homes. This is a vivid example of how Israel defends itself. They use Biden’s support when Palestinians are only responding back to the crimes committed against them in Gaza or the West Bank, not to mention those in exile and the diaspora.
And again, those statistics are not just numbers. Every one carries countless stories of belonging, hope, and steadfastness. All were killed due to their rejection of the occupation on their land. They were full of stories of hope, lifetimes of struggle, and were slowly driven into an exile. It was only their legitimate and moral persistence that led Israeli missiles to their soft bodies, which fell in shreds to the arms of their loved ones and families.
The United States government must end its decades-long policy as Israel’s benefactor and protector. The United States should foremost heed the Palestinians’ call, the call of its own citizens, and the millions of people of the world who have protested in support of Palestinian liberation, many of whom have been of course victims of oppression themselves.
Biden’s secretary of state’s statements were no more than lip services to us. We do not need the broken international community to restore our humanity and rights, and homeland. However, it is time for the U.S. to follow its supposed values of equality, justice, human rights, and freedom. For the U.S. to do so would mean an end to the prosecution of Palestinians that is sustained by American tax payer dollars, and instead support for the Palestinian plight to simply exist in the land of our ancestors.
Decolonizing Palestine is our people’s only duty
Years of incompetent Palestinian political dynamics has propelled the national resistance and struggle as Palestinians in all of occupied Palestine and the diaspora see that we share the same interests as one unified people: breaking the chains of the oppressor to not be suffocated under the occupation any longer.
As Palestinians only we are in control of our destiny; we have shown the world unparalleled unity and uprising while the occupation displays stupidity and aggressiveness.
I believe, stemming from my humble experience carrying out my mission of exposing the daily aggressions on my people, that liberating Palestine is the duty of its survivors, its people only.
Our officials flying around the world with our money and reputation, aiming to make the world pity and sympathize with us, is not what we consider persistent resistance. And as Palestinian citizens, threatened with tonnes of American-made, Israeli-piloted warplanes’ missiles, we don’t want anyone to pity us; — we want to be treated with humanity, justice, and liberty without being besieged by land, air, and sea.
It is so difficult to maintain this kind of perseverance across an entire population, but what pushes us along in the face of international complicity are hopeful dreams; the yearning to be laughing and bickering at the sea along every coastal city just for the sake of laughing and bickering. Like all humans elsewhere.
We are burdened by heartbreak, disappointment, and nostalgia, but this does not weaken our goal. As Palestinians, young and old alike, we are clutching our the keys to our homes and dreaming of our lands in occupied Palestine. This is the only Palestinian message that the world must learn.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah was not welcome by the average Palestinian citizen in Gaza. What we needed from our leadership was a wholehearted demand to immediately end U.S. imperialism, but instead we got handshakes that amounted to little more than talks between the landlords and the thieves.
What is happening now in Palestine is a continuation of 1948, when Palestinians were dispossessed from our homeland which we have remained attached to since. Since then, despite violence and hardship that only gets worse on a daily basis, it has taken all means possible to express our rejection and resistance, and to achieve our mere basic human rights within the fragmented parts of our historic Palestine. And yet I can affirm, never before have the Palestinians been prouder than we are now, as we have stood as humans against the Israeli deprivation of our rights in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the unrecognized genocide in the Gaza Strip.
I am a Gaza-based Palestinian in my early 20s who is young enough to still anticipate a bright future worthy of the challenges and the sacrifice ahead, but old enough to have witnessed the different ways the occupation has dispossessed my family, and the ongoing massacres and destruction of my birthplace by Israeli F-16’s.
Over the last seven decades, the United States has itself stood, not only as an unequivocal ally of Israel, but also a significant complicit role player in the continued Israeli oppression of Palestinian land, identity, and people. The criminality of Israeli police in Jerusalem, and the Army’s attacks on Gaza, have never been clearer, and they should be held accountable by the world’s legal bodies. Because life in Palestine now is what it is because of U.S. support for Israel, the U.S. should be the first to act decisively in seeking justice and equality. Sadly, I know my hopes for American support for Palestine’s just cause against Israeli military occupation will not be met.
The recent $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States to Israel to keep on brutalizing Palestinians’ bodies, imprisoning them, and colonizing their lands non-stop, shows that the US government has Palestinian blood is on its hands. In addition, the US has also provided unwavering diplomatic impunity at an international level for Israel for its breaches and violations. This started from the early hours of the start of apartheid in Palestine 73 years ago and continues until today.
For these reasons, along with my fellow Palestinian activists, I see Blinken’s visit as a masquerade of politics and bad-faith diplomacy, attempting to break apart the long-standing Palestinian struggle and further entrench a settler-colonial and capitalist agenda that strikes at the trenches of the liberation movement wherever it is found in Palestine. Proof of this is in nothing more than the fact that even while this meeting was supposed to be in support of the ceasefire, Israel’s racially-discriminatory actions were still taking place simultaneously throughout Palestine with U.S. support for Israeli forces and settlers.
The US and Palestinian leadership: Anti-revolutionary pacifying forces
Palestinians reject the imposition of the United States as a broker for false “talks” between the colonizer and the defunct and corrupt leadership of Ramallah. We also reject any of the so-called well-intentioned efforts to allocate reconstruction money aid to Gaza which is only used to cover over the genocidal impact caused by the inhumane latest attacks on Gaza, which were supported by the U.S. in the first place.
What our leaders have to absorb is that our human suffering under continuous unprecedented fears and attacks every few years is not simply a statistic. The consequences last long, even longer than a leader might govern or dictate.
The events of recent weeks should have only strengthened the view of every lawful decision-maker in Palestine that we are not a country defined by political division or disorder or desperate actions, but rather a unified base of national resistance against the race-based discrimination and systematic policies of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid practiced by the occupier.
In reality, this country is ruled by military subjugation against protesters armed only with stones. These stones are just a small response to the brutality that has been passed down to the people from one generation to the next, made worse by the “defensive” military aid of our occupier’s allies.
Following the ceasefire, Netanyahu, commenting to the press, presented an aggressive promise with U.S. support and threatened a “very powerful response” if Gaza showed any resistance to the brutality of the Israeli government.
Blinken is in Ramallah to whitewash the recent result of this promise — the Israeli killing 254 innocent civilians, including 66 children, 39 women, 17 elderly, and 1,948 wounded. This is on top of totally devastating 576 residential units, and partially destroying 6,424 other homes. This is a vivid example of how Israel defends itself. They use Biden’s support when Palestinians are only responding back to the crimes committed against them in Gaza or the West Bank, not to mention those in exile and the diaspora.
And again, those statistics are not just numbers. Every one carries countless stories of belonging, hope, and steadfastness. All were killed due to their rejection of the occupation on their land. They were full of stories of hope, lifetimes of struggle, and were slowly driven into an exile. It was only their legitimate and moral persistence that led Israeli missiles to their soft bodies, which fell in shreds to the arms of their loved ones and families.
The United States government must end its decades-long policy as Israel’s benefactor and protector. The United States should foremost heed the Palestinians’ call, the call of its own citizens, and the millions of people of the world who have protested in support of Palestinian liberation, many of whom have been of course victims of oppression themselves.
Biden’s secretary of state’s statements were no more than lip services to us. We do not need the broken international community to restore our humanity and rights, and homeland. However, it is time for the U.S. to follow its supposed values of equality, justice, human rights, and freedom. For the U.S. to do so would mean an end to the prosecution of Palestinians that is sustained by American tax payer dollars, and instead support for the Palestinian plight to simply exist in the land of our ancestors.
Decolonizing Palestine is our people’s only duty
Years of incompetent Palestinian political dynamics has propelled the national resistance and struggle as Palestinians in all of occupied Palestine and the diaspora see that we share the same interests as one unified people: breaking the chains of the oppressor to not be suffocated under the occupation any longer.
As Palestinians only we are in control of our destiny; we have shown the world unparalleled unity and uprising while the occupation displays stupidity and aggressiveness.
I believe, stemming from my humble experience carrying out my mission of exposing the daily aggressions on my people, that liberating Palestine is the duty of its survivors, its people only.
Our officials flying around the world with our money and reputation, aiming to make the world pity and sympathize with us, is not what we consider persistent resistance. And as Palestinian citizens, threatened with tonnes of American-made, Israeli-piloted warplanes’ missiles, we don’t want anyone to pity us; — we want to be treated with humanity, justice, and liberty without being besieged by land, air, and sea.
It is so difficult to maintain this kind of perseverance across an entire population, but what pushes us along in the face of international complicity are hopeful dreams; the yearning to be laughing and bickering at the sea along every coastal city just for the sake of laughing and bickering. Like all humans elsewhere.
We are burdened by heartbreak, disappointment, and nostalgia, but this does not weaken our goal. As Palestinians, young and old alike, we are clutching our the keys to our homes and dreaming of our lands in occupied Palestine. This is the only Palestinian message that the world must learn.
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