Palestine

It strikes me that Israel is the biggest PR machine in the world. There is no event that there are not contradictions of, arguments of who fired the first shot, choice terminology, history being rapidly rewritten in the moments after any number of incidents. I sat at a dinner table once where it was argued that the Palestinians had no grounds to begrudge the creation of the state of Israel as they had been offered their own share of land. Firstly I have yet to understand how you can be offered a share of your own land, that you have constructed a society, livelihood and heritage upon. Secondly, there seems to be a version of events that the Jewish state was declared in light of the UN resolution proposing borders creating 3 distinct areas and then they were attacked. This is typical turning of the tables to create false facts, victims and recriminations. What is omitted from history was the ongoing dispossession of up to 300, 000 non-Jews off their land ever before the UN agreement. Under the guise of the UN Partition Plan, seemingly compliant with international opinion, Zionists had in fact seized land beyond the proposed Jewish state. They had begun an offensive , never intending to comply with the UN plan and have continued to this day to violate international law by illegally occupying land beyond what is the Jewish state. It was only after this continued assault, not before, that Arab states moved to defend the Palestinian people.

From the very beginning there have been concerted efforts to maximize the enlargement of the territory and efforts to this day continue, construed currently in thinly veiled (for those who care to see at least) effort to defeat terrorism, all in the effort to stretch Israel to the full extent of Palestine, guided by God, at the extent of innocent lives. There is a refusal to negotiate, ongoing destruction of human rights by blockading access to basic provisions that is working towards creating ‘The Land of Israel’.

Violating numerous UN protected rights and the Geneva Convention, the Israeli government today continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land while also constructing a wall over 700km long, denying Palestinians access to schools, hospitals, worplaces and agricultural land. Even prior to construction of the wall, policies of collective punishment, enforcing curfews, demolishing houses were used by the only democracy in the Middle East to achieve their great end. The Israeli government is responsible for the murder of over 4,400 Palestinians including more than 800 children alone and the refusal of the rightful return to land creating the largest group of refugees on the planet.

To be anti-Israel is fashionable; it seems to be a de rigueur rite of passage for college students of a certain disposition to embrace the Palestinian cause without knowing the extent of the harm and violations taking place. This seeming ‘popularity’ of the cause and earnest pleas of those who are aware of the extent of the atrocities the world is turning a blind eye to, is a launching pad for a few who like to dismiss and undermine the already suffocated Palestinian perspective. We already have the most powerful lobby group in the United States, the United States government, governments who like to frown but take no action (are you listening members of the Dail?) and a government who put a farcical anti-terror sheen on their daily acts of terror making up an impenetrable block of resistance to addressing the suffering of Palestinian people. Don’t be the type to take a view to buck a trend, examine the trends in the deteriorating conditions of Palestinian people, these are to be bucked, these are to be gasped at when we realize they are the work of a government our own delegation only sits a few seats away from in the UN. The Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, held their National Demonstration against the illegal occupation on Saturday, raising the very valid point that we must act to support Palestine, and we could for example boycott Israeli goods in the same way we did to imports from South Africa in the 1980s ending their Apartheid. Visit their website at www.ipsc.ie