True Solidarity with Palestine Demands Concrete Actions
In 1977, the United Nations declared 29 November to be the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In doing so, the UN conflated solidarity with Palestinians with the date of the adoption of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, a colonial resolution that contributed to creating the very reasons why Palestine solidarity is needed in the first place.
The UN Partition Plan, adopted 29 November 1947, aimed to give 56 percent of Mandatory Palestine to Zionist colonizers for a Jewish state, although they made up around 32 percent of the population of Palestine—following decades of illegal migration and implantation facilitated by the British Mandate—and owned 7 percent of the land of Palestine. Thereby, the UN, led by western colonial states, not only endorsed Zionist colonial aspirations in Palestine, but lent “Israel” international legitimacy even prior to its creation in 1948. The Partition Plan disregarded Palestinian self-determination and blatantly demanded that the Palestinian people capitulate to and approve of their own colonization. During the 1948 Nakba, Zionist militias, with the support of colonial states, executed the Partition Plan and beyond, colonizing 78 percent of Mandatory Palestine and forcibly displacing 65 percent of the Palestinian people.
The UN’s actions effectively set the stage for the years of Israeli impunity, global inaction and western colonial complicity that would follow to this day. After the signing of the Oslo Accords, partition morphed into the so-called two-state solution and the accompanying state-building paradigm, which only served to further legitimize and entrench Israeli colonial domination. Furthermore, the failure to properly address the root causes (colonization, apartheid and forced displacement and transfer) has led to the latest manifestation of Israeli colonialism: the genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This genocide is not an aberration but the continuation of the ongoing Nakba. “Israel” is a colonial-apartheid regime that, by its very nature, requires the elimination of the Palestinian people to sustain itself, as well as ensuring that colonizers maintain privileges at the expense of the native population. The international community was passively and actively liable when Zionist militias carried out massacres and displaced over 750,000 Palestinians to create “Israel”, and remains complicit as “Israel” carries out its ongoing genocide, so far killing at least 43,391 and injuring more than 102,347 Palestinians.
Furthermore, as “Israel” passes two laws banning UNRWA—the only mandated and most capable organization providing aid and support in the Gaza Strip amid a genocide—the UN and states have only responded with weak statements of concern and condemnations. Colonial states, particularly the United States, have taken no steps to end their complicity or pressure “Israel” to stop its campaign against UNRWA. Instead, they persist in reaffirming their unconditional support for the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime. States’ failure to protect UNRWA not only contributes to “Israel’s” aim to liquidate the Palestinian refugee issue, but also violates their obligations to take every practical measure to protect the Agency, and ensure its ability to fulfill its mandate, as per UNGA Resolution 194, until Palestinian refugees return.
77 years since the signing of the Plan, our demands extend beyond a symbolic day of solidarity. Real solidarity requires addressing the root causes, supporting Palestinian resistance and liberation, and ensuring the right to return and to self-determination, in order to achieve the ultimate dismantlement of the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime.
Therefore, we call on the international community—states, international organizations, including the UN, as well as non-profits and the private sector—to take decisive, concrete actions to impose a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, protect UNRWA and Palestinian refugee rights, and until the decolonization of Palestine. This includes recognizing “Israel” as a colonial-apartheid regime, providing support to the Palestinian liberation movement, and implementing the full spectrum of sanctions against “Israel”, i.e., economic, political, and military. Any other “solution” is insufficient and insulting to the Palestinian people and principles of justice.
28 November 2024
Source: badil.org