Nelson Mandela wrote, “If the oppressor uses violence, the oppressed have no response but to respond violently.”
A system of apartheid is an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination by one racial group over another. Palestine has been under brutal Israeli military apartheid since the late 1940s. Under this system, Israel controls every aspect of Palestine’s autonomy and enacts multiple measures to ensure this system of oppression.
Through the construction of settlements in the West Bank and the total expansion of control in the occupied territories, Israel is exerting control over Palestinian land and resources, displacing and ethnically cleansing its people. This is colonialism at its finest. And it’s no surprise that a colonizer would be backed by other colonizers, specifically the United States, which has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid; from FY2019 – FY2028, they pledged to give $38 billion of military aid to Israel.
The Zionist movement constructed one of the most complex and successful settler-colonial states, the State of Israel. The State of Israel was brutally birthed in 1948 – Palestinians describe what happened after the 1948 war with Zionist forces as Nakba (catastrophe). The Nakba was a turning point for the Palestinian people, as 12 million people were displaced and ethnically cleansed as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel. Zionist settler colonialism is based on the logic of “eliminating the native” and failing to utterly marginalize and “minoritize” them. The mere presence of Palestinians on their own land is an obstacle to this goal.
They have enforced movement restrictions on Palestinians in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) by imposing a land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, restricting the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza. Their homes are regularly bombed, and their land has been systemically stolen. They are denied access to essential services such as healthcare, education, food, clean water and electricity. They have no military, navy or army to defend themselves against brutal attacks from land, sea and air. Most of all, they have no right in their own land and are being ethnically cleansed and slaughtered. Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison, where 1.5 million people are living under what the UN Human Rights Commissioner described as “catastrophic” conditions. Make no mistake: Palestinians are experiencing genocide.
The oppression of Palestinians culminated on Oct. 7 when Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that has ruled since 2007, entered Israel and launched an attack with rockets, triggering a chain of events that killed more than 1,300 people. In response, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a barrage of airstrikes on Gaza, vowing to wipe Hamas “off the face of the Earth.” Israel has cut off Gaza from food, water and fuel. The death toll in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has reached 2,383 Palestinians dead and 10,814 injured. The brutalization of bodies and the death of civilians on both sides is a travesty, but we must acknowledge the context behind the situation. Palestine was entering its stolen lands, which were unlawfully occupied during the Nakba. The violence of the colonizer is never comparable to the violence of the colonized; when the colonizers use violence, it is a part of an oppressive structure that is maintains its dominance and control over the colonized. They are asserting their power over people they have already taken all the power from. The violence of the colonized is resistance – fighting for their right to live freely and wholly on the land that is theirs. It is unfair and unjust to ask those who have been persecuted to not fight for autonomy over their land and their very beings. These are things we should demand from those in power, from the colonizer, from the State of Israel. We cannot expect Palestinians to sit back and watch as they are being horrifically slaughtered.
Free Palestine.
“I have a million nightingales / On the branches of my heart / Singing the song of liberation.” Mahmoud Darwish: ‘Defiance’
These articles are rediculous and rooted in antisemitism, UConn has really fell off tbh, just a liberal extremist institution at this point. The Palestinians are run literally by Hamas which is the exact same thing as ISIS.
There is nothing in this article that equates to antisemitism, yes it’s highlighting the atrocities of Jewish state on Palestinian people, if you equate apartheid to antisemitism you really need to educate yourself and put yourself in the Palestinian shoes