Once again the Israelis have unleashed their firepower on the people of Gaza. As was the case in the ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the Israeli war on Gaza in 2008-09, the current onslaught is once again based on falsehood and propaganda. The Israeli fascist leadership is desperately trying to convince the world that they are only protecting their citizens from terrorist attacks. But the world has seen through the lies and Nazi Israel stands exposed.
Gaza stands as a testimony to the apartheid character of the Israeli state. It is for this very reason that the UN Resolution 3379 (1974) had equated ‘Zionism with racism’ and still stands true.
In this day and age, Gaza is a Nazi Concentration Camp and the 1.6 million dense population is basically living in a prison camp, with all their land borders (barring the Rafah crossing), sea and air, under the control of the Israeli army. The Israeli forces continuously bomb them with missiles and aerial attacks and when the resistance retaliates out of desperation, then the Israeli scream ‘wolf’ and immediately the global Zionist corporate controlled media goes into action and reports that Israel has been attacked. But Israel has played this game once too often and thus anti-Israeli protests have broken out across the world.
The current conflagration stems from the assassination of Ahmed Al Jabari (14/11/12), head of the military wing of Hamas. In fact, it was precisely Mr. Jabari who was negotiating a long term ceasefire with Israel, but was assassinated a few hours after he received the final draft proposal for the truce that he was committed to. He had also successfully negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit.
The assassination itself would have taken Israeli intelligence months to plan and execute, thus this war, like the earlier one, was planned months ahead. It was for this very reason that in the last six months we have seen that the Israelis have become more brazen in their daily attacks on Gaza, so as to provoke a reaction and thus provide the pretext for an invasion. The settlements too continue to grow across the West Bank and Jerusalem in face of and opposition to international opinion.
The Zionist attacks on the Muslim and Christian holy sites, namely the Al Aqsa Masjid, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, have also increased in their fanatical intensity. Therefore it has been clear that Israel is provoking the crisis to the extent possible, so as to lead to a war-like situation
Thus in our estimation, the current Israeli war on Gaza, namely ‘Operation Pillar of Defence’ is being waged to achieve the following political objectives.
i) To further polarise the electorate towards the extreme right and ensure the victory of the Likud-led alliance. Thus for Fuhrer Netanyahu and his extremist ally, the horrific Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu), the war is about winning the elections scheduled for January 2013. Both Netanyahu and Lieberman represent the anti-peace camp in Israel and are committed to the total ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians from all of historic Palestine.
ii) The targeting of the UN statehood vote is slated for 29th November 2012. Both Israel and the US have targeted the Palestinian leadership with adverse consequences if they persist with the UN vote. That a war situation further weakens the resolve of the Palestinians is the US-Israeli strategy.
iii) The limited war in Gaza could engulf the entire region and draw in the US-Nato alliance to target the rising tide of the Arab democratic uprising as well as Iran.
But the Israeli design will be thwarted once again. All over the world Israeli embassies are being besieged and the truth is beginning to come to the fore. The Gazan population continues to resolutely resist, despite all the odds. As were the earlier wars in Lebanon (2006) or in Gaza (2008-09), Israel will be defeated by the popular mass resistance.
We also condemn US President Obama, as well as the US Senate and Congress for once again extending their support to the Israeli aggression. President Obama and his administration continue to be led and dominated by the Zionist Lobby.
It is truly a matter of national shame that a land that has given birth to great leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Maulana Azad and Bhagat Singh, is silent in the face of Israeli and USA war crimes. It is also an insult to the memory of Chairman Yasser Arafat and the trust and the friendship that he bestowed on India.
We thus condemn the silence of the Indian Government, who has yet to condemn the attack on Gaza. Once again we wish to warn the government about the threat that Zionist lobby poses to India’s sovereignty and security. We must thus learn from the experiences of the growing opposition in the west to the Zionist lobbies. Also on a matter of principle, India must boycott Apartheid Zionist Israel, as we did Apartheid Afrikaner South Africa.
We thus appeal to Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Mr. Salman Khurshid to immediately issue a public statement condemning the Israeli attack and offer our support and solidarity to the Palestinian nation.
This decade will witness great shifts in the global balance of power and the Israel-US led Western imperial alliance is on the wane. As did Afrikaner South Africa, so will Apartheid Israel collapse under the weight of its own ideological contradictions and it’s only a matter of time.
As Indians who were all part of the first collective ‘Asian Convoy to Gaza’ (2010-11) and yet again the ‘Global march to Jerusalem-Asian Convoy’, we have witnessed the brutalities of the Israeli siege of Gaza. We thus reiterate our solidarity with the Palestinian nation and endorse their core demands, namely:
i) The establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
ii) The ‘Right of Return’ of the Palestinian Refugees.
iii) The End to the Settlements.
iv) Release of all the Palestinian prisoners.
v) Dismantling of the hideous ‘Apartheid Wall’ and the Checkpoints.
vi) Stop the policy of targeted assassinations of the Palestinian leadership.
vii) And last, but not the least – ‘End the Siege of Gaza’.
It is clear for all to see that the Israeli leadership is not committed to a peaceful solution to the occupation of Palestine, which is the central geopolitical crisis of our times. There exist simple solutions based on UN Resolutions and International law to which the Palestinian leadership and the people are committed. They are willing to accept both a ‘Two-State solution’ based on the 1967 borders, to include East Jerusalem (which constitute only 22% of historic Palestine and a great compromise) and are also willing for a ‘One-State’ solution, whereby both Palestinians and Jews live together in a single democratic country as equal citizens. Thus on the part of the Palestinians the will to resolve the crisis clearly exists. But it is clearly lacking among the fascist Nazi Israeli leadership and decreasingly among a racist Israeli society.
Till then the courageous Palestinian nation, the vanguard of the international resistance will continue to valiantly resist. Today the Palestine Solidarity Movement is the most popular global struggle ever in the history of humanity and encompasses practically every nation on earth. Palestine is the weakest link in the chain of imperialist contradictions and when Palestine is free, the world will be free. Till then, we must continue to globalise the resistance, globalise the intifada.
[Feroze Mithiborwala is a peace activist in Mumbai. He led the Asia to Gaza peace flotilla. Kishore Jagtap is a Mumbai-based human rights and social activist.]