Imagine one day sitting in your home and hearing a loud noise coming from outside, only to see a bulldozer heading in your direction, ready to demolish the place where you live. Or imagine waking up to random people occupying your home. Under normal circumstances, you would wonder what is happening and you would immediately call an emergency number.
But not in Palestine. In Palestine, where this is a reality for many families, the first reaction is to scurry about and wake up family members to collect whatever they can lay their hands on. There is nobody to protect them. There is no outside force to ensure this does not occur in the first place.
On the contrary, the Zionist settlers who have chosen a home already owned by a Palestinian family are encouraged by the IDF, standing ready to shoot anyone who objects, including children. And now with the world distracted by shifting global geopolitics, Palestinian activist Fakhri Abu Diab told the BBC: “Israel is using the geopolitical situation to finish the issue. It’s very difficult and painful and the international community has left us all alone.” How heartbreaking.
As ever, what does the world do? It “condemns” these actions. Indeed, this is the world we are living in today: A world where an Israeli soldier can kill a seven-month-old baby in a car, a world where Israeli soldiers have carte blanche to kill young children or teenagers armed with nothing but tears and in extreme cases, stones. Yes, stones. And any Palestinian who objects in pro-Zionist nations faces the threat of deportation.
What happened to a person’s right to protest peacefully, to speak out against injustice, and to speak out against a government that does everything in its power to ensure that Palestinians live in a state of constant hell? And what does the world do? It “condemns” these actions.
While prisoners are being sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons, while Palestinians are being psychologically abused and physically tortured, while olive trees are burned down, while land is stolen, while the occupier takes more and more and more, the world “condemns” these actions.
For too long, the Zionist propaganda machine has brainwashed nations and people across the globe. But what they never expected was that the truth would come out one day. The Zionists can no longer use the holocaust to justify their illegal occupation over a population who had nothing to do with the Nazi war crimes during WWII. Muslims, Christians and Jews were living in peace, side by side, in Palestine before the Zionists came along. Since their occupation, Muslims are demonized by Israeli propagandists and Palestinian Christians are being spat at as they exit churches.
But Muslims and Christians, true Muslims and Christians, have no hatred for Jews. The problem is Zionism, not Judaism. Islam and Christianity branched out from Judaism, after all. We share the same prophets. The problem, one must reiterate ad infinitum, is Zionism.
Regardless of the futile condemnations, people have woken up, and people are speaking up, even in countries once deemed arch allies of Israel. And people are exhausted. How many more headlines of Gaza, Ramallah and East Jerusalem do we have to see before people in power say: “Enough!” How much longer can we watch with our hands tied as our Palestinian brothers and sisters lament at our inaction?
The last thing the world needs is another war, but there are many ways we can support Palestine. All we have to do is use our platforms to let them know they are loved and held and supported, until those who condemn realize there is no more room for the status quo. The Zionist movement is dangerous, just like Nazism and Fascism and many other -isms which cause divisiveness and exploit those who are different. And those in power will have no choice but to finally admit who the real victims of this appalling situation are.
Supporting Palestinians is a moral duty. Greed, fear of blackmail, or supporting an evil government because the enemy of an enemy is a friend will only cause the world to burst into flames, as we are witnessing today. The time is now to free Palestine from all aggressors. And then the world will know peace. As Nelson Mandela reminded us: We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinian people. Love means standing with those oppressed. Viva l’amore!
