Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, guest speakers
I just have arrived from Donegal where I live with my family I would like to take this opportunity to show my support and solidarity with the people effected by the continuous mica issue, they need our support,
From my home away from home, I salute all the free women and men in the world specially the Palestinians, which are still living under military occupation by the last apartheid system on the globe,
I have heard so many people say “now is not the time to talk about Palestine, Yemen, Libya or Iraq”. So many seemingly well-meaning people claim mentioning these double standards now is “what-about-ism” that is feeding into Russia’s hands.
But to that I say sorry but no – the timing actually could not be any better to talk about all and every act of military aggression, occupation and oppression around the world. Now that all the powerful Western nations, the international media and even Israel’s rulers seem to publicly denounce occupation, resistance is not only legitimate but honourable, and all victims of war should be supported, we should all start talking about Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq.
In Palestine we are still suffering from the destruction of our homes in Jerusalem and various cities. The constant bombing of residential buildings and towers in the Gaza Strip and a suffocating sea, air and land blockade imposed by the Israeli occupation, which caused a geographical separation between the two parts of the occupied Palestine “the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”, then separate the west bank towns and villages from each other by the wall of segregation.
Daily Desecrating of the places of worship by illegal settlers accompanied by heavily armed Israeli military and police Daily beatings killings of elderly women and children in front of their loved ones, using international banned substances such as depleted uranium bombs on schools and hospitals, targeting children playing football on the beach with their drones like the 3 boys in Gaza, intentional and deliberate medical negligence to political prisoners led to the deaths of many of them, also the torture and sexual assault to both men and women and children from all ages while being detained, All of the above had been documented. All of it is deemed to be war crimes and international law violations.
The prior mentioned events had started multiple hunger strikes in the past few years where some of the men had lasted over 100 days, to name a few of the hunger strikers : Hisham Abu Hawash who went on for 141 days, Ayed Fasfoos 130 days, Miqdad Kawasmi 100+ days.
Meanwhile The world was busy attacking GIGI Hadid and Amnesty international calling them antisemitic for making remarks about the injustices, inequalities that are happening to Palestinians.
We don’t have an issue with Zionists for their heritage, we have a major issue with being raped and murdered for over 70 years.
Ladies and gents in the audience I would like to bring to your attention that we have given and still willing to give everything we can for peace.
We held our end of the deal multiple times and the other side took what we had to offer and did not give back anything at all.
I would like to challenge refuse and resist the western narrative of calling our resistance as terrorists, meanwhile applaud the resistance elsewhere, for there should be no exceptions or hierarchy amongst the oppressed, the skin of colour/ religion does not dictate the intentions of ones protecting ones rights,
This bring us to the current events in Ukraine, I, like many others believe that the Zionist and Imperialists are the ones benefiting the most from the situation, the war economy would simply thrive if they were to reignite the cold war again, this is what their after, selling arms and racing to manufacture high tech missiles rockets with the ability to erase entire major cities is where they make their money, fear mongering and hate filled propaganda is the marketing campaign for these products, some of it came in this form of the “Chinese virus”, the “commie bastards”, the “japs” before that, Iranians, and finally Muslim fanatics… the list goes on and on and on.
The US administration had been waiting for this to happen patiently, as they funded a fraction of the Ukrainian military forces, who happened to be an openly neo-nazi group called Azof, to bomb shoot and terrorise the people on the Donbass region for the past 8 years .
In this past couple of weeks, we Palestinians have been shocked time and again, realising that we may be are invisible to the global community for more than half a century.
We learned that, despite what we have been experiencing in our homeland, international law does exist, and functions. States do have the capacity and the will to take action. We learned that sanctions can be used efficiently against aggressors and that sanctioning a country for its international law violations is not necessarily a racist action. We learned that civilian casualties are not just numbers but actual living, breathing people who genuinely matter. And we also learned from politicians, pundits, analysts and even our very own oppressors and occupiers, that armed resistance to occupation is not “terrorism” but a right.
Newspapers, websites and social media have been filled with stories of Ukrainian “heroism and resistance” – stories about soldiers blowing up bridges to delay the approach of Russian tanks and sacrificing themselves in the process, civilians attacking armed vehicles with whatever they have at hand.
If any of these stories took place in Palestine, Yemen or Syria rather than Ukraine they would of course not be perceived as acts of heroism – they would be classified and condemned as acts of terror”.
Throughout the past week, we also watched populations in Europe welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms. The same politicians who treated millions of refugees created by Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid at best like a Aliens and at worse like a threat to peace, delivered public speeches about the importance of providing a haven to those being pushed out of their homes by an occupying power mainly mentioning that the Ukrainians are white with blue eyes and watch Netflix.
Its probably a good time to mention that one out of three refugees in the world today is Palestinian. The right to return has been blocked by the Israeli government, they simply are destined by the Zionist movement to roam the world.
We know all these realisations were not unique to us Palestinians. I’m sure many others who have been at the receiving end of colonial and imperial violence and oppression have come to similar realisations as they watched the crisis in Ukraine unfold.
We support all peoples’ struggles for liberation. We uplift them in solidarity because we have been through the same.
But after last week’s events, and witnessing the same media organisations and politicians demonising Palestinian resistance publicly and then admitting that defending your homeland and your people is actually a good, noble thing, we understand everything is just a matter of perspective. We understand that how your actions are seen is dependent only on the identity of the aggressor you are fighting. And we do not think this is OK, but we accept it is what it is. Perhaps because we also are “relatively civilised”.
‘People who live in glass houses shouldn’t through stones’
This statement is often used when someone has faults they shouldn’t criticize others for doing the same mistakes .
Before the start of the invasion The Biden administration found grave danger when the Russian army moved within their borders, as if we don’t know that they themselves having 750 military camps in 80 countries and territories across the world. No other country in human history had such a dominant presence.
The US and NATO under the bush administration invaded Iraq under false pretences, – Saddam being a strategic existential threat to north America, the result of that is 250.000 deaths amongst innocent civilians, (the media called them collateral damage) destruction of Iraq infrastructure and stealing all the wealth and natural resources till the end of time – in the end and after all that there was no evidence of any WMDs.
Or any plans of production of such weapons.
Similar to what happened to Libya, they found Gaddafi to be a mad man and a dictator, as a result of their interference Libya is now setback by about 100 years, it’s a country split in two run by armed gangs and mercenaries, the ongoing proxy war between Turks Russian American/NATO interests, the oil rich country where people get no electricity for a couple of hours a day,
We learned that no shame, no remorse no soul, the arrogance that fills the air when they open their mouths is suffocating.
Example of that ; Trump came to power and he promised to make America great again, but instead he gifted Jerusalem to Israel and appointed an illegal settler as an ambassador in our capital Jerusalem.
They deliberately act ignorant to justify their actions,
The highest type of terrorism is military occupation yet the international society is supporting Israel with money and arms, most European countries are shy to condemn NATO, Israeli, Saudi and American atrocities around the world.
Terrorism and bravery, it seems, are interchangeable. We fight our oppressors, and we get branded terrorists.
Before I wrap up allow me to get this off my chest
Free Palestine, Syria , – Rebuild Yemen, Gaza, Libya and Afghanistan.
Thank you
