Palestine On Our Lips (RvsR)

Once again, Palestine is on our lips, and Gaza pierces our hearts. The Zionist State of Israel has intensified its acts of extermination against the Palestinian population over the last few weeks and, in Nablus, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, Palestinians have been indiscriminately pursued, detained, and assaulted. In Gaza, the Israeli bombardment has been relentless, and has intentionally targeted the Palestinian people with its criminal attacks. It is clear that Israeli Zionism is a conscious crime against human beings of a different ethnicity. Just like Nazism, it is a crime against life that, in every sense, is an act of genocide.

 

We know all too well what has been happening in Palestine for decades. For those who don’t, just imagine a child walking through the street with their father and then suddenly being surrounded by Israeli soldiers who shoot at them for no apparent reason (apart from the fact that they are Palestinians). Imagine that the father tries to protect his son from the bullets but that the bullets reach his child. The father’s powerlessness forces him to cry out in pain as he stands over the lifeless body of his young son.

 

The child has a name: Muhammad al-Durrah. And so does the father: Yamal Al-Dura.

 

Now let’s imagine a primary school with a young girl inside. She studies hard and attentively, but the class is interrupted by the bullet of an Israeli soldier, which flies into her head. This act was no accident. It was on purpose. And this girl also had a name: Raghda Alassar.

 

And finally, let’s imagine a boy is going to visit his grandfather, who lives around five minutes away. There’s no apparent danger – neither Israeli tanks nor soldiers are in view. He hurries, but falls near a market. There were snipers in the area. His mother soon finds out, but doesn’t believe he’s dead, though his body lays motionless and he has bullets in his groin and chest. Yet again, this boy had a name: Munir al-Daqas. And so does his mother: Kifah.

 

In the last few days, the names of the following girls and boys killed by the Israeli Army in Gaza have been released: Seraj Ayad Abed al-A’al (8), Mohammed Ayman Ashour (15), Hussein Yousef Kawareh (13), Bassim Salim Kawareh (10), Mousa Habib (16), Ahmad Na’el Mehdi (16), Dunia Mehdi Hamad (16), Amir Areef (13), Mohammed Malkiyeh (1½), Ibrahim Masri (14), Mohammed Khalaf al-Nawasra (4 – who arrived at the hospital “in pieces”), Nidal Khalaf al-Nawasra and Ranim Jawde Abdel Ghafour (unknown ages), Maryam Atieh Muhammad al-Arja (11), Abdullah Ramadán Abu Ghazzal (5), and Yasmin Mohammed al-Mutawwaq (4). And this number continues to grow on a daily basis.

 

The Zionist State of Israel feels no remorse. It is conscious of its crimes, and accepts that children are among the dead. The hatred it feels towards “the other” is so strong that it believes they also had to die. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachen Begin captured the essence of this merciless, ethnic Zionism when he said: “We are gods on this planet. We are different from inferior races just as they are different from insects… Other races are like human excrement. Our destiny is to govern our inferiors”.

 

The Palestinian people, however, who affront the Israeli State with their mere existence, remind it that no human has supremacy over another – and that no people have supremacy over another. In the face of humiliation, they show dignity. And in the face of hatred, disdain, and death, they show life, resistance and, just like our Zapatista comrades, Dignified Rage.

 

So from Mexico (and the numerous corners of Mexico where the “Network against Repression and In Favour of Solidarity” is found), we express our solidarity with the dignified Palestinian people. We unite our Dignified Rage with yours, and our voice speaks with outrage alongside yours. We feel the pain in Palestine and Gaza, and we shout from our territory, against Zionism: “Palestine Will Resist!”

 

July 2014 – Network against Repression and In Favour of Solidarity (RvsR)

 

Translated and adapted by Oso Sabio from an article originally written in Spanish at: http://www.redcontralarepresion.org/leer.php?id=896 and http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2014/07/16/rvsr-palestina-en-nuestros-labios/

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