Free Palestine
Note: June 22, 2021 — I took almost a month away to work on a music video and work 50-60 hour weeks at my day job, but I’m still slowly working on this.
I’ve spent the past few days working on a somewhat comprehensive guide to Israeli Apartheid and colonialism in Palestine but in the meantime, until I finish that, I’ve put together a selection of books and documentaries on Google Drive for anyone who wishes to dive deeper than the social media infographics that Israel’s defenders continually remind us are not enough to understand such a “complex” situation.
Link: Google Drive (right click each book to download individually, for some reason Google treats epub files as folders; click the folder title at the top for a drop-down menu that will let you download a zip file of the entire collection)
The post itself is becoming somewhat of a behemoth for a simple blog post, but in the meantime these are some bullet points that I am discussing in more detail:
— Despite claims that it arises from a long, complex, ancient history of conflict between Arabs and Jews, Palestine was home to Arab Muslims, Arab Christians and Arab Jews before being colonized by the Zionists, and documents show a long history of coexistence. Tensions arose between Arab countries and Zionist settlers due to the colonization of Palestine.
— Biblical claims to the land are both misrepresented in their text and not supported by archaeological evidence. For many Zionist leaders, including the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, this was not a concern.
— Christian Zionists believe that the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel, and especially the capture of Jerusalem and establishment of a Jewish temple in place of the Al Aqsa compound, is an important component of ushering in the second coming of Christ, according to Biblical prophecy.
— This leads to evangelical support for Western imperialism in the so-called Middle East (West Asia and North Africa) and support for Israel’s strategic role as a regional ally.
— The establishment of the state of Israel was achieved through a colonial process that forced almost 800,000 Palestinians out of their homes and expropriated 78% of Palestinian land.
— Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are subject to what amounts to Israeli military rule, depriving them of both resources and equal rights under Israeli law. This has been compared to the Apartheid regime in South Africa by human rights organizations and even many of those who fought against Apartheid in South Africa.
— The notion of Israel’s right to self-defence is predicated on the notion that Israel is simply responding to violence from Palestinians, despite the precondition of daily violence under which the Palestinian people live, the illegality of the occupation under international law, the lack of actual military or advanced weaponry on the side of the Palestinians, as well as the disproportionate frequency at which Israel breaks ceasefires and kills or injures Palestinians with its airstrikes.
— On the other hand, any form of Palestinian self-defence or resistance, non-violent (BDS) or violent, is dismissed as illegitimate by Israel and its supporters, despite the right to resist occupation and colonization being enshrined in international law.
Palestinian woman confronts Israeli soldier in West Bank
