On Monday evening, 15th September, Israel launched its all-out military assault on Gaza City. Marco Rubio is here in Jerusalem and has given Netanyahu Trump's approval and blessing for destroying a city of a million people. Many Palestinian residents have fled or are fleeing. The fact that have been forcibly driven out of their city without adequate provisions for their well-being in their supposed place of refuge -- they are fleeing, after all, to Israeli-controlled concentration camps overwhelmed with starvation, injuries, trauma, fear, violence and death -- constitutes yet another in a long list of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. At least 300,000 Palestinians remain as the Israeli troops, tanks and fleets of massive Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers are at this moment entering the city. Intensive carpet-bombing has commenced from the air.
We all feel as helpless and powerless as we do outraged. There seems to be little we, the people, can do to influence our governments which continue to support Israel militarily, economically and diplomatically, led by a uncaring, transactional American government that lends Netanyahu's criminal regime all the support and protection it needs. The UN Security Council is paralyzed by the American veto; the EU by such pro-Israel stalwarts as Germany, Hungary, Austria, the Balkan states and Italy. While the International Criminal Court is in the process of trying Israel for “plausible genocide” (albeit at a tortuously slow pace) and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, they both lack any enforcement powers.
We must redouble our efforts to resist Israeli criminality, colonization, urbicide and genocide. Our grassroots efforts -- speaking out at every opportunity, campaigning, lobbying, BDS, physical resistance, rallies and encampments, challenging our political leaders wherever we can find them, holding to account the media and our religious leaders -- are having their effect, albeit too slow to save the people of Gaza. Today Netanyahu appeared on Israeli TV to explain that Israel is entering a period of isolation and, in order to survive, will have to reduce its living standards and become a "super-Sparta." From "a light to the nations" to a super-Sparta: this is the degree to which Zionism has degraded Jewish life, culture and values.
ICAHD, the Israel-based, anti-colonial organization dedicated to resisting the Judaizing of Palestine and building a shared democracy in historic Palestine that I head, will continue to fight violent Zionist colonization as we have the past 28 years. We welcome collaboration with all you, organizations, activists, experts and concerned people.
And in this most difficult and tragic moment, we wish the Global Sumud Flotilla a safe journey into Gaza. Me especially, having been on board the Free Gaza, one of two boats that succeeded in breaking the Israeli siege by sailing into Gaza in 2008.
In solidarity tonight with the people of Gaza City. I can't imagine the terror they are experiencing. And in solidarity with all the people of Gaza and the besieged West Bank. Free Palestine!
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