According to Fisk, about 3 million Palestinian refugees will never have the opportunity to return to their homes. Their villages have turned into Israeli villages.
By
Linda Christanty
·5 minutes read
Some people think that the conflict between Palestine and Israel cannot be resolved until the end of time. This presumption deceives us into supporting an ongoing conflict and turning a blind eye to the occupation of Palestine.
There are also people who plot to lead us to become accomplices to war criminals and criminals against humanity in believing that Palestine was previously no one's territory so that we will agree to replace the words "annexation" and "occupation" with the phrase "settlement development". Land grabbing, in this phrase, is equivalent to land clearing. The expulsion of the people is likened to the clearing of the bush.
A wave of Palestinian refugees entered a number of Arab countries prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, which was achieved through the support of the United States and the Soviet Union at the United Nations General Assembly.
Robert Fisk, a British journalist, interviewed Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who fled their homeland in 1948, the year the state of Israel was established in the Palestinian territories. One of the refugees, Shakr Yasin, showed Fisk the keys to the rusty front door of his parents and the lime orchard deed that had been bequeathed to him. Yasin was only five years old when his parents took him away from Zionist colonialism. Yasin's fate was similar to the father of US supermodel, Bella Hadid.
According to Fisk, about 3 million Palestinian refugees will never have the opportunity to return to their homes. Their villages have turned into Israeli villages. Their houses have changed owners. Palestinians who remain in their country face ostracism, surveillance, reconnaissance, curfews, restrictions on movement, starvation, plunder, evictions, murders, bombings, rapes, massacres and the abolition of the Arabic language.
Peace talks were held several times to stop Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories but did not produce results in favor of the occupied nation. The Oslo Accords on 20 August, 1993, disappointed the Palestinians the most because Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, did not fight for the rights of refugees to be included in the agreement, so Palestine was increasingly being deprived of its land. Arafat was criticized for his softening attitude toward the aggressors; he was even considered under Israeli control and that of Israel's protector, the US.
The uncompromising freedom fighters were then dubbed "terrorists", "Islamic terrorists" or "Islamic radicals".
After the occupation of the Palestinian territories, the stigmatization of Islam and Arabs strengthened. Fisk helped us find the cause. He wrote in his book, The Great War for Civilization, that the uncompromising resistance carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad or Pan Islamism has given Palestine a glimmer of hope, even making Israel recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian nation for various negotiations. The uncompromising freedom fighters were then dubbed "terrorists", "Islamic terrorists" or "Islamic radicals".
When interviewed by David Barsamian on KGNU radio in 2001, Edward Said said people had to distinguish between the actions of the Palestinians fighting the Israeli occupation and the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the US. Even though then-New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani said he was not fighting Islam, the truth was, according to Said, “Americans now feel that they are at war with Islam.” Islam was called a terrorist religion and Islamophobia spread all over the world. Said was an American scholar of Palestinian descent, a staunch defender of Palestine and a Catholic.
There are also those who consider the occupation and annexation of Palestine a divine right given by God to Israel. However, remember Abraham's 1st Mitzvah: “Leave Ur-Kasdim (Mesopotamia), emigrate to Cana'an (Palestine).” Palestine at that time was occupied territory, not empty land for Israel.
In 1967, the UN Security Council passed Resolution No. 242, which urged Israel to withdraw all troops from the Arab lands it occupied, including the three Palestinian territories, namely the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. This resolution maintained that a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary, namely a sovereign Palestinian state and the state of Israel. However, the resolution has continued to be violated by Israel since it was passed. Earlier this year it was the turn of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, located in East Jerusalem, to be evicted from their homes, while the settlements of more than 200,000 Israelis in East Jerusalem were protected by armed soldiers and police. Settlers in all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories violate the Fourth Geneva Convention. Violation of the convention is a war crime.
The agreement must be interpreted to say that Palestinian independence cannot be delayed any longer.
Two years ago, the US-sponsored Abraham Agreement was signed by Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. The agreement must be interpreted to say that Palestinian independence cannot be delayed any longer.
Of course, I support a two-state solution, namely a sovereign Palestinian state and the state of Israel. To implement this solution, the construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories by Israel must be stopped forever. The relentless settlement building is a cunning strategy to ensure that when Palestinian independence is unstoppable, the territories will be claimed as part of the state of Israel. This conflict also sets a bad example for leaders in the world. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, for example, stated that he would openly make Ukraine like Israel, a state of terror, aggression and apartheid.
LINDA CHRISTANTY, Woman of letters and cultural activist