US Embassy in Jerusalem?
We wholeheartedly condemn the stance of the US government, in its intention to have its Embassy to Israel based in Jerusalem. As Israel continues to overdo its illegitimate existence, its fellow settler-colony rushes in to create more chaos.
We hope that this "embassy" will not be protected by the provisions of the Geneva Convention, and that Palestinians' attempts to express their sovereignty through direct action is respected by the international community.
The spineless 'international community' already recognises "the pre-1967 borders" which accept Israel's theft of more than two-thirds of Palestinian land and displacement of Palestinian people. Israel's internationally-recognised capital, Tel Aviv, is already situated on land that was stolen from Palestinian people.
As if this isn't all enough, Israel continues to make inroads into what the international community recognises as still being Palestinian land. This latest US action goes much beyond symbolism; it means actual violence against Palestinians.
We are not surprised, however. The US is a settler-colony just like Israel. The US exists because it has murdered and displaced indigenous people from many nations, who once lived on most of the land that it now occupies. Indigenous people are now minorities among the US population, with some living on "reservations" of land. These reservations are not sovereign territories; they are still within the US, yet the US government fails to properly provide public services to all of the people who live there.
Likewise, the Israeli government makes it difficult for Palestine to manage its own affairs; it controlled Palestine's electrical grid up to 2016, sometimes cutting power to the Gaza Strip.
We must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in this time of crisis, as well as generally in their national liberation struggle against the Israeli state. Today marks 30 years since the beginning of the First Intifada.
It is sad that our government remains silent on the injustices that occur in Palestine. The Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, has put effort into befriending the Israeli government which didn't even bat an eye when hurricanes hit the region, but it was Palestinians - despite their own struggles, who found themselves participating in disaster relief efforts in Dominica after Hurricane Maria.
Only a handful of governments around the world recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. We must do all that we can to prevent the government of Jamaica, as well as the governments of other Caribbean countries, from doing the same.
Some countries, including Cuba and the DPRK, don't even recognise Israel as a legitimate state; they instead officially acknowledge Palestinian sovereignty over all of its land, while seeing "Israel" as an illegal occupying force.