On the 'Conflict' Between Palestine and Israel in 2021
The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one of national liberation versus colonial occupation. We must be careful in what we demand and what certain things mean. With seemingly good intentions, some people simply call for "peace" without understanding the nature of the violence.
There are 2 sides to this conflict: a group of people who want to commit genocide against another group and colonise their land, and another group of people who do not want their land to be colonised or to be victims of genocide. As long as both these groups hold on to these things, there will be no peace.
To ask for peace is to ask that either of 2 things be done:
The Zionist project is dismantled and undone, that there is no more aim to maintain colonial occupation of Palestinian land or genocidal policies that depopulate Palestine
Palestinians stop opposing the colonisation of their land and the genodical policies that target their people
What is absurd is that the latter demand is seen as more reasonable or realistic, and we must ask ourselves why. So much of the world and the international system has surrendered to the idea that might is right, but we stand by our principles.
It seems that neither of the 2 options for "peace" will happen, because Israel will not end its mission to totally destroy Palestine, and Palestinians will not sit idly by while seeing their families and friends displaced or murdered while more of their land and the very basic means of their survival are taken away from them.
On that basis, what we call for is justice rather than peace. For some reason, the world refuses to hold Israel to any real standards. Condemnations of Israel on paper have done nothing to stop the massacres, and we have accepted Israel's violence as normal.
What is even more troubling in discourse on Palestine and Israel is that Palestinians are expected to be held to standards that the Israeli state is not. Among spineless liberals in the West, solidarity with Palestine disappears at the mere mention that some Palestinians dare to fight back. Nothing stops anyone from saying that "Israel has a right to defend itself" even while it is the aggressor, even while it murders dozens of children, but the smallest acts of resistance from Palestinians or Palestinian groups are turned into justifications for Israeli violence or excuses for refusing to show solidarity with Palestine. How disgusting and wretched so many of you are to condone this violence against Palestinians.
Our solidarity is with Palestine and we endorse whatever means are deemed necessary to bring about victories for Palestinian national liberation from the Zionists’ colonial occupation and genocide.
Our Politburo passed a resolution on June 30 of last year which it makes it clear that our movement “condemns Israel totally and without reservation,” and this position has been upheld by the new Politburo that was elected 5 months later.