Dec. 2 – Seventy-five years ago, on Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations partitioned the land of Palestine against the wishes of its people. The chief architect of this crime was the U.S. Truman administration. The State Department threatened dozens of countries with economic retaliation if they did not vote to create a colonial settler state on 57% of the land of Palestine.
Most countries in Africa and many in Asia and the Caribbean were still under West European colonial rule and not allowed to vote.
Within months Al Nakba began – the campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing that drove the majority of Palestinian people from their homes and created the racist state called “Israel” on their stolen land. In 1967 that state seized all of Palestine and part of Syria and Egypt as well.
The United Nations now marks Nov. 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The U.S.-armed and -funded Israeli occupation forces marked that date this year with a murder spree in the camps and villages of the West Bank, killing 10 people in four days.
At 4 a.m. on Nov. 29, in the village of Kafr Ein near Ramallah, an Israeli military hit squad murdered Bir Zeit university students Jawad Al Rimawi, 22, and Zafer Al Rimawi, 21. The two brothers were the only sons of their family.
Around the same time, Mufid Khalil, 44, was murdered when Israeli occupation troops invaded the town of Beit Ummar, near Al Khalil (Hebron). Eight other villagers were wounded.
Rani Abu Ali, 45, was shot near Jerusalem after he rammed an Israeli soldier with his car in retaliation for the murders. Raed Nassar, 21, was gunned down in Al Mughayyir near Ramallah. His “crime”: joining with people from his village to block Israeli troops from demolishing “illegally built” homes. The Israeli occupation regime denies Palestinians building permits.
On Nov. 30, Israeli troops invaded the village of Ya’bad near Jenin and murdered Mohammad Tawfiq Badarna, 25. The same day Issa Hani Talaqat, 13, died of gunshot wounds. He had been shot by an occupation cop on Nov. 1. The young Palestinian was from Arara, a Bedouin community in the 1948-occupied territories, and held “Israeli” citizenship.
Early in the morning of Dec. 1, the occupation forces invaded Jenin Camp, home to 12,000 people whose families were expelled from their homes when the Israeli state was created in 1948. They are crowded on less than a quarter of a square mile. Muhammad Al Saadi and Naim Zubeidi, resistance fighters of the Jenin Brigade, gave their lives defending the camp.
Also, on Dec. 1, 17-year-old Wadi’h Sidr was found unconscious in Al Khalil after being beaten by a mob of Zionist settlers.
On Dec. 2, in Huwwara near Nablus, an Israeli “border” cop shot and murdered unarmed Palestinian Ammar Mefleh, 22, after a scuffle. Witnesses described the shooting as a “cold-blooded execution.” Mefleh died as Israeli soldiers prevented him from getting medical aid. Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said the killer cop “acted professionally.”
These murders are part of an escalating reign of terror by Israeli occupation troops and armed settlers against Palestinians on the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and inside the 1948 territories. Shootings, beatings, arrests without charge, home invasions, home demolitions, fire bombings, settler mob attacks, destruction of olive trees, crops, and farm animals, desecration of places of worship and cemeteries, and other crimes are daily occurrences under the occupation.
These are the tactics the U.S.-funded Israeli state uses to grab more land for racist settlers from the U.S. and Europe and pump up the profits of its real estate industry.
Israeli occupiers have murdered 216 Palestinian people this year, 54 of them children. More than 5,000 Palestinians, 153 of them children, languish in Israeli occupation prisons. Nearly 500 are held under “administrative detention” without charge or trial. The Israeli military also holds the bodies of 117 Palestinian martyrs, refusing to return them to their families.
When blood flows, money flows
This reign of terror is funded entirely by U.S. tax dollars. Palestine’s blood is on the hands of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and every other U.S. President going back to Harry S Truman.
It is on the hands of every member of Congress who has voted for the constant flow of arms and dollars to the racist settler state.
It is on the hands of the Pentagon brass, who view Israel as “our unsinkable aircraft carrier” in Washington’s permanent state of war against the people of the region.
It’s no coincidence that Truman forced the partition of Palestine within months of signing the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Defense Department, National Security Council, U.S. Air Force and CIA.
Under a 2018 “memorandum of understanding,” the U.S. promised the occupation regime $3.8 billion a year in direct military aid through 2028. This includes the most advanced weapons in the Pentagon’s arsenal.
On his visit to occupied Palestine in July, President Biden pledged that aid would continue until at least 2038. In the “U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration” issued in Jerusalem, he promised even more money whenever Israel starts a war.
That direct military aid, which began under the Nixon administration, is only the tip of the iceberg. Loan guarantees, massive tax-exempt donations, state and city investment in Israel Bonds, and the $35-billion-a-year free-trade agreement signed by Ronald Reagan are among the mechanisms that ultimately send Israel tens of billions of dollars a year.
This massive flow of arms and dollars allows the racist settler state to maintain a permanent state of war against the people of Palestine. It has not, however, defeated their resistance, which intensifies daily. The Palestinian people are defending their homes and land, both with mass action and with arms in hand.
In the face of overwhelming force, young Palestinians take to the streets every day to confront invading colonial troops and settlers. On Friday, Dec. 2, 60,000 Palestinians gathered to pray at Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which is a target of Zionist settlers and authorities.
The Lion’s Den, the Jenin Brigade, and the Balata Brigade are among the armed groups that have sprung up in the last three months to resist the colonizers’ attacks. In a Nov. 30 statement, the Lion’s Den, based in the Old City of Nablus, said, “It is worth asking the occupying regime who has surrounded it. Freedom-loving resistance fighters have their fingers on the trigger and besieged the Zionist regime. Israel and its allies will be caught by surprise in the aftermath of our unexpected measures.”
The past 75 years have shown that the Palestinian people will never accept colonial occupation. They will fight for their right to live in peace and freedom in every corner of their land. They also show that the Israeli occupation regime cannot exist without the constant infusion of U.S. arms and dollars.
Those dollars could save lives here rather than destroy lives in Palestine. This must end!
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