As Food Aid to Gaza Is Cut, Palestinians Demand Freedom Instead of Charity

Palestinians in Gaza already grappling with an ongoing, 16-year-old land, sea and air blockade imposed by the apartheid state of Israel are actually being served one other harsh and devastating blow. In Might, the United Nations World Food Program introduced that resulting from a “extreme” scarcity of funds, it’s being compelled to discontinue help to greater than 200,000 Palestinians, nearly all of whom reside within the besieged Gaza Strip.

This information comes as Palestinians combat for his or her lives beneath a barrage of Israeli navy assaults, the latest on Might 9, by which 15 Palestinians have been killed.

Since 2012, the United Nations has warned that Gaza can be uninhabitable by 2020, and it’s not flawed. Over 2 million individuals residing on the tiny strip of land are experiencing a weak economic system with double-digit unemployment rates, ongoing energy shortages, and inadequate sources to fulfill the fundamental wants — meals safety, clear water, and entry to well being care and medical provides — of their family members.

And whereas growing the severity of meals insecurity will undoubtedly contribute to the perpetual state of trauma Gazans face, our outrage must be directed at Israel’s persevering with oppression and systematic discrimination that forces Palestinians to depend on charities just like the World Meals Program.

To make sure, Palestinians residing within the Gaza Strip don’t want a free handout. We wish freedom.

This yr alone, the relentless and bloody escalation of the U.S.-funded Israeli violence has killed more than 100 Palestinians. And whereas we grieve, inform their tales and maintain the names of the martyred in our hearts, we proceed to sentence and expose the structural violence that crushes their day-to-day lives. Numbers alone can’t seize the horror of settler-colonial violence that features land theft; dwelling demolitions; the closure and criminalization of six human rights organizations; and the detention, torture and dehumanization of Palestinians. Hiding in plain sight is the devastating toll the occupation has on the psychological well being of Palestinians — youngsters particularly. In line with a 2022 report printed by Save the Children, 80 % of youngsters residing in Gaza are experiencing psychological misery together with despair, grief and worry.

However even beneath these dire and oppressive circumstances, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Financial institution, Jerusalem and historic Palestine proceed to withstand Israel’s settler-colonialism and navy occupation.

This yr marks the seventy fifth annual commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, or Disaster, when greater than 750,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their properties and ethnically cleansed from their lands in 1947-48. A lot of the displaced Palestinians sought momentary safety and refuge within the West Financial institution and Gaza, in addition to neighboring Arab international locations, and there’s not a Palestinian refugee alive at this time who doesn’t dream of their return.

This yr’s Nakba commemoration ushered in a wave of intense violence stoked by Israel’s racist and excessive far proper authorities. As Digital Intifada reports:

The Israeli navy, police and armed civilians killed greater than 50 Palestinians throughout Might, which witnessed one more lethal and damaging assault on Gaza. A minimum of 33 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed throughout 5 days of intense cross-boundary fireplace that started when Israel launched a surprise attack by assassinating three Islamic Jihad leaders of their properties. …The UN’s human rights workplace said that at the least 13 civilians, together with seven youngsters, have been killed in the course of the Israeli offensive.

These killings didn’t go unnoticed by the worldwide group, nonetheless.

International solidarity efforts for justice in Palestine have grown dramatically over the past twenty years, and amid the assaults this Might, Palestinian and solidarity organizers within the U.S. and past have been bringing individuals collectively to rally for Palestinian liberation.

Palestine Solidarity Organizing within the U.S.

To rally worldwide concern and motion over the continuing assaults on Palestinian communities, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) hosted Chief Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela, this spring for a mini tour within the U.S.

Throughout this “Nakba 75” tour of six cities, lots of of individuals poured in — and never simply Palestinians, however freedom-loving individuals from the Black liberation, immigrant rights, employees’ rights, LGBTQI rights, and different social and racial justice actions who expertise the ache of discrimination and systemic racism. Attendees got here collectively in group to grieve the lack of over 15,000 Palestinians murdered, to recite the names of the 531 villages destroyed by Israeli militias, and to reaffirm our dedication to the liberation of Palestine.

Whereas addressing the crowds, Mandela drew parallels between the Palestinian and South African liberation struggles. He shared the fearless methods and ways employed to defeat the white supremacist, apartheid system in South Africa, after which likened them to the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) marketing campaign, urging these in attendance to comply with the daring actions organized by USPCN. Mandela referenced USPCN’s quite a few campaigns and initiatives that problem and confront the unlawful occupation of Palestine, particularly the #BoycottSadaf campaign, the group’s contribution to BDS work; protection of Palestinians and allies in opposition to repression; protests and direct actions in opposition to Zionist establishments and people; political prisoner advocacy; and occasions that promote Palestinian artwork and tradition.

He additionally reaffirmed the thawabet, or ideas, that information USPCN’s work, which embody self-determination and freedom for the Palestinian individuals, the appropriate of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to the unique properties and lands from the place they have been exiled, and the appropriate to withstand Zionist occupation and colonization of all Palestinian and Arab lands. These are ideas that Palestinians refuse to give up.

As seen by the variety of individuals and organizations that attended and supported the Nakba 75 tour, world solidarity efforts for justice in Palestine have grown dramatically over the past twenty years, and U.S. engagement within the area continues to come back beneath query.

Organizations like USPCN, and dealing individuals, lecturers, artists, politicians, and so many others worldwide are difficult the growth of the U.S.’s political, monetary, navy and diplomatic assist of the apartheid regime. As of March 1, 2023, the U.S. has supported Israel to the tune of $158 billion, nearly completely used for navy actions that perpetrate human rights abuses, together with the killing of protesters, land grabs, dwelling demolitions, and the imprisonment and torture of youngsters.

U.S. Congresswoman Betty McCollum has reintroduced a invoice, Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act (H.R. 3103), within the new Congress, which, if handed, would defend the rights of Palestinian youngsters and their households by prohibiting Israel from utilizing U.S. taxpayer {dollars} to imprison youngsters, construct unlawful settlements or annex Palestinian land. Whereas passage of H.R. 3103 is essential, so is difficult right-wing lawmakers who’re introducing anti-BDS legislation that serves to stifle freedom of speech and stigmatize and criminalize those that take part in BDS and different types of activism.

One other vicious try and ban and censure criticism of Israel is the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA’s) definition of antisemitism. The brand new framework, launched by anti-Palestinian teams, closely focuses on Israel. This distorted definition is extensively interpreted as a part of an intensifying crackdown on criticism of the Zionist state and a propaganda device meant to demonize and penalize those that name consideration to Israel’s human rights abuses. In a predictable flip, the Biden administration stated the U.S. “embraced” the IHRA document.

So, whereas Palestinians residing in Palestine are placing their our bodies on the road to win freedom from the racist, settler-colonialist, apartheid regime, Palestinians and our allies within the diaspora are preventing disastrous and oppressive circumstances geared toward blocking activism.

Israel and the U.S. have actively engineered the disaster confronted by our individuals in Gaza, so though the measure to chop meals support is one other financial and political assault on Palestinians, it is not going to shake our will and willpower. As a substitute, it should gas our ongoing battle for liberation and justice.

The Palestinian place has been constant from the beginning: We don’t want or want charity. We wish solidarity, justice, liberation and the Right of Return.