The so-called ‘clashes’ in East Jerusalem today are the latest episode in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Apartheid State of Israel. Over 200 Palestinians are reported injured as police fired stun guns at people gathering to pray at the holy site of the Al-Aqsa mosque ahead of a planned march by extreme right wing Zionists to celebrate the capture of East Jerusalem by Israel in 1967.
This march, which regularly sees flag waving Israeli ultra – nationalists make their way through Palestinian areas chanting and singing Zionist songs, is being staged in the closing days of Ramadan as a clear provocation after weeks of mounting tension.
The immediate cause of this tension has been the proposed eviction of 28 Palestinian families – over 500 people – from the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jerusalem with a view to their replacement by Jewish settlers.
This comes on top of Israel congratulating itself, and being hailed in the media, over its successful Covid vaccine roll out while outrageously denying vaccines to the Palestinians.
The relentless dispossession of the Palestinian people, the ever increasing seizure of their land and homes , as shown in the maps at the head of this article, is a project of Zionist expansion that goes back to al-Nakba (The Catastrophe) that accompanied the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948 and beyond. In the Nakba over 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, turned into refugees, and forced into exile. The Zionist state has never allowed these refugees to return. Instead it has continuously seized every opportunity to squeeze and diminish Palestinian territory and force Palestinians into ever more cramped and dreadful living spaces and conditions.
Palestinian Loss of Land 1947 to Present
In recent years there has been increasing international awareness of Israel’s crimes, with the influential Human Rights Watch publishing a report condemning Israel for “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” and a growing BDS movement to boycott Israeli goods. Israel has simply dismissed and attempted to silence all such criticism as anti-Semitism, even when it has come from growing numbers of Jewish people, and persisted with its oppression, aggression and brutality.
It has been able to do so with impunity, despite repeated violations of international law,and despite the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people, because of the unwavering support given to Israel by, first and foremost, the United States but also by the EU, who see Israel as a watchdog for imperialist interests in the Middle East. The Irish Government has been shamefully complicit in this.
People Before Profit rejects this complicity. We condemn both these latest outrages and the whole trajectory of the Israeli Apartheid State and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We call on Simon Coveney and the Irish Government to make a public statement dissociating themselves from Israeli aggression and to expel the Israeli Ambassador. We urge all our members and supporters to continue the boycott of Israeli goods. Please support this initiative from the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
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