Justice for Palestine or Never-ending Nakba?
By Labour CND
In an in-depth briefing for Labour & Palestine, Dr MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI outlines the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and shares his views about the future, addressing issues the mainstream media rarely covers. Watching this webinar should be high on everyone’s must-do list.
Dr Barghouti’s presentation is packed with up-to-date news on the situation faced by Palestinians. He gives many details which illustrate Israel’s violation, with US agreement, of the terms of the ceasefire agreement of last October. ‘The Nakba is not over, it is the settler colonial project aimed at ethnic cleansing the Palestinian people.’
The West Bank is witnessing a process of land annexation and the increase of illegal settlements, and Israel has just approved plans to establish more. Israeli terrorist gangs are now attacking Palestinian communities at the rate of 10 to 12 every day and, since the beginning of the war on Iran, they have started shooting Palestinians in addition to the attacks by the Israeli military.
Barghouti explains the ways in which Israel is exercising a strangulation hold on the Palestinian economy. In addition, since October 2023 over 3,500 Palestinian workers have been dismissed and replaced by workers from elsewhere. He outlines the position of more than 9,500 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are kept in jail for years without being charged. Prisoners are subjected to starvation, torture, rape and beatings.
The most important new development, the introduction of an apartheid death penalty applying only to Palestinians, is dealt with in detail by Barghouti. ‘This law consolidates the system of apartheid,’ he says. ‘Even in South Africa the apartheid system did not dare to pass a law that said if a black man kills a white man he will be hanged, but if a white man kills a black man he would not be. But that’s exactly what Israel is doing.’
Behind what’s taking place, Barghouti described, is the big picture – Netanyahu’s open support for a vision of Greater Israel. That means not only the occupation and annexation of Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, but parts of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt too. Not a single criticism has been made by the US of this description of this view of ‘the promised land’. The behaviour of European countries and others who support international law but so not act is equally hypocritical.
What’s needed now is not only focussing the attention of the British public on what’s happening in Palestine, but a campaign to translate the solidarity movement into material action – and that is a campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions. ‘This issue is on the table now,’ said Barghouti, ‘and has to be pushed further.
Justice for Palestine or Never-ending Nakba was presented by Hugh Lanning, Labour & Palestine, and hosted by Arise Festival of Left Ideas. It is available in full on YouTube.
Dr Mustafa Barghouti is a Palestinian politician, activist, and physician. He is General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI), a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Central Council. He was Minister of Information in the Palestinian unity government in 2007.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Nakba March for Palestine, Saturday 16 May
Join the annual commemoration of 78 years of ongoing disaster inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israel since 1948, and demand an end to Britian’s complicity in Israel’s genocide and war crimes. More details here.
Support the BDS movement
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is gaining ground in Britain and internationally. BDS action brings pressure on Israel to end its regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians.