Version imprimableFor the mainstream media, there are, on the one hand, the Israeli ‘hostages’ who are much talked about and, on the other, the Palestinian prisoners who are called ‘terrorists’. They don’t really know the term ‘political prisoners’ or ‘imprisoned children’. Nor do they know anything about the conditions of detention: often imprisoned without trial, by administrative decision, hostages to a practice inherited from British colonialism and perpetuated by Israeli colonialism, mistreated, tortured, sometimes killed or killed in prison.
Israel continues in the West Bank
The hypocrisy and cynicism of Israel and its allies know no bounds. At the same time as the Zionist state is signing the ceasefire for Gaza, it is deploying even more of its army in the West Bank. In the occupied territories, the Palestinians are suffering, at an intensified pace, the violence of fascist settlers accompanied by the repression and brutality of the Israeli army. The reports we hear from journalists are terrifying. As for our friends in the West Bank, they tell us about the prevailing fear but also ask us to continue our solidarity actions. Hundreds of new checkpoints are being set up at the entrances to towns, villages and refugee camps. They are closing off all access and turning the West Bank into a mousetrap. Arrests of Palestinians of all ages have become massive.
Jenin, one of the bastions of Palestinian resistance, is under attack: bombings, destruction of roads and infrastructure, demolition of homes, forced displacement and massacres of the inhabitants. Trump has lifted financial sanctions against the most virulent settlers in the West Bank and is calling on Egypt and Jordan to take in Gazans.
Israel’s right to flout international law
This is a serious time. If Israel, with the active help of the United States and the complicity of Western countries and certain Arab countries, pursues its plan to annex what remains of the Palestinian territories, after the genocide in Gaza, a new and even more dramatic Nakba is in the offing.
This situation will continue to be treated by the mainstream media, the government and Europe as Israel’s perpetual ‘right’ to defend itself with impunity, in other words as an apartheid colonial state that flouts international law and UN resolutions. And ignores the decisions of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
Only the Palestinian resistance, together with international solidarity, can stop Israel and the United States. Let’s continue to mobilise and put pressure on governments, let’s step up the campaign to boycott Israel, its products and the companies that are complicit. Let’s step up solidarity with the Palestinian people for their right to resistance, for their right to remain on or return to their land, for their right to life, freedom and justice. Let’s broaden our solidarity so that the massacres, genocide, occupation and colonisation stop.
L’Anticapitaliste 30 January 2025
