Occupied Yafa, June 2023 The Xavierite
Following the Oct. 7 surprise attacks, much of the world has completely forgotten the plight of the Palestinians and insists that this was the beginning of the “conflict.” Fortunately, the voice of the Palestinians has not been completely silenced, nor has it allowed the world to forget them.
Indeed this is not a “conflict” or a “power struggle over land,” but settler-colonialism, occupation, oppression, and apartheid at its finest.
The plight of the Palestinians definitely did not start on Oct. 7, 2023, but in 1948. If you want to get technical, it started on Nov. 29, 1947, when the UN drew up the first partition plan of Palestine to include a Zionist state. For the sake of this article, the occupation of Palestine started in 1948.
War crimes and atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinians are nothing new. To list and explain every single war crime committed would take another 75 years, and, unfortunately, time is not on our side. However, what I can do is spread awareness.
The Nakba (catastrophe) began in 1948, in which over 400 villages were destroyed, some resulting in massacres, and the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians, to make way for the creation of the Zionist state.
A notable village massacre that took place in the Nakba was that of Tantura.
Tantura was a beautiful fishing village on the Mediterranean sea near the port city of Haifa with a population of approximately 1,500. In late May 1948, the Zionist militia, the Alexandroni Brigade, attacked the village of Tantura and massacred its citizens.
Following the village massacre and its occupation and settlement, it was discovered that the decomposing bodies were thrown into unmarked mass graves; what was once a beautiful village on the Mediterranean is now bulldozed and made into a beach parking lot. Anywhere between 40-200 Palestinians are buried in the unmarked mass graves.
The Guardian states, “Palestinian survivors and historians have long claimed that men living in Tantura, a fishing village of approximately 1,500 people near Haifa, were executed after surrendering to the Alexandroni Brigade and their bodies dumped in a mass grave believed to be located under an area that is now a car park for Dor Beach. Estimates have ranged from 40 to 200 people.”
Moving onto modern-day settler violence, there’s a certain story worth mentioning: the story of the Dawabsheh family from Nablus, Palestine.
During the early hours of the morning on July, 31, 2015, Israeli settler, Amiram Ben-Uliel, infiltrated into the village of Duma in the Nablus district and set the Dawabsheh house on fire.
Only one sole survivor emerged after the attack, little 4-year-old Ahmad Dawabsheh. His mother Riham, father Saad, and infant brother Ali died in the fire.
What was their crime? The simple fact they were Palestinian.
Anti-Palestinian hatred runs deep within the society of the Zionist entity, so much that it’s deemed okay to senselessly burn a family as they sleep in their home, a place meant to be safe from the outside world.
This is the “only democracy in the Middle East” in its truest form.
After confessing, Ben Uliel has been charged with three counts of murder including 27 other charges. After trying to appeal his charges in 2022, he was rejected by the High Court of Justice.
Although it seems that justice has been served, there have actually been many Israeli activists demanding for Ben Uliel’s release, including many of those in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political party, his own son Yair Netanyahu, and current National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The Jerusalem Post states, “Concurrently, a petition calling for an improvement in his conditions was signed by 14 coalition lawmakers, including several from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, shared a post in support. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — who represented Ben-Uliel in his previous capacity as a lawyer for suspected Jewish terrorists — is also helping improve his prison conditions, according to Ben-Gvir’s wife.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, when one member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Limor Son Har-Melech, who happens to be Ben Gvir’s party, was asked about Ben Uliel, she responded, “‘I know he is innocent,’ she said. ‘I know Amiram is innocent… He is a holy, righteous man, really.’”
So, what’s the takeaway here?
These acts of violence against Palestinians are not something new. When you see videos of sadistic Israeli soldiers in Gaza making jokes and filming themselves as they blow up Palestinian homes, know that this is not something new. These Zionists are truly evil in all of their forms and are taught to hate and kill Palestinians.
Although it hasn’t always been on your radar, Zionist violence against Palestinians has been happening for decades and did not start on Oct. 7.
This narrative that before Oct. 7, Palestinians and Zionist Israeli settlers lived side by side in peace and harmony is a Zionist tactic to make you forget the decades long plight and fight for Palestinian freedom.
In actuality, Palestinians and “Israelis” can never live side by side in peace, so long as Palestinians are occupied and systematically oppressed and killed.
The only solution, though some might think is bleak, is a singular Palestinian state from the river to the sea. Only then will Palestinians and Jewish people live side by side in peace and harmony, the way they once did pre-1948.
Let Palestinians live. End the occupation.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.