RNA - Quds Day is held annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan during which demonstrators call for the liberation of Palestine and an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid. It was proclaimed in 1979 by the late Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, as a religious duty for all Muslims to rally in solidarity against Israel and for the liberation of Al-Quds.
This year the protesters took to the streets to name and shame Israel and its cohorts; bring the world's attention to the endless sufferings in occupied Palestine; reiterate Palestinians can and will liberate the Holy Land; and denounce politicians for not supporting the Palestinian cause.
By extension, this is not hatred propaganda at all. The worldwide rallies set on creating awareness about the fact that pro-Israel currents and lobbies in the West give a bad name to Islam, create a false image that Islam is a religion that provokes violence and hate against Jews, that the rallies are a clear exhibit of Antisemitism, and that Israel represents the Jewish community the world over.
Far from it, Israel is a cadence of falsehood and falsehood is bound to perish. The racist regime works for the destruction of humanity and peace in world, and the international civil society should look into the plight of the Palestinians very seriously as it still matters after so many decades of Israeli occupation and state terrorism.
Now we are witnessing the largest number of illegal Israeli settlement units being built on Palestinian lands. And it is important to say that Palestinian protection is not a matter of solidarity or generosity, Palestinian protection is an obligation under International Law – The Geneva Convention and many international instruments of binding nature.
We are still witnessing many remarkable examples of solidarity with Palestinians in today’s world. But at the same time, we are seeing more and more countries being aligned with Israel under pressure from the United States and Zionist lobby in Washington. We are seeing more and more Palestinians being imprisoned and, this is particularly worrying, especially when associated to forms of political populism, Islamophobia, racism, in which Palestinians become a target, many times being accused of being part of the terror threat when Palestinians are not terrorists - they are the first victims of Israeli-sponsored terror. They are fighting state-sponsored terror; that is why they are imprisoned.
And this is the reason why it is important to make on the International Quds Day very strong appeals to the international community. These strong appeals are absolutely necessary for the right of Palestinians for freedom and self-determination to be again fully respected:
- UN member states are not doing it, to re-establish the integrity of the international protection for Palestinians, which means to have the right, obviously, to have a country of their own and manage their own affairs in a responsible way, but managing them also in a protection-sensitive way, and not refusing entry to it seeking recognition and protection.
- Recognizing that there is no two-state solution for the Palestinian plight; the solution is political and through referendum, and it is related to the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; to ask all parties to the conflict and all countries that have an influence on the parties to the conflict to come together and understand that it is causing tremendous suffering in which nobody is winning, everybody is losing, as they are becoming a thre at not only to the Palestinians themselves but a threat to the whole world, as the conflict is becoming also more and more interlinked to problems of global terrorism.
- Humanitarian support for Palestinian refugees is still largely underfunded. That means the majority of the refugees live below the poverty line - that most of them have no jobs and no hopes or perspective to have a dignified life. It is absolutely crucial that humanitarian appeals are fully funded and that international solidarity is expressed in relation to Palestinian refugees.
And finally, all UN member states must increase their pressure on the Zionist regime to end occupation and recognize the fact that its apartheid cannot last forever. To this end, the world community must work together to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which strongly criticizes Israel's illegal settlements.
Israel, not the Palestinians, is the occupying power which refuses to honor dozens of UN resolutions and various international treaties and laws. Under International Law and UN Charter, Israel must be an item on the UN agenda. It has occupied and oppressed Palestinians for so long and it should remain an item on international agenda. Tens of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Christians and even Jews have been killed in an American-Christian-Zionist occupation that seems to know no ends. Further international inaction will likely yield a greater toll and more suffering.
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