RNA - But these are the same war criminals who, just few years ago, were saying Syria could never defeat foreign-backed terrorist groups and extremist outfits like ISIL and Al-Qaeda. The people of Syria ignored them and won. Palestinians should also ignore them and just keep fighting. The fight ahead is not going to be easy, but victory is within reach. Palestinians have no other option but to fight for the future:
- Unlike what the Trump White House would like to suggest, there is no defined border between Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine. According to numerous UN resolutions and documents, the line between Gaza and the occupied territories is an armistice line from 1949 and 1967, not an internationally recognized border. The whole world rejects this American-Israeli myth.
- True, Palestinians are trying to cross the fence into 1948 areas, but this is about realizing their right of return to the land many of them were forced to leave. Seventy percent of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees from cities and towns in occupied territories. These people are trying to go home. International Law and the UN Charter say they can and they should be allowed to get to the houses they still have keys and official documents for.
- Washington and Tel Aviv are free to claim that the Great March of Return is organized by Hamas, but they are wrong to assume that the international civil society, including the 48-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation will fall for it. The whole world has in the strongest terms condemned the US embassy move to Jerusalem Al-Quds and the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza. This is because the Great March of Return has been organized by a grassroots group of Palestinians in besieged Gaza and they are determined to either return to their homes or die for their legitimate cause.
- There is a reason why the UN, the OIC, Amnesty International, Human Rights Council, and a host of other international bodies and rights groups are distancing themselves from the Israeli rhetoric regarding its right to self-defense. Live ammunition is being used not only against protesters, but also against medics and reporters. Israel is using tear gas and live ammunition against anything that moves along the Gaza fence. It is rubbish to claim that the casualties of journalists and minors are totally unintended mistakes.
- This is Palestinians’ land and Al-Quds will never be Israel’s capital. That’s according to the entire Muslim world. With help from the US and UK, Israel took territory by force and embarked on ethnic-cleansing. Now Palestinians are reclaiming their rights as civil and bloodless as possible. The United Nations must also play a better role in addressing Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and stop this escalating violence. The world body should boycott Israel and introduce mechanisms that would lift the illegal blockade on Gaza and allow Palestinians to return to their homes in occupied territories.
- As maintained at Friday’s emergency meeting of the OIC in Istanbul, Turkey, the core problem is occupation and injustice in Palestine. Without an end to the criminal blockade, the humanitarian crisis will never end. Palestinians do not only demand food, water, and medication. They need full freedom, just like everybody else in the world, and they are going to get it one way or another.
Taken together, this is not anti-Semitism, or an attempt by the Muslim world to deny the Jewish existence in historic Palestine. The Jews existed there too. However, both the Christians and the Muslims of Palestine believe in all the prophets of the Jewish faith as well; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, and Solomon. Narratives of the stories related to these figures are almost identical to people from all three faiths. There is no conflict there. In fact, there are Jewish Palestinians. As frequently stated by Iran, once all the Palestinians who have been expelled from their homes return to their homeland, a referendum by the native population will determine the fate of that state.
According to Fars News Agancy, the problem, however, is the very nature of the Zionist entity, which is built on racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, occupation, land theft and apartheid. After several decades of systematic discrimination, Palestinians have decided to take matters into their hands. And the whole world is behind them as they are requesting nothing but returning to their motherland.
It’s an uphill battle, but if Palestinians can seize the momentum around this global solidarity, mobilize massive pressure on the Zionist regime, and harness as much diplomatic power as they can coming out of this Great March of Return - both at the UN and the OIC - they could ultimately win, seeing a free and prosperous future for themselves, their families, and their future generations. To that end, there is not a minute to lose.
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