Keep talking about Gaza.
Keep talking about Palestine.
Keep talking about Palestinian martyrs.
Keep talking about Palestinian survivors.
Keep talking about Palestinian children.
Keep talking about war crimes.
Keep talking about genocide.
Keep talking about colonialism.
Keep talking about forced starvation.
Keep talking about forced adoption.
Keep talking about Israeli occupation.
Keep talking about the Nakba of 1948.
Since the early days of British involvement with Zionism, Churchill sanctioned the dispossession of non-Jewish Palestinians by assuring that they have no voice in the affairs of their own land. “In the interests of the Zionist policy,” he stated in August 1921 as the government minister in charge of Britain’s colonies, “all elective institutions have so far been refused to the Arabs.”
A snapshot of Churchill’s stances on Palestine and race is found in the records of the 1937 Peel Commission hearings, convened to address a major revolt in Palestine. [...]
Horace Rumbold [...] asked whether Zionist policy is worth “the lives of our men, and so on.” And did it follow, he asked Churchill, that having “conquered Palestine we can dispose of it as we like?”
Churchill replied to that and similar questions by invoking commitments given when Britain captured Palestine toward the end of 1917. “We decided in the process of conquest of [Palestine] to make certain pledges to the Jews,” Churchill said.
Apparently skeptical, the head of the commission, William Peel, asked Churchill if it is not “a very odd self-government” when “it is only when the Jews are a majority that we can have it.”
Churchill responded with a blunt argument of might: “We have every right to strike hard in support of our authority.”
The historian Reginald Coupland nonetheless told the hearings that the “average Englishman” would wonder why the Arabs were being denied self-government, and why we had “to go on shooting the Arabs down because of keeping his promise to the Jews.”
Peel, similarly, asked Churchill if the British public “might get rather tired and rather inquisitive if every two or three years there was a sort of campaign against the Arabs and we sent out troops and shot them down? They would begin to enquire, ‘Why is it done? What is the fault of these people?… Why are you doing it? In order to get a home for the Jews?’”
“And it would mean rather brutal methods,” added Laurie Hammond, who had worked with the British colonial administration in India. “I do not say the methods of the Italians at Addis Ababa,” referring to Benito Mussolini’s Ethiopian massacre of February 1937, “but it would mean the blowing up of villages and that sort of thing?” The British, he recalled, had blown up part of the Palestinian port city of Jaffa.
Peel agreed, and added that “they blew up a lot of [Palestinian] houses all over the place in order to awe the population. I have seen photographs of these things going up in the air.”
But when Peel questioned whether “it is not only a question of being strong enough,” but of “downing” the Arabs who simply wanted to remain in their own country, Churchill lost patience.
“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” he countered, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”
"Questions to keep in mind with the coming news cycle."
Reposting this from @ savesheikhjarrahnow on ig.
Prepare yourself for a torrent of pro-Zionist colonial lies and obfuscations in the Western news. Do what you can to counteract it. Palestine needs your help, now more than ever.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!!! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
when people talk about educating yourself on the origins of ideologies like zionism, it isn’t to ask for sympathy but to show that fascism always hinges on the same rules - dehumanisation and other-ing of scapegoat populations in the pursuit of power.
fascism is, at the end of the day, uncreative and there is value in recognising the signs. When an entire ideology is dependent on the inherent depravity of a certain identity, it is worth some scrutiny.
I’ve asked Palestinian Americans who have also drawn parallels between themselves and the First Nations Indigenous peoples what exactly they knew about them or their histories. Given that I’m Canadian and my first work clinicals were on Coast Salish reservations it’s a topic close to my heart. I asked them if they knew the differences between First Nations, Métis and Inuit. They didn’t. I asked if they knew about the six nations. They didn’t. I asked if they knew about the the Proclamation of 1763. They didn’t. The Sioux wars? No. Trail of Tears? Nope. They had zero knowledge on any of the nation’s social organization, spiritual beliefs or traditional ways of life. I already know you have no idea about the symbolic meaning of that headdress or that they were worn by Sioux, Blackfeet, Crow, Plains Cree, and Cheyenne people... And I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that he’s been drawn in a grass skirt? (the men wore leggings). Indigeneity is also not a matter of genetics. It’s defined by historical continuity on a specific common place of origin/land. There is a distinct social, economic, linguistic, cultural and political system which predate colonial societies. The differences just within North America are so widespread it’s impossible to draw those kinds of comparisons… I’m begging you to learn the bare minimum about the people and the histories you’re appropriating.