NO to Israeli Annexation!
NO to Israeli Annexation!
Statement by Meredith Aby-Keirstead at rally organized by Women Against Military Madness on July 3, 2020
On July 1st Israel was supposed to annex 30% of the West Bank which would have reduced Palestine to 10% of its original size in 1948. This brutal and illegal annexation has long been the dream of the apartheid Israeli government and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On July 1 Palestinians and solidarity activists protested all over the world in a Day of Rage! But the annexation didn’t happen. Interestingly there is division in the White House between Trump and Kuschner and in the Israeli government about the annexation plan.
There is a national conversation about US aid to Israel and US financial, military and diplomatic support for Israeli apartheid and war crimes. In fact St. Paul’s representative to Congress Betty McCullom is one of 4 members of Congress currently circulating a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing how Israel’s plan is in violation of international law and quotes the UN Special Rapporteur on the conflict, who said that annexation would “crystalize a 21st century apartheid, leaving in its wake the demise of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.”
Across the river in Minneapolis Representative Ilhan Omar is being targeted by her main opposition rival for her support of Palestine and is facing unfounded smears of anti-semitism. She is being targeted and funded by zionists for her criticism of Israel and for willingness to defend Palestinians.
Lastly, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, who has always been a big zionist supporter of aid to Israel, said on Tuesday he does not support Israeli moves to annex territory which is his most forceful opposition I’ve heard him ever say about Israel. And he even said it during a virtual fundraiser with members of the American Jewish community!
We have achieved some temporary victores but we have more to do. Regardless of whether the annexation happens or not, Israel is in de facto control of all of historical Palestine. I traveled to Palestine on a human rights delegation in 2002 and saw first hand that the people of the West Bank live under brutal military occupation with arrests, assassinations, and checkpoints as part of their daily life. I saw that the brave people of the Gaza Strip live under siege in the world’s largest open air prison, squeezed from both sides on an uninhabitable plot of land. And I met with Palestinians in 1948 Palestine, what is now considered the “state of Israel”. Palestinians inside Israel’s boundaries have lived under 72 years of apartheid, barely second class citizens. The best visual I can give you is to imagine the Jim Crow South in the Middle East.
The Anti-War Committee stands shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle against apartheid and occupation. We will continue to promote and organize around the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement being led by the Palestinian civil society organizations. We unconditionally condemn the imminent annexation, Israeli apartheid, and US aid to Israel, and support the self-determination of the Palestinian people as the only path forward to peace and justice. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!