We Reject Trump’s “Peace Plan” for Palestine and Demand the Right to Return

Speech given at the Anti-War Committee protest at our 2019 Al Nakba protest by committee member Wyatt Miller

Rumor has it that Trump is about to unveil a new “Peace Plan” for Palestine. But before we can talk about the plan itself, we have to talk about Trump. This is the Trump who endorsed Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. This is the Trump who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and called it the capital of Israel, despite decades of promises that that wouldn’t happen. This is the Trump who has stomped all over any last shred of mutual good faith keeping the previous “peace process” alive. Does Trump have any credibility to be introducing a “peace plan”? NO!

Now let’s talk about the plan. The details are still unclear, but we already know what it will mean. Weakened sovereignty for Palestine. More stolen land. The same pattern where previous “peace plans” like the Oslo Accords are never implemented, and ultimately replaced by even worse “peace plans”. Nothing for the millions of Palestinians in the diaspora who live in exile. And it will all be backed by a threat of US sanctions and military force.

Does that even make it a “peace plan”? NO! This plan is just the terms of surrender that Trump will try to force onto the Palestinian people. So let’s call it what it really is: a pretext, for further occupation, MORE land theft, MORE refugees with no right of return, and no end in sight.

At least that’s what Trump wants to happen. But things are changing. The Anti-War Committee and other pro-Palestine groups have been struggling for years to open a space in American politics to criticize the occupation. With the outspokenness of Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, we may finally be seeing it.  St. Paul’s Representative Betty McCullum recently introduced a bill to end Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has stated that cutting aid to Israel should be “on the table”. Opinion polls show that younger Americans’ opinions on Israel is shifting and support for the occupation is falling.

We need to seize this opportunity to keep pushing politicians in the right direction. There’s probably never been better political conditions to challenge US support for the occupation than now. If we organize, if we stay in the streets, this could be the turning of the tide.

But we have to actually do it! Because no one will do it for us. And it can’t be Palestinian and Muslim Americans doing the work alone. It has to be all of us. Not only because it’s our moral duty to stop our government from supporting the occupation, but because the occupation is the cornerstone of US imperialism across the entire Middle East, and a testing ground for the technologies and tactics that brutally suppress and weaken the power of the people everywhere.

And it’s the resistance, the unimaginable courage and sacrifices of the Palestinians, that inspires people to fight back against incredible odds all over the world.

Thanks to that resistance, we know the multigenerational injustice of the Nakba will not last forever. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”