All Power To The People
As prisoners our imprisonment stultifies our social consciousness,
our isolation prevents us from receiving information about the world
from social interaction and direct experience. We are expected to relate
to the world – and form our opinions about it and what should be done in
it – through the ruling class’s media; if it wasn’t reported, it didn’t
happen. The way it’s shown is how it is.
All of the mainstream media sources claim objectivity, but they don’t
practice it. How can news be objective when the very language is biased
as in the I$raelis always being “allies” and the Palestinians always
being “terrorists?” This is obvious in the reporting being done by the
mainstream media and the U.$. government as it pertains to Hamas’ attack
on I$rael. The “terrorist attack” narrative is being shoved down our
throats. With their half-truths, omissions, spins, etc, they have led
the masses to conclude that what we are being told is the truth. This is
evident in my peers’ responses to the ongoings of the Middle East.
I encourage all prisoners to ascertain the truth of the matter via
conducting their own research. Because whatever the news story, trusting
and believing it as it is laid out is the most beneficial practice to
the ruling class and their “allies”.
The forthcoming is by no means an exhaustive piece, nor a diatribe.
My intention is to provide you with some context as it pertains to the
conflict between I$rael and Gaza. This conflict dates back to when the
Ottoman Empire ruled the region. Prior to WWI, the area now known as
I$rael was known as Palestine and was part of the Ottoman Empire. During
WWI, as the fall of the Ottoman Empire became imminent, the governments
of France and Great Britain signed the Sykes-Picot Agreements on 16 May
1916. France and Great Britain agreed “to recognize and protect an
independent Arab state or a confederation of Arab states” upon the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. In December 1917, Palestine was
occupied by the Allied Forces under General Allenby of Britain. After
WWI, the Allied powers divided the former Ottoman Empire into mandates
and Great Britain was given a mandate from the League of Nations to
govern Palestine.
In 1917, before the British mandate, the native Arab population
accounted for approximately 94% of the total population. Under the
mandate from 1922 to 1947, the Jewish population in Palestine increased
by approximately 725%. During the twenty-year British mandate, violence
was used by Jewish settlers to establish territory. As Jewish
immigration into Palestine continued, Britain refused to recognize
Palestinian right to self-government. The Zionists resorted to violence
to hold the ground they gained and to press toward their ultimate
aspirations of a Jewish state in Palestine.
On 29 November 1947, the U.N. voted to divide Palestine into separate
Jewish and Arab states and make Jerusalem an international city. The
Arabs rejected this plan, which was later dropped. After the
announcement of this plan, violence erupted in Palestine and within
three months, 869 people died and 1,909 people were injured in
Palestinian-Jewish clashes. Jewish paramilitary attacks on Palestine
villages led to the mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs to other areas of
Palestine as well as other countries. The displacement of over 750,000
Palestinians from their land during this period is referred to as the
Nakba, or catastrophe. The violence escalated as the neighboring Arab
states (Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan) joined the
hostilities and fought what came to be known as the 1948 Arab-I$raeli or
Middle East War.
After the British mandate expired on 14 May 1948, I$rael declared its
independence as a state. The U.$. and the USSR subsequently recognized
I$rael. The I$raeli forces were well-armed and well-trained and quickly
overpowered the forces of the intervening Arab states. By the end of the
war, I$rael occupied most of the territory of Palestine, with the
exception of the area along the West Bank of the Jordan River (known
since as the “West Bank”) and a strip of land along the Mediterranean
Sea (known since as the “Gaza Strip”).
In 1948, the Arab-I$raeli war ended with the signing of the bilateral
armistice agreements between I$rael and Egypt, I$rael and Lebanon,
I$rael and Jordan, and I$rael and Syria. The purpose of these agreements
was to reach a formal peace treaty within six months, but it ultimately
failed.
In 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal and barred I$raeli ships
from using it along with the straits of Tiran, another shipping route.
[ULK editor: this is a precedent for what Yemen
is doing to stop ships to I$rael in the Red Sea today.] I$rael, who
was aided by Britain and France at the time, then invaded Egypt. The
Soviet Union, who was an ally of Egypt, threatened I$rael with nuclear
retaliation if they did not exit Egypt. This threat forced the U.$. to
pressure the British, French, and I$raeli forces to withdraw.
Subsequently a peacekeeping force was deployed by the U.N.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed in 1964 in
Egypt. The purpose of the PLO was to unite Arab groups and liberate the
Palestinian territories through armed struggle. The PLO would later
become co-opted by the United $tates and I$rael and change its name to
the Palestinian Authority (PA).
In 1967, Egypt ordered the U.N. forces to leave and closed the
Straits of Tiran to I$rael again.
This sparks the Six Day War. I$rael attacks Egypt and later Jordan
and Syria, capturing Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Sinai
Peninsula.
From 1973 until 1979 – when the Camp David Accords peace deal was set
up by U.$. President Jimmy Carter and signed by Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat and I$raeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin – war raged
unchecked.
As all prior peace agreements the Camp David Accords peace deal was
short-lived. In 1987 Palestinians organized by the recently created
Hamas staged the first of the two uprisings [intifadas], in Gaza, I$rael
and in the West Bank, using mass boycotts, civil disobedience and
attacks on I$raelis. More than 50 I$raeli civilians were killed. From
1987 to 1990, the Palestinians and Hamas held numerous protest
demonstrations to which the I$raeli Defense Forces (IDF), special
forces, police, and I$raeli settlers responded with live ammunition,
indiscriminate beatings of Palestinians, as well as other means of
oppression. The primary focus of Hamas was to spread its Islamist
ideology and respond to the immediate needs of the Palestinian people,
particularly their need of basic services and psychological need to
resist I$rael’s brutal and racist military occupation of Gaza and the
West Bank.
After the PLO sold out the Palestinian struggle for national
liberation by signing the Oslo agreement with I$rael in 1993 the people
of Gaza supported Hamas becoming a political structure. Subsequently
they elected members of Hamas into positions of local leadership, then
ultimately as their overall national leadership. Hamas has remained
relatively free of pressures and outside influences. They have set up
social support programs to help provide for basic needs like food and
medical care that I$rael has been blocking for decades now. The
Palestinian people took up arms against I$rael and its illegal
settlements that have been murdering Palestinians, especially children,
and increasingly stealing their land. In 2006 the Palestinian people
elected Hamas as their national political leadership in place of the PA
despite knowing the United $tates and I$rael would retaliate by cutting
all funding they were giving to prop up the neo-colonial PA, and scraps
they were tossing to the already ruined Gaza economy. So if we are to
keep it real Hamas is a reflection of and carrying out the will of the
Palestinian people.
In 2008, I$rael launched a major military campaign against Hamas. The
fighting ceased on 18 January 2009, with 1,440 Palestinians and 13
I$raelis killed. I$raeli forces killed Hamas’s military chief Ahmed
Jabani in a missile strike. The strike was part of an I$raeli operation
to eliminate weapons, and Hamas members in Gaza. In the wake of the
death of their military Chief, Hamas made it clear that the “gates of
hell had been opened.”
From 2012 up until the most recent attack by Hamas there have been
constant clashes between Hamas and I$rael. If you noticed there have
been more Palestinians murdered. Even after the attack that occurred on
October 7, over 15,000 [and counting] Palestinians have been killed,
including people of all ages. The I$raelis have prevented any
humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, they have had Gaza under a blockade
for 16 years, and they have had over 2 million Palestinians confined to
a 147 square mile open air prison. It is axiomatic that violence begets
violence. The oppressor should never holla “terrorist attack!” when the
rooster is simply coming home to roost.
Dare To Struggle
Dare To Win
