The Communist Party USA strongly and unequivocally condemns the violence by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people. The capitalist world stays silent in the face of the many crimes being committed by the Israeli regime, but we must speak up.

These crimes are numerous and range from the eviction of Palestinians from their homes based solely on their ethnic and religious background, to attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza. Communists and freedom-loving people must speak up. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As of May 12, the Israeli attacks on Gaza have killed over 35 Palestinians, including 12 children, and wounded over 200. On the Israeli side, five have been killed, including two Israeli Arabs. The lopsided numbers indicate a battle not between equal powers but between an occupier and the occupied.

The capitalist media points to recent demonstrations in East Jerusalem as the precipitating event that led Hamas to attack Israel. On May 10, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at Al-Aqsa Mosque led to injury of hundreds of Palestinians. But those demonstrations occurred within the context of a long-simmering issue: illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  Protests began a month prior, when Palestinian families faced eviction from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers.

The Israeli government’s settlement policy contravenes the Fourth Geneva Convention, which outlaws transferring “parts of its own civilian population in the territory it occupies.” Under right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, illegal settlements have increased in both size and number, turning the West Bank into what has been called “Swiss cheese.” House by house, neighborhood by neighborhood, the Palestinians are losing their land and their hopes for a nation independent of Israel’s tyranny.

As this statement is being issued, the Israeli government is announcing an even further escalation of its current military operations. Israeli military officials are on Israeli TV talking about punishing the people of Gaza and raining terror down on the densely populated Gaza Strip. This cannot be allowed to happen. The U.S. government’s unquestioned funding of these military operations makes the U.S. government equally culpable for the crimes being committed by the Israeli military.

We demand that the Biden Administration pressure the Israeli government to immediately stop the attacks on Gaza. Further, we demand the following:

• Halt and reverse Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank,
• Reopen the American consulate in East Jerusalem that was closed by Trump,
• Move the American embassy back to Tel Aviv,
• End the $3.3 billion in “security assistance” to Israel, on top of the tens of billions more sent each year.

Only when the U.S. stops taking sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will the Palestinians achieve their dreams of statehood. It’s up to the American people to make this a reality. We urge everyone to contact the White House and their Senators today to demand that the U.S. pressure Netanyahu to end the attacks now. Let’s hit the streets and raise our voices for Palestine.

We are a freedom-loving people, but, to quote the great revolutionary Nelson Mandela, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Image:  rpb1001, Creative Commons (BY-NC 2.0).

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