This is the Vietnam moment for a new generation that understands: “No one will be free until Palestine is free.” Then as now, the (temporary) military success was on the side of the colonial powers and their allies, but the political victory went to the resistance, argues Peter Mertens
A spectre haunts the world, a specter that listens to the name ‘Palestine’. All the powers of the old world are allied in a merciless operation against it, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senile US President Joe Biden, New York Times columnists and European President Ursula von der Leyen, the far-right international of hate and German police officers.
The truth is the first to fall. According to the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ), the genocide against the Palestinians is “the deadliest period for journalists” since data collection began in 1992. More journalists have already been killed in the current genocide in Gaza than in the two World Wars and the Korean War combined. It concerns at least 165 media professionals. Imagine for a moment if Russian troops killed over a hundred journalists in Ukraine in less than a year: the outcry would be deafening.
And yet: the facts refuse to die. Meanwhile, the genocide unfolds before our eyes in real time. The horror, madness, and impunity leave many feeling powerless. Those who speak out about “river” and “sea” and “freedom” risk facing the police in Berlin, Paris, London, or Amsterdam.
And yet, those who look beyond today’s dust and chaos will see a movement emerging from Jakarta to Brussels, London to Johannesburg, and Istanbul to Washington. A movement that speaks with one voice, in solidarity with Palestine. That power, unison, makes her a ghost.
In the 1960s and 1970s, students occupied universities to protest the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism. In the 1980s, they occupied campuses to protest apartheid in South Africa. Today, students around the world are mobilizing against Israel’s genocide, impunity, and double standards.
Each time, the young people were vilified, reviled, and condemned. But each time they were right, and each time they won. This is the Vietnam moment for a new generation that understands: “No one will be free until Palestine is free.”
In 1968, the anti-war movement was strengthened by the Vietnam Tet Offensive. Today, the movement is motivated by the resistance against the Israeli destruction of Gaza. In both instances, the (temporary) military success was on the side of the colonial powers and their allies, but the political victory went to the resistance. In the UK, around 100,000 people rallied against the Vietnam War in 1968. That number is less than the smallest demonstrations today against the genocide in Gaza, where marches draw between 150,000 and 800,000 participants.
Your country, your history, and your future
Imagine being Palestinian. Then your land is stolen by settlers, with impunity. That land grab has been going on for 75 years now, annexation after annexation, generation after generation.
Imagine being Palestinian. Then your history is stolen. Museums, cultural centers, libraries, mosques and churches are reduced to rubble, leaving behind nothing but the emptiness of a culture that Israel wants to pretend never existed. The aim is clear: to erase Palestine’s past, pretending that the land and the people never existed.
Imagine being Palestinian. Then your future will be stolen. Israel has bombed more than five hundred schools, leaving more than 625,000 children in Gaza without education, leaving 90,000 students without a university.
They want to steal the land, steal the history and steal the future. But they will never succeed. They are not waging a war; they are conducting a genocide—neighborhood by neighborhood, hospital by hospital, school by school, “safe zone” by “safe zone.” But they will never win.
A new generation will hunt them down in their sleep for what they are: ordinary war criminals and perpetrators of genocide. This generation will have the courage to apply international law consistently, even against the most powerful nations and the world’s greatest aggressors.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal, condemning it as apartheid and urging member states to take decisive action to end it. But nothing happened. On the contrary, in the past year alone, the United States has delivered over ten thousand two-thousand-pound bombs, used to turn schools, hospitals, mosques, and safe zones into craters and cemeteries.
Double standards
Four days after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, football authorities UEFA and FIFA imposed a worldwide suspension on all Russian soccer teams, both club and national teams. “Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine,” FIFA and UEFA announced in a joint statement.
It could be expected that a similar response would occur regarding the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. However, this is not the case—Israel is allowed to participate in the UEFA Nations League without issue, just as it was allowed to participate with impunity in the Paris Olympics and the Malmö Eurovision Song Contest. This not only “normalizes” Israel as an apartheid state but also normalizes the ongoing genocide. Up to and including a standing ovation for war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu before the United States Congress.
Russia was immediately subjected to a full economic and military embargo following the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Not so for Israel. Even after tens of thousands of deaths, the European Union continues its association agreement with Israel, granting Israeli citizens full access to European technology, science, and universities. Through its unwillingness to take the most essential measures, the European Union effectively declares itself morally dead.
Sand in the imperialist war machine
“We should not have compassion for the Palestinians,” Indian Marxist Vijay Prashad told me at the ManiFiesta festival in Ostend (Belgium). “The Palestinians will ultimately liberate themselves. We don’t need to do that. We need to ensure that the war machine stops.”
The weakness of the war machine is arms supplies. »Deutsche Waffen, deutsches Geld morden mit in aller Welt«, as the old saying goes. Translated: German weapons and German money are killing along throughout the world. This is even more true of American weapons. Over the past five years, 79 percent of all arms supplied to Israel have come from the United States, and 20 percent from Germany.
Washington continues to fuel Israel’s war machine by providing relentless financial and military support. The United States has given Israel more than $300 billion in aid, including $4 billion a year in military aid. As recently as August, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the sale of F-15 fighter jets worth $19 billion, along with tank cartridges valued at $774 million, explosive mortar cartridges over $60 million, and army vehicles totaling $583 million.
Some of that arms traffic passes through European ports and airports. At one point, a worker at Brussels Airport was loading cargo and saw boxes destined for Tel Aviv. Together with a colleague, he discovered they were military supplies bound for Israel. They suggested discussing this with the union. No sooner said than done. Eventually, the union decided to boycott the transport. This was followed by a general boycott of the transport workers’ union from transporting any more weapons to Israel.
It all started with one worker saying no. And then one more. And then a union. And then another union. And then unions worldwide, from Italy to Australia, from India to Canada. The student movement denounces the hypocrisy and double standards of imperialist wars. The labour movement is throwing sand into the imperialist war machine itself.
We de-normalize apartheid, we de-normalize colonization, we de-normalize genocide, we de-normalize imperialism. A Palestinian ghost haunts a world.
Peter Mertens is General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Belgium PVDA-PTB (Belgium), member of parliament, and author of the recently published ‘Mutiny: How Our World is Tilting’ now translated into multiple languages.
Illustration: www.tatepaviour.com / instagram @tatepaviour
This was originally published in Liberation Journal in September 2024
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