Is this a reason to celebrate?
Ethnic cleansing is nothing to celebrate. Torture is nothing to celebrate. House demolitions are nothing to celebrate. Occupation is nothing to celebrate. Apartheid is nothing to celebrate. Yet it seems as though everyone, especially the mainstream media in Canada, is celebrating these things nowadays.
There were celebrations marking 60 years of these heinous crimes all throughout the western world this week. Yes this week we were all told by the media to celebrate Israel's 60th Anniversary as if the founding of an explicitly racist and colonial state were something to be celebrated.
As Zionists and their supporters around the world celebrated this week, the Gaza Strip is still under siege, Israel keeps targeting Palestinians with the harshest forms of collective punishment by bombing and shooting innocent civilians and cutting off access to food and electricity. The hideous and illegal apartheid wall continues to be built on stolen Palestinian land and is snaking its way through the West Bank, encircling communities, cutting-off farmers access to their land and people from their families, and entrenching the illegal colonial Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian hilltops guarded by occupation soldiers who oppress the indigenous Palestinian population on a daily basis.
So what exactly is it that's being celebrated? This is what's being celebrated; the destruction and depopulation of half of Palestine in one year.
Today there are nearly seven million Palestinian refugees throughout the world, more than half still in refugee camps still awaiting their most basic right of return. But according to the Israeli government, Jewish Canadians who've never been to Israel, don't have family in Israel, can't speak Hebrew, and don't even know someone in Israel have a ‘right of return,' while Palestinians who were forced out of their villages and into refugee camps and still have keys to their homes are refused their ‘right of return.'
This is what's being celebrated; racism.
After destroying much of Palestine and establishing their ‘independent state' the government of Israel (led by the terrorist leaders from before statehood kept colonizing and violently seizing land from Palestinians. Since 1967 more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been demolished as part of an ethnic cleansing process.
A few decades before 1948, people of all faiths lived and worked in Palestine together without much conflict over race and religion. This changed when the power dynamic changed and Zionists started pushing everyone else out. This caused many wars in the past and they are still ongoing. Israel has managed to confine Palestinian to ever-shrinking Bantustans, while taking away all their resources and land. There is still an ongoing effort to push all the Palestinians out. This is colonialism.
Well I guess in Canada we're used to celebrating colonialism, and racism; we do it every 1st of July.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
There were celebrations marking 60 years of these heinous crimes all throughout the western world this week. Yes this week we were all told by the media to celebrate Israel's 60th Anniversary as if the founding of an explicitly racist and colonial state were something to be celebrated.
As Zionists and their supporters around the world celebrated this week, the Gaza Strip is still under siege, Israel keeps targeting Palestinians with the harshest forms of collective punishment by bombing and shooting innocent civilians and cutting off access to food and electricity. The hideous and illegal apartheid wall continues to be built on stolen Palestinian land and is snaking its way through the West Bank, encircling communities, cutting-off farmers access to their land and people from their families, and entrenching the illegal colonial Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian hilltops guarded by occupation soldiers who oppress the indigenous Palestinian population on a daily basis.
So what exactly is it that's being celebrated? This is what's being celebrated; the destruction and depopulation of half of Palestine in one year.
Today there are nearly seven million Palestinian refugees throughout the world, more than half still in refugee camps still awaiting their most basic right of return. But according to the Israeli government, Jewish Canadians who've never been to Israel, don't have family in Israel, can't speak Hebrew, and don't even know someone in Israel have a ‘right of return,' while Palestinians who were forced out of their villages and into refugee camps and still have keys to their homes are refused their ‘right of return.'
This is what's being celebrated; racism.
After destroying much of Palestine and establishing their ‘independent state' the government of Israel (led by the terrorist leaders from before statehood kept colonizing and violently seizing land from Palestinians. Since 1967 more than 18,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied territories have been demolished as part of an ethnic cleansing process.
A few decades before 1948, people of all faiths lived and worked in Palestine together without much conflict over race and religion. This changed when the power dynamic changed and Zionists started pushing everyone else out. This caused many wars in the past and they are still ongoing. Israel has managed to confine Palestinian to ever-shrinking Bantustans, while taking away all their resources and land. There is still an ongoing effort to push all the Palestinians out. This is colonialism.
Well I guess in Canada we're used to celebrating colonialism, and racism; we do it every 1st of July.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
