Category Archives: Palestine

The United States perpetuates the crime in Gaza

Photo: Prensa Latina

I have always heard it said that problems are not solved by moaning; but, however true the phrase may be, the United States tramples on it, as it does with the UN, which is now using it, and vetoes a Security Council resolution proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
This is the third time in a row that the Biden administration has vetoed a possible solution, albeit incomplete and with fewer elements than necessary, because the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people needs to be stopped in its tracks and the offenders punished more severely.
These are those who bomb and kill, and the financiers and suppliers of weapons to the Zionist Israeli army forces, used disproportionately with the certainty that the U.S. government will not allow any resolution of condemnation, even the very limited one calling for a cease-fire.
Yesterday, 13 members of the Security Council voted in favor of the Resolution, one abstained (United Kingdom), and there was only one vote against -that of the United States-, enough for the international community to be convinced, more and more every day, that lamentations will not solve the Palestinian issue nor put an end to the Israeli genocide.
The same happens at the International Court of Justice, where the resolutions for Israel to be brought to justice for the genocide it commits are filed away among so many documents that show a defenseless UN in the face of what is happening to a Palestinian population that Israel has set out to extinguish.
This time, as on previous occasions, the United States “justified” its veto with the words of its ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who assured that “the project will not achieve a lasting peace, but will prolong the captivity of the hostages held by Hamas”.
Rhetoric that turns into a veto. Veto turned into a crime. Punishment that does not come. Palestinian deaths that keep adding up.

Neither bombs nor permanent aggression will be enough to break hope

Photo: José Manuel Correa

The lords of war, which is the horror of the peoples, are indifferent to children, women and men; the human being. It is strange for them to become sensitive and end it in the face of so many deaths; that is why they continue to agonize what is not theirs, what is alive.
The more than seven decades of the Palestinian people resisting the onslaught of Zionist colonialism are not enough; nor are the lives taken from more than 42,000 people since October 2023. The offensive continues, and it hurts.
That is why, aware that solidarity knows no decoys or borders, and that to fight for Palestine is also to fight for humanity, a representation of the Cuban people marched through the streets of Havana, from the Martí Forge to the Anti-imperialist Tribune.
“Our solidarity and sensitivity with just causes summon us to the most anti-imperialist of the tribunes, to repudiate the massacre being committed against the people of Palestine and which is also intensifying against Lebanon, Syria and Yemen,” expressed Meyvis Estévez Echevarría, first secretary of the National Committee of the Union of Young Communists.
In view of the vile scenario experienced by the Palestinian people, she affirmed that it is not a question of figures, that they are entire families martyred, disappeared, and that every time a person from that land is murdered, the shame of the world also dies.
“This march of thousands of Cubans, and the rallies that have been held in the country during these days, honor each life taken by Israel; in addition, it reaffirms the political will and commitment of the Cuban State with peace, justice and respect for national sovereignty,” highlighted Meyvis Estévez.
The march was led by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, accompanied by members of the Political Bureau, Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power and the Council of State, and Manuel Marrero Cruz, prime minister, as well as other leaders and representatives of political and mass organizations.

Condemnation of the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people

Photo: Archivo de Granma

We ratify in the strongest terms the

Photo: Archivo de Granma

We ratify in the strongest terms the condemnation of the brutal aggression and genocide that the Occupying Power, Israel, is carrying out against the population in the Gaza Strip, through the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the destruction of hospitals, schools, mosques, among other infrastructures, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
We denounce the historical complicity of the United States of America by repeatedly using its right to veto to prevent the implementation of a ceasefire to stop the killing of innocent civilians.
We support the decision of the Government of Cuba to participate, as a Third State, in the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
We urgently call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to put an end to the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people, and to allow the urgent entry of aid to address the grave humanitarian crisis being suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza.
We reaffirm Cuba’s historic position for a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, support for the just cause of the Palestinian people and their right to have their independent and sovereign State, with the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the refugees be allowed to return to their land. Likewise, that the entry of the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations Organization be guaranteed without further delay.

, is carrying out against the population in the Gaza Strip, through the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the destruction of hospitals, schools, mosques, among other infrastructures, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
We denounce the historical complicity of the United States of America by repeatedly using its right to veto to prevent the implementation of a ceasefire to stop the killing of innocent civilians.
We support the decision of the Government of Cuba to participate, as a Third State, in the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
We urgently call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to put an end to the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people, and to allow the urgent entry of aid to address the grave humanitarian crisis being suffered by the inhabitants of Gaza.
We reaffirm Cuba’s historic position for a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, support for the just cause of the Palestinian people and their right to have their independent and sovereign State, with the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the refugees be allowed to return to their land. Likewise, that the entry of the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations Organization be guaranteed without further delay.

WE WILL NOT APOLOGIZE: ZIONISM IS RACISM!

WE WILL NOT APOLOGIZE: ZIONISM IS RACISM!

January 18, 2024
Black background with the words STATEMENT STATEMENT running across the top. In bold white letters it reads: "We Will Not Apologize: Zionism is Racism!" with The People's Forum logo

We make no apologies for calling for the destruction of an apartheid and colonial state that is actively engaging in a genocide of the Palestinian people that has already killed over 25,000. The right-wing attack on the new mass movement in defense of the Palestinian people attempts to conflate the call for an end to the apartheid-constructed state of Israel as a call for the destruction of the Jewish people, and to label those who make the call as antisemitic. This is utterly and completely false. This is a propaganda trick by the apologists for genocide.

Would anyone be asked to apologize now for calling for the destruction of the Apartheid South African state? The New York Post used to call Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid activists “terrorists.” Thirty years later, everyone admits that after a righteous struggle, it was a good thing that Apartheid South Africa was erased from history and replaced with a democratic state.

Rather than an ethno-religious state, we stand for a democratic Palestine, as determined by the Palestinian people, based on the full right of return of all Palestinian refugees. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together in peace before the colonial project of Zionism was imposed on them. We want to replace colonialism and ethnic supremacy with democracy — that is no incitement to genocide! Historic Palestine shows the possibility for co-existence among peoples of all faith traditions.

Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Everyone who has ever been at The People’s Forum knows that we welcome people of all faiths and backgrounds who are committed to the struggle for justice. For 100 days, we have proudly marched and organized with hundreds of thousands of people in New York and across the country, many of them Jewish people who stand in the proud tradition of anti-fascism and anti-Zionism, who have rightly declared that the State of Israel, by falsely associating its crimes with the Jewish faith, make Jewish people less safe, not more safe.

For us, Zionism is synonymous with colonialism and racism.

Make no mistake — the horrors of the last 100 days are just the latest massacres that have accompanied every stage of Israel’s short history. From its inception, it has existed as an ethno-state, and it can only exist as such through expulsion, genocide, and increasing apartheid. It is a European settler-colonial implantation in the Middle East, created to safeguard the economic and political interests of the United States in the region. It is sustained not by deep historical ties but by a flow of Western aid, arms, and emigrants. Nothing will deter our commitment to continue fighting for Palestinian self-determination and statehood.

Did any US corporate-owned publication ask Netanyahu to apologize for presenting a map at the United Nations that showed the total erasure of Palestine? Do they demand apologies from the genocidal Israeli and US politicians who have denied the very reality of Palestine or openly call for its total destruction via nonstop bombing? These are forces with state power who are actually perpetrating a literal genocide and engaging in actual genocide denialism. Still, for them, this is less of a controversy than a non-profit organization calling for the destruction of colonialism.

 

Manolo De Los Santos

Executive Director of The People’s Forum