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When we are faced with annihilation, Palestinians must either resist or become extinct 

November 19, 2024 at 2:00 pm

Pro-Palestinian banners are hanging on a fence during occupational strike in the yard of Jagiellonian University in Krakow, on October 11, 2024. [Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto]

It was no surprise to hear the fascist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich say that the occupation state intends to “impose Israeli sovereignty” over the entire West Bank — that is, to annex and Judaise the occupied Palestinian territory — once US President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House in January. Israel has been moving in this direction ever since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The so-called “Deal of the Century” that Trump proposed in his first term included the annexation of illegal Israeli settlements, including large areas of what is known as Area C in the West Bank.

Nor was it a surprise to hear about Netanyahu’s military preparations to continue to occupy the Gaza Strip. I have been warning since the beginning of the Israeli genocide in October last year that Netanyahu would prolong the war until Trump is re-elected, and that he will push forward plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause and rights through genocide, settlements, normalisation with Arab states, annexation and Judaisation.

In any case, the overall behaviour of the Zionist movement since the occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967 has been moving to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and to ensure the gradual annexation and Judaisation of Palestinian land, beginning in Jerusalem and extending to the rest of the West Bank. The Oslo Accords and Western insistence on a two-state solution, without actually putting any pressure on Israel to implement it, were nothing more than a means to give Israel enough time to expand its illegal settlements and undermine any possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state. Successive Israeli governments have not hesitated to pass one law after another, with the consensus of government and opposition parties, to “legitimise” annexation and Judaisation, including military orders and rulings, the nation-state law and, most recently, the law preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israel did not, as some claim, need the events of 7 October 2023 to do all of this.

The occupation state has been doing it since the first Nakba of 1948, and especially since the 1967 Naksa. Now, with the imminent arrival of another Trump administration with its extremist Evangelical Christian Zionists on board, we see his nominee for US Ambassador to the occupation state, Mike Huckabee, and the nominee for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, making statements even more extreme than Netanyahu and Smotrich. All believe that the time is right for the implementation of the Zionist movement’s dream of Judaising all of Palestine.

READ: UN Rapporteur says Israel is definitely committing genocide in Gaza

According to Huckabee, there is no such thing as Palestinians; they are “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel”; and there is no West Bank, only Judea and Samaria; and the illegal settlements are Israeli cities and towns. This means that international law is meaningless, as is international humanitarian law, and there is no value to UN resolutions or rulings of the International Court of Justice. We are living according to the law of the jungle, whereby might is right.

Those with power can, it seems, do what they want.

With the countdown starting to the annexation of the West Bank, and the escalation of the ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Gaza Strip, what use is talk about “international legitimacy”, the “two-state solution” and the “peace process”? Isn’t the West being hypocritical when it speaks about a peaceful solution and negotiations, but gives Israel money, weapons and political protection to attack and kill the Palestinian people, and even grants it time and diplomatic cover to weaken the Palestinian people’s resistance against their liquidation and annihilation?

How will the Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and all those who claim to be concerned about international law, human rights and democracy respond to the Israeli annexation declaration? We Palestinians have but one option: we will resist the criminal plan and refuse to surrender, by coming together in a unified national leadership that agrees on a radical programme that mobilises all Palestinian people wherever they are. The issue is now very definitely existential; we either resist annihilation or become extinct. The official political establishment in Ramallah no longer has any excuse to hold on to the illusion of a compromise two-state solution, and “US mediation”. If it does not abandon this illusion, then the Palestinian people will.

On the Arab and Islamic levels, there is no longer any justification for failing to sever all relations with the rogue Israeli entity; expel its ambassadors if they have any; cancel all normalisation agreements; and join the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against apartheid Israel, and treat it the same way that the apartheid regime in South Africa was treated. No country can ignore the facts or escape the inevitable choice of either standing with the fascists who are committing the most heinous war crimes, or challenging them and supporting the Palestinian people’s legitimate struggle for freedom and self-determination in their homeland. There is no middle ground between these two options.

READ: Germany warns Israel against questioning Palestinian right to exist in Gaza

The arrogant Israeli regime believes that it is invincible, despite its failure to achieve its goals in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and the West Bank, a failure for which it tries to compensate by killing civilians, defenceless children and women, and destroying civilian infrastructure necessary for life. It has not and will not learn any lessons from history. Its all or nothing policy is an expression of both its arrogance and short-sightedness. Netanyahu and his despicable clique are the latest of many tyrants who have committed countless crimes.

Like them, he will end up in the dustbin of history, after inflicting an enormous tragedy on his own people.

No one must underestimate the extent of suffering experienced by the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. There are no words in the world that can express the pain of the millions of Palestinians who have lost their children and loved ones. Nevertheless, the rulers of Israel and their supporters among the Evangelical Christian Zionists are mistaken if they think that they will break the will of the Palestinian people, or their determination to achieve freedom, especially when the choice is so stark: struggle or annihilation.

Israel has never succeeded in breaking the will of the people whose land it occupies; it will never be victorious. People around the world have woken up to the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause and the impact that the struggle is having on world affairs. Despite the support and backing of successive US administrations, the Zionist state of Israel is going to be more isolated than ever.

The Palestinians are now facing their greatest challenge and threat, but they are under no illusions about how great it is, and what they must do. Today is perhaps the greatest opportunity for their success and salvation.

OPINION: A nation in denial: Why Israel’s defeat is imminent

Translated from Al Araby al Jadeed, 17 November 2024

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.