International solidarity with the Palestinian people must include international action

The UN General Assembly decided in 1977 to celebrate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November every year. If nothing else, this means that a majority of countries in the world recognised the justice of the Palestinian cause, and endorsed the narrative of the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom in the face of the false Zionist narrative which is based on lies and terrorism.

The 47th anniversary of this solidarity day bears witness to the injustice, oppression and Nazi-like aggression that the Palestinian people have been subjected to for decades, with an unjust international community operating under double standards and supporting the apartheid, settler-colonial state. This system gives the green light to the Zionist state of Israel to kill, wound, torture and displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in full view of the entire world.

For the second year running, the solidarity day witness to the ongoing Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, funded and supported by the US and other western governments. Starvation has been weaponised, and hospitals, schools, places of worship and other civilian infrastructure have been destroyed, as have tens of thousands of homes. Even the places to which the displaced Palestinians have been told to go to have then been bombed. Israel has killed at least 44,282 Palestinians since last October, mainly women and children, while wounding 105,000 others. An estimated 11,000 are missing, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes. The occupation state has blocked or hindered all deliveries of humanitarian aid to northern Gaza throughout this month.

The healthcare sector has been devastated.

More than 1,000 doctors and nurses have been killed by Israel, and hundreds more have been arrested. There is a chronic shortage of medicines and medical disposables.

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The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People 2024 arrives in what are exceptional circumstances. We are witnessing a genocide taking place in real time on social media — nobody will be able to claim that they didn’t know — while the Arab regimes have done little or nothing to help the Palestinians. Their inaction and silence in the face of mass murder is, in many ways, more shocking and more cruel than the occupation state itself. Some of the regimes now deal with the Palestinian issue as if it is purely a political matter that has nothing to do with them and does not concern them, even though the Zionist occupation is an extension of an Arab tragedy.

Genuine manifestations of solidarity, which used to express a moral and humane stance against the massacres committed by the occupation forces, have largely disappeared in the Arab world. Solidarity has become little more than empty slogans, and in some countries not even that.

Where is the world? Where are the Arabs and Muslims? Where are the people who care about what happens to their fellow human beings? Is the global community really unable to stop the killing of innocent children, women and the elderly; to take food, water, medicine and fuel to the Palestinians in Gaza?

Hasn’t the whole world — the Arabs included — not seen the slaughter and heard the cries of the victims of Zionist brutality and cruelty?

If the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is to have any meaning at all, solidarity must turn into serious intervention by the Arab regimes and people, as well as the international community, which needs to fulfil its responsibilities stop the Zionists and their rogue state. Israel must be held to account; the days of impunity have to end, not only in Gaza, but across all of the occupied Palestinian territories as well. International solidarity must be based on the implementation of international law, otherwise both are meaningless. The International Court of Justice arrest warrants and South Africa’s genocide charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice are a good start, but both must ensure that justice prevails. International solidarity with the Palestinian people must include international action to stop the occupation state in its tracks.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Arabi21 on 26 November 2024

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