XPost: uk.legal, soc.culture.jewish, alt.news-media   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.atheism   
   From: void@invalid.noy   
      
   BY YOUSEF M. ALJAMAL  JUNE 7, 2024   
      
   For Palestinians, Israel’s violence began long before October 7, 2023.   
   The unfolding genocide in Gaza is the latest chapter in a series of   
   Israel’s settler-colonial practices to remove Palestinians by force   
   from their land. These practices began with the inception of the state   
   of Israel.   
      
   The most fateful year in modern Palestinian history was 1948, when   
   David Ben-Gurion unilaterally declared the creation of the state of   
   Israel and armed Zionist militias massacred Palestinians and evicted   
   thousands from their homes at gunpoint. Palestinians know this as the   
   Nakba, or “catastrophe.” This is not ancient history. Israeli   
   politicians, before and after October 7, threatened a second Nakba   
   against Palestinians. Israeli forces in Gaza painted graffiti on   
   destroyed homes in Gaza that read, “Nakba 2023.”   
      
   Israel’s apartheid practices against Palestinians also started in   
   1948, when Israel caged Palestinian communities in Lod, Nazareth, and   
   Haifa in wired areas and issued discriminatory laws against those   
   Palestinians who stayed and those forcibly displaced. Soon after,   
   Israel captured the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967 and the   
   discriminatory laws and practices were expanded to the occupied   
   Palestinian territory.   
      
   At the time, Israel described the act of capturing what remained of   
   historic Palestine in 1967 as “finishing the job.” The job was to   
   ethnically cleanse the survivors of the Nakba and capture the   
   territories left unoccupied in 1948.   
      
   Many Palestinians were displaced by war and were now under Israeli   
   occupation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Gaza   
   Strip where much of the Palestinian population sought refuge. The   
   capture of Palestinians within the new Israeli State in 1948 and 1967   
   meant more than 811,000 Palestinians lived under occupation then, and   
   with these two events, all Palestinians were now subject to Israel’s   
   policies of apartheid.   
      
   Soon after Israel captured the Gaza Strip in 1967, for example, it   
   introduced schemes to get rid of the young population of Gaza. In   
   1969, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Defense Minister, introduced a plan to   
   transfer young refugees in Gaza to Latin America. Between 1948 and   
   1967, Israeli army raids into Palestinian refugee camps of Rafah and   
   Khan Younis killed hundreds of Palestinians, some of whom were stood   
   against the famous Barquq Castle Wall and were killed, sometimes in   
   front of their families.   
      
   Today the Barquq Castle itself is in ruins because of Israel’s   
   destruction of Khan Younis.   
      
   Throughout the 1970s, Israel exploited Palestinian refugees as cheap   
   labor to build Israeli settlements and with the outbreak of the 1987   
   Palestinian Intifada, and the mounting Israeli state and settler   
   violence against Palestinians, apartheid practices and laws have only   
   increased, suffocating Palestinians even more and making their lives   
   almost impossible. This has been especially visible with travel   
   restrictions, access to water, land and natural resources, and access   
   to medical care.   
      
   The clearest manifestation of this permit regime, and the brutal   
   realities of Israeli apartheid, has been seen in Gaza.   
      
   After 1993 and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA),   
   which was supposed to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian   
   state, it became a requirement for Palestinians to have Israeli   
   permits to move from Gaza to the West Bank. Israel has used this   
   regime of permits to extort Palestinians, especially Palestinian   
   patients in need of medical treatment. Hundreds of Palestinians have   
   passed away in Gaza due to the denial of permits, including my sister   
   at the age of 26 in 2007. In some cases, Israel would grant   
   Palestinian cancer patients permits to have the first chemotherapy   
   session, but not the second one. Palestinians were never allowed to   
   have their own hospitals equipped with the needed devices to have full   
   access to healthcare without being dependent on Israel.   
      
   In addition, Israel created two buffer zones that restricted   
   Palestinian access to their lands in the east and north of Gaza, which   
   has Gaza’s most fertile land, rendering 30% of Gaza’s fertile land   
   inaccessible to Palestinian farmers. This included spraying   
   Palestinian agricultural produce with chemicals, shooting at farmers   
   and arresting them, and sometimes bulldozing Palestinian farmland.   
      
   Israeli control over Gaza’s agriculture and economy has been felt in   
   many ways with devastating consequences. For example, Palestinian   
   farmers were encouraged to grow strawberries despite the fact that   
   this was not the best agricultural practice for Gaza’s resources and   
   soil. Because of Israel’s policies, Gaza lacks clean water, with 97%   
   of water unfit for human consumption. This was all done to benefit the   
   Israeli market, as these strawberries were sent to Israel or exported   
   to the outside world as “Made in Israel.” At sea, Palestinian   
   fishermen were not allowed, in most times, to fish at more than three   
   nautical miles, and dozens of them were killed or arrested by the   
   Israeli navy. In fact, it was common to have Israeli warships fire at   
   Palestinians on Gaza beaches, killing some of them and terrifying   
   others who were simply enjoying the only place in Gaza that gave   
   people a sense of freedom beyond the siege.   
      
   Finally, when this apartheid bureaucracy and suffocating siege were   
   not enough, Israel waged multiple offensives on Gaza in 2006, 2008-9,   
   2012, 2014, 2021, and 2022, ranging in length and brutality. Israel   
   would attack Gaza every couple of years as part of its policy of   
   “mowing the lawn,” to make sure that Palestinians are reminded that   
   Israel maintains control over their lives. This was all done while   
   Gaza was still under tight Israeli siege. Thousands of Palestinians   
   were killed during these offensives.   
      
   In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza started a powerful protest movement   
   named the Great March of Return, demanding an end to the blockade of   
   Gaza and the right of return for Palestinians. Israel killed 300   
   Palestinians during these peaceful protests.   
      
   Israel has repeatedly targeted Gaza for particularly brutal violence   
   for three main reasons: The people of Gaza are known for their   
   resistance to Israel’s occupation and apartheid throughout history,   
   the majority of people in Gaza are refugees from towns and cities   
   across the border, and Gaza has one of the highly densely populated   
   centers in the world.   
      
   Some Israelis say Gaza should be turned into a parking lot, a   
   genocidal statement that unfortunately was echoed by U.S. Congress   
   member Max Miller. Israeli settlers have also promoted the idea of   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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