Palestine’s unrelenting struggle for national identity and human dignity

People throughout the world who value justice and fair play celebrate 29 November every year to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been denied their right to live in a free and sovereign country with the noble expectation that this historical wrong will be corrected.

Although more than 64 years have elapsed, this wrong committed in the name of the world population to satisfy the need of powerful nations has not been corrected. There are no signs of it being corrected either.

The Palestinian people who lay claim to a long and proud history lost their right for a government and nation when the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution No 181 (ii) to divide the Palestinian nation to a Jewish State and an Arabic State by 33 votes to 13.

According to this resolution 55 per cent of the Palestinian land area was vested in the Jewish Community amounting to 30 per cent of the population living there. By 1949 more than 77 percent of the Palestinian land area was forcibly occupied by the Jewish minority by driving away more than 600,000 Palestinians from their traditional places of residence. The invading Israel state which occupied a major part of the balance land area after the 1967 war has now herded the Palestinian people into a small land area in the west bank and the Gaza strip.

The vast majority of Palestinian people who have been denied their right to live as a free and independent people under their own administration are now living in refugee camps situated in various places in the Arab world.

Hopes regarding their own nation have not been dissipated among this people who have been living in refugee camps for three generations in destitution facing insult and inconvenience. They are still dreaming about their own homeland, more radical sections are fighting by taking up arms. This problem which is destabilising the entire Middle East is truly an insult to the entire humanity regarding justice and fair play.

Although the proposal to divide Palestine was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 due to pressure exerted behind the scene by world powers attempts had been also made to correct it. Since the Jewish State proclaimed as Israel transgressed on Palestinian rights ignoring the UN resolution the Security Council adopted several resolutions to remedy them.

There were 16 resolutions adopted by the Security Council regarding the Palestinian problem in 1948 alone and with the resolution number 2064 adopted in 2012 regarding the Middle East situation the total number of resolutions adopted to date totalled 165.

 I don’t think the UNO set up after World War II has adopted so many resolutions on a single issue to date.

Israel, which has built up enormous military strength including nuclear power, does not take any cognisance of these resolutions. The United Nations did not impose sanctions against Israel for ignoring these resolutions as done to other countries.

What is more tragic is the attempt made by Israel and Western countries supporting it to reject the proposal to set up the proposed Arab state (actually the Palestinian Authority has submitted a proposal to the current UN General Assembly to accept a state in a small land area in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) to be set up according to the resolution No. 181 (ii) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1947 as a threat to the peace and security of this region.

These states which describe the setting up of a Palestinian state as a problem which should be resolved through discussions with Israel are also prepared to impose sanctions against Palestine if acts in a different way. When UNESCO decided to grant membership to the Palestinian authority certain western countries decided to withhold the provision of funding to the organisation. The stand taken by Western powers in pressuring the Palestinian people who have lost their motherland subjected to invasionary attacks by the invaders to seek a solution by discussing and negotiating with the invader is most abominable.

The latest example of the unwillingness towards peace on the part of Israel which always claims a serious threat to its existence is the assassination of Ahmed Jabari, a militant leader of the HAMAS organisation. According to a statement made to the Israeli newspaper ‘Harates’ by Israeli Peace activist Garcio Baskin who intervened to obtain the release of Israeli soldier Gilart Shalit from the custody of HAMAS, Jabari was assassinated minutes after handing over a draft of a permanent ceasefire agreement with Israel to him. It was the start of another bombing spree destroying thousands of innocent lives.

It is in such an environment that we are celebrating Palestine Solidarity Day again on 29 November.

This unrelenting struggle carried on by the Palestinian people for their national identity and human dignity has at times turned violent. As free and law abiding people what we ought to do is to eliminate the injustice which instigated them to this situation. We should abhor people following foul play and injustice however much powerful they may be.

Reject rulers and administrative systems which grabbed the right of living of another community and unleashed its unlimited violence on them. It is then that we become people respecting justice and fair play.

I wish to conclude this article by quoting a statement made by Nelson Mandela regarding Palestine. He said: “The freedom won by us in South Africa will not be a complete freedom until the Palestinians who have become victims of colonialism and racialism regained freedom.”

(The writer is Co-Chairman of the Sri Lanka-Palestine Solidarity Committee.)