The combined Zionist assault on the Gaza Strip by ground, air, and sea is escalating. As of issuing this ninth FPA statement, at least 509 Palestinians have been murdered and more than 2,450 have been injured. In the meanwhile, people from every corner of the world continue to protest in the millions in unprecedented solidarity with the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip. Within 1948 Palestine, hundreds have been jailed during the past few days alone and the Israeli secret service (Shabak) is pursuing many more for protesting the massacre in Gaza. The Palestinian Arab people stand humbled by this overwhelming solidarity. It is solidarity such as this that gives a besieged and impoverished population an additional ability to withstand the onslaught of a fascistic army.
The FPA calls on all to sustain a widespread popular protest, and to heed a call for a National Emergency Plan of Action issued by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, MAS Freedom, the Free Palestine Alliance, the National Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda. We urge our community to come out strongly and join the National March on Washington on January 10. We must send a loud and clear message of outrage to the Bush administration and to Barak Obama, who is already in Washington at this time awaiting his inauguration on a presumed platform of “Change” and “Hope”.
The Palestinian people are under no illusion about the nature of the all-encompassing geopolitical goals of this assault, both short and long term, tactical and strategic. They also well understand the vicious and inhuman means and methods with which the Zionist political machinery hopes to achieve these goals. Only through understanding the geo-politics involved that one can understand the deafening silence of Obama and the full support of the Bush administration, the UN Security Council disgraceful inaction, and the criminal complicity of Arab regimes.
The US-Israeli long term strategy is to transform that area of the world into a “New Middle East” that would be needed for the functionality of imperial control. Any resistance, regardless of its ideological inclination that may be seen as an obstacle, will be and has been targeted for obliteration. The Palestinian national liberation movement in its current formation is one such obstacle, particularly since the PA’s Mahmud Abbas (supported by the regimes of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) is unable to turn Gaza into an obedient polity.
Other examples of perceived obstacles are many. They include the the 1953 CIA coup in Iran under Mossadegh; the destabilization of Egypt under Nasser, including the 1956 and 1967 attacks; the 1958 US marines in Lebanon; the propping of despots and monarchs throughout Arab countries and the dismemberment of the Arab nation; the 1970 Black September massacre in Jordan at the hands of the Jordanian monarch; the many Zionist assaults on Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and several times then after, including July 2006; the systematic attacks on the Palestinian national liberation movement since its inception, including systematic assassinations and numerous massacres; the occupation and destruction of Iraq by the US and the creation of client states in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the systematic destabilization of Sudan and Yemen; and now the vicious attacks on the Gaza Strip, only to name a few. Of course, the wholesale expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and the establishment of Israel as a materialization of colonial Zionism was the critical transformative watershed of all.
The US-Israeli plan is to fully control the region by having a strong grip on: all oil fields and pipelines; critical waterways linking Asia, Africa and Europe such as the Suez Canal and the straits of Gibraltar, Hormuz, and Aden; consecutive land masses that border the south of the former Soviet republics and west of India and China; all trade routes; and other similar geo-political interests.
In this context, one can understand the criminal roles of the various players and could explain all actions and reactions. This battle in the Gaza Strip is, therefore, not a battle simply to control rocket fire, as falsely claimed by Israel and the US, nor is it to secure colonial borders, true as that may be. It is mostly a battle against the process of resistance opposing the advance of Empire, in all of its tentacles and client forms.
It is incumbent on all to take a position of solidarity with the people of Gaza as they stand today facing the advance of empire in its Zionist form. Gaza is not a wealthy region. The majority of its inhabitants are impoverished 1948 refugees. Yet, the wealth of resistance it has shown throughout its modern history, from before 1948, to 1956, to 1967, to the 70s, the Intifada of the 80s, the latest Intifada, and now, is an indication that the will of people to be free and liberated is an existential reality despite the ravages of empire. History has no constants, except the will to struggle against tyranny.
All Out in Solidarity with the People of Gaza!
The Free Palestine Alliance
January 4, 2009
4 3 minutes read
