The Zionist ground assault on the Gaza Strip has begun on 5 fronts, spanning the north, east, and south of the Gaza Strip. According to live Aljazeera news reports, Palestinian fighters from various political parties have engaged the invading forces in intense battles and are already reporting casualties in the Zionist army.
Preceded by a fascistic Zionist bombardment for 8 continuous days and a suffocating blockade for 16 months, this assault is certain to place 1.5 million Palestinians in a smoldering inferno. To the time of issuing this statement, at least 470 Palestinian have been murdered and more than 2,400 injured, with over 250 in very critical conditions. The number of casualties and the extent of destruction are expected to rise sharply. To date, at least 800 air strikes targeted the Gaza Strip in more than 600 population centers at an average of one strike every 20 minutes. This rate will now rise substantially.
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.
Contrary to the complicit and criminal silence of Arab regimes, the people of the world are outraged. Protests have included politically-qualitative massive demonstrations in 1948 Palestine, where over 150,000 took to the streets defying all claims that they have been gutted out of the Palestinian Arab totality. In fact, the definitional events that took place in the last 3 days amongst our brothers and sisters in the 1948-occupied cities and towns of Yafa, Akka, Haifa, Naserah, Sakhnin, and today in Tel Aviv, in support of our people in Gaza, came as a reminder that Palestine and the Palestinians are indivisible, regardless of who or what is in power.
The intent of the Zionist invasion is political, aiming to create a de facto reality that would enable the Bantustan option under the leadership of Abu Mazen devoid of resistance and fulfilling a functionary role similar to that of the various Arab regimes. The only means for the Zionist polity to secure this option is to destroy any remaining resistance, as it attempted to do in South Lebanon and failed.
Essentially, violence is intensified politics with overall strategy and tactics. Tactically speaking, the Zionist army will attempt to shift the balance of power towards the option of surrender. Strategically, it aims to leverage this tactical shift of power towards its overall goal of creating a dependent-functionary client entity. This is the US strategy in Iraq. It is for this reason that Arab regimes remain quiet, hoping that this latest campaign will materialize its goals expeditiously, just as they awaited a defeat in Lebanon, and were complicit in the destruction of Iraq. The Arab people have repeatedly defeated the political plans of these criminal regimes and their Zionist-US partners, and they will certainly do the same this time.
Therefore, the FPA warns against a false understanding of the ongoing assault that it is simply a humanitarian crisis. We must go beyond only alleviating the humanitarian crisis that is rapidly evolving to accurately understanding the roles played by the various elements in this anti-colonial struggle. The Zionists are targeting a national decolonization movement by the Palestinian people that has been raging for 60 years, with all the dimensions and complexities of such a struggle. It is a struggle that will go through many battles, political and military, and the cost will be very high as fascistic Zionists will employ all available means of destruction including the commitment of massacres. Facing all this, the Palestinian Arab people must remain vigilant and clear that theirs is a struggle for full justice and liberation that deserves the solidarity and support of the international community in every way. It is a struggle that can only succeed within the overall Arab struggle for progress and unity away from despotism, dictatorships, and complicit monarchs and corrupt rulers.
Gaza is battle of dignity to be won, not a battle to be mourned. Such are battles of free people!
All Out in Defense of Gaza!
The Free Palestine Alliance
January 3, 2009
