Palestine is being ethnically cleansed and is facing settler colonialism by Israel. Since 1948 Israel has been stealing land, destroying 600 Palestinian villages in 1948 alone. Israel claims to have only attacked terrorist bases, yet has damaged more than 50 schools by airstrikes, impacting 41897 children in Gaza. Additional Palestinian children have lost access to education as further schools are being used as shelters for approximately 47000 Palestinians who have had their homes destroyed. 6 hospitals and 9 primary health care centres have also been damaged by air strikes. Israelis bombed the offices of AI Jazeera and the Associated Press news agency to science journalists sharing the brutality. Israel is illegally and forcefully evicting Palestinians, and arresting hundreds of Palestinians who protest. Between 2008 to 2020, as documented by the UN, 5590 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 115000 have been injured by Israeli’s. In contrast, 251 Israeli’s have been killed and 5600 injured, highlighting how one sided the conflict is.

Western media fails to condemn Israel’s war crimes to avoid discussions about colonialism and the lack of reparations given to colonialised countries; to do so would require acknowledging the brutality of colonialism and the crimes committed by colonial countries. The media uses using misleading terms such as ‘clash’ to imply that what is happening is two sided, whilst in reality unarmed praying Palestinians have been attacked by Israeli’s armed with tear gas, guns, and grenades. Western media falsely presents this as a religious conflict to conceal the genocide – before Israel was created Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived harmoniously in Palestine. The media presents any criticism of Israel as anti-sematic to escape criticism, even though the conflict is not religious; anti-Zionism is not anti-sematic, and authentic Rabbis have always opposed Zionism and the state of Israel.

In addition to the by the Israeli military, a desalination plant, supplying clean water to 250000 Palestinians has been destroyed and Israel has actively interfered with repair to use control over water supply as a tool for coercion. In Gaza, approximately 96% of water is ‘unfit for human consumption’ OCHA’, leaving more than 80% of the population of Gaza dependant on aid as Israel controls their access to basic human needs. Israel routinely sprays Palestinian crops on border zones with herbicides to kill crops. Additionally, Israel blocks trading between Palestinian cities to prevent an effective domestic market, and Palestinian goods cannot enter the Israeli market. Israel also blocks Palestinian tax revenues to stop the Palestinian government repairing damaged buildings or investing in communities.

The US has been funding the Israeli military with US tax dollars since 2016, giving $3.8 billion per year, and giving an additional $38 billion in 2021. More than 100 UK universities invest over £454 million in companies complicit in Israeli war crimes.

Palestine