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West on wrong side of history, cannot be relied upon to end aggression

Originally published: Al Mayadeen on October 18, 2023 by Ahmad Karakira (more by Al Mayadeen)  | (Posted Oct 19, 2023)
WarAmericas, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United StatesNewswire

Let’s be clear, staging vigils, marches, and protests all over the world in support of Gaza will not magically put an end to the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Strip, lift the years-long siege imposed on it, or free Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Likewise, despite their importance in raising awareness about the Palestinian cause among the masses, posting pro-Palestine content and exposing “Israel’s” daily heinous crimes on Western-owned social media platforms that have been cracking down on anti-“Israel” narratives will also not have Western leaders bat an eye.

It’s not like the West will ever demand that “Israel” stop its aggression and end the occupation of Palestine. This is the case no matter how many disturbing videos of killed and injured Palestinians by Israeli bombing or reports about “Israel’s” violation of international law come out. Even the documented use of the restricted white phosphorous against Gaza and Lebanon will continue to fall on deaf ears.

We’ve recently witnessed the West reiterating its unwavering financial and military support for “Israel” against the Palestinian Resistance amid Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip. Of course, this is not surprising since the West has always been on the wrong side of history, exhibiting utmost bias by supporting aggressors and condemning and criminalizing liberation movements around the world.

Take as an example the West’s historical support of U.S.-led coups against democratically-elected systems, particularly its support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and its stance on the war against Syria and Yemen—positions that caused a lot of killing and destruction. All of this is living proof that Western governments cannot be relied upon to end the aggression in a way that does justice to the Palestinian cause. Suffice it to say that the Palestinian people are being killed by weapons provided by the West, which makes these governments complicit with “Israel” in its crimes.

What’s surprising is seeing some supporters of the Palestinian cause, in good faith, issuing lengthy statements condemning the recent aggression on Gaza and calling on the West, especially the United States—the Israeli occupation’s biggest ally—to end its support to “Israel”. Since when do Western governments take into consideration peaceful pro-Palestine demands, especially in the presence of powerful Zionist groups and lobbies, particularly in the United States—such as the American “Israel” Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—which exert influence on policymakers and play a role in shaping foreign policy decisions? In fact, some of these countries, which claim to respect freedom of expression, have banned and criminalized pro-Palestine acts and already consider anti-Zionism to be equal to anti-Semitism.

You might say this is pessimistic but do keep in mind that this is the same West that has been massively supporting “Israel” for 75 years now, so hundreds of protests and statements will not simply persuade Western governments that have supported “Israel” for so long to pressure the entity into ending the aggression. Let’s not forget that this is the same West that calls for a so-called “two-state solution” to dissolve the Palestinian cause and subjugate the Palestinian people in order to give up their occupied land and the same West that labels Palestinian Resistance fighters trying to liberate their occupied lands as “terrorists”.

The West is well aware of the ethnic cleansing that the Israeli occupation is committing against the Palestinian people but chooses to remain silent and continues to turn a blind eye to these war crimes. The West already acknowledges that “Israel” is illegally occupying the West Bank but does nothing to end this occupation.

These governments are aware that in one week only, “Israel” has killed more than 2,000 Gazans but still blame Hamas for allegedly “using their own people as human shield” and blindly fall into fake, unproven Zionist reports about Palestinian Resistance fighters “beheading babies” in Israeli settlements. They all know that “Israel” has been imposing a stifling siege on 2 million people living in Gaza and now has completely cut food, water, and electricity off of the Strip as part of a starvation and subjugation process but still consider “Tel Aviv” a friend.

Last year, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said, “Europe is a garden” and described most of the rest of the world as “a jungle”. This is just one example of how Western governments see the Middle East and its people, therefore choosing to glorify Ukrainian Nazis—white people who look like them—while demonizing Palestinians defending their land.

Western mainstream media—largely owned by private companies that have a close relationship with decision makers—also play a huge role in misleading public opinion in the West by portraying the Palestinian Resistance fighters as villains who killed “innocent” Israeli settlers in Gaza Envelope settlements. These same outlets deliberately failed to mention that the Israeli entity committed in 1948 massacres against the Palestinian people and occupied the Palestinian territories which were the venue of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. These media also portray the confrontation between the Resistance and “Israel” as a “religious conflict” or a “conflict” between any “two neighboring countries.”

The reality is that we cannot rely on the West to end the Israeli aggression on Gaza and its occupation of Palestine. The bottom line is that Western countries that support “Israel” lack any morality and have no interest in playing a role in ending Israeli aggression. What is worse is the silence of the governments of some Arab nations regarding the crimes of the occupation and their denunciation of Palestinian Resistance operations, green-lighting “Israel’s” massacres against the Palestinian people without being held accountable.

With all these factors looming and coming together to further stifle Palestine in between the closing walls of occupation, all that remains to end the suffering of the region and the suffering of the Palestinian people is armed resistance until the land is liberated from the Western-backed Israeli occupier. It goes without saying that standing in solidarity with Palestine, whether on social media or by protesting on the ground, is the least that any non-military, noble person who stands for what is right in the face of injustice and arrogance can do. After all, had these methods not intimidated the West and helped expose “Israel’s” brutality and thus influenced public opinion, they would not have been violently suppressed and criminalized, to say the least.

However, amid the West’s historical bias toward “Israel”, what Palestinians, especially Gazans, need at this point to end their suffering is the continuation of the acts of resistance and the opening of new battlefronts that would exhaust the Israeli occupation and pave the way for liberation and the elimination of the Zionist entity, in accordance with the saying of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser:

What was taken by force can only be restored by force.

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