Introduction
The Palestinian question needs to be tackled soberly, devoid of anti-Palestinian propaganda channeled into the minds of people worldwide by some media. Big media around the world are headed by Jews1 and, in many cases, unjustly promote versions of Zionism on the issue of the Jewish occupation of Palestinian land. A case in point is when the New York Times kept changing headlines after Israel bombed a hospital, killing hundreds of Palestinians. This was meant to promote the version of Israel that the killing resulted from a misfired rocket by the Palestinian Resistance forces and not the Israel army.
The Kenyan media, on its part, continues to promote this version by copy pasting what comes out of the said media and feeding it to its citizens. Another group that has added confusion to the occupation is a section of the religious community, which has unquestioningly embraced the biblical (Old Testament) interpretation of the issue thus justifying Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the eviction, killing, and suppression of innocent Palestinians. It is no surprise to hear comments to the effect that Jews were blessed by God who promised them land in Palestine, and that they have a divine right to the land and it must not be given back to the Palestinians. Therefore, according to these groups, there is a need to seek the truth of the whole issue, which can be achieved by analyzing the facts objectively; by gathering evidence and facts that correspond to the actual situation in Palestine. One of the ways of doing this can be through revisiting the history of the region to understand the origin of the occupation. It is from this knowledge that the answers to the occupation will be found and could assist in bringing freedom to the oppressed.
History of Occupation
The Palestinian land was originally called Canaan in the early days and was the home to the Canaanites, who are today called Palestinians. About 3,500 years ago, the Semitic Hyksos (rulers of foreign lands), who had ruled Egypt for a hundred years, were expelled to Canaan where they conquered the land of Canaanites and called it Israel. In 135 AD, the name was changed to Palestine after Emperor Hadrian of the Roman Empire conquered it. In 1517, the Ottoman Empire captured the land and ruled it up to 1922 as its province. For centuries the land was inhabited by Jews, Christians and Palestinians, who were the majority (80%). They all lived in harmony with mosques, synagogues, and churches spread over the entire territory. A problem arose in the 1880s after the formation of a movement called Zionism, which campaigned for the creation of a Jewish nation in the land of Palestine. Its main argument was that Jews were for many centuries discriminated against and were frequently the target of murderous pogroms and therefore this meant that Jews could never be accommodated by other countries, hence the solution was to have their own state. But one thing that needs to be understood is that the said pogroms were sponsored and organized by the ruling class to divide and keep down the oppressed and exploited. Examples of these are the massacres that occurred in Russia in the 18th century, which were a result of the Tsarist monarchy and the capitalists who had sowed the seed of discontent among the ignorant workers and peasants, and rallied them against the Jews. They did this to save the decaying monarchy and continue living off the wealth that was produced by the same workers and peasants. This is still prevalent even today among sections of leaders across the world who, when faced with a crisis resulting from their misrule, divide workers along ethnic and religious beliefs to make them passive to their predicament so that they can continue to exploit them.
Jews Migration
The idea of relocating Jews to Palestinian land, then under the Ottoman Empire, was not embraced by the majority of the Jews. Rather, the said Jews preferred to escape to other countries such as the USA. Many countries in Western Europe and the USA had opened their doors to Jews but the Zionist leadership, knowing too well that their scheme was to fail, frustrated such efforts. In 1884, the French government framed Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, for treason, and convicted him. Though the officer was later acquitted, the Zionists used the case to justify their claim to land in Palestine. An Austro-Hungarian Zionist journalist by the name Theodor Herzl exaggerated the story to show that Jews could never be treated fairly even if they were assimilated by the world, and in this article insinuated that the creation of a Jewish state was the only solution. In 1886, he came up with a book-cum-manifesto entitled The Jewish State for the Zionist movement, and organized the Zionist first congress in 1897.
The Zionist movement continued to hold its congress meetings and it was during these meetings that it listed territories where its dream could be realized. Among the areas earmarked were Argentina, Palestine, Cyprus, parts of western Kenya and Eastern Uganda. Since the movement had used Jewish religion and tradition to justify their argument, they settled on Palestine. But it should be understood that the movement was purely secular and it only used a religious argument to accomplish its mission.
The movement, then under the tutelage of Herzl, embarked on meeting people who mattered to negotiate with them Jewish resettlement on Palestinian land. Herzl visited the head of the Ottoman Empire and Russia, which was under the Tsar monarchy, and which had committed atrocities against the Jews. For him, it didn’t matter who he was meeting provided his dream could be accomplished.
During the fifth Zionist Congress held in 1901 in Basel Germany, the idea of forming a Jewish National Fund was mooted. This fund was meant to buy land in Palestine from the absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. This was resisted by the Palestinians who were living on those lands. Unfortunately, their resistance was subdued by the Turkish Ottoman authorities, who evicted them. The Zionist movement masked its colonial project and hoodwinked the innocent Jewish diaspora to return to the “Promised Land”, and take it over as though the land was empty.
When the First World War started in 1914, with various imperialist countries at each other’s necks, there were various united fronts; one camp had the Britons, France and Russia, while the other had the Germans, Austrians and Ottoman Turks. As the war progressed and Germany appeared to be the country that could emerge as the victor, the Zionist movement led by its chairman Chaim Weizmann, approached the British government and proposed that it drag the USA (which had remained neutral by capitalizing on selling weapons to both sides) into the war to fight on the side of British allies, provided that Britain would guarantee Palestine land — which at that time was under the Ottoman Empire. By then, Britain was planning to give the Zionists land in Africa, possibly in Uganda or Kenya. When the deal between the Zionists and Britain was sealed, prominent and influential Zionists were sent to the USA, and among them was Samuel Untermeyer a prominent lawyer who had contributed funds to the National Democratic Committee which had facilitated the election of President Woodrow Wilson. After negotiation President Wilson agreed to the Zionists demands, and to facilitate them, he appointed Louis Brandeis, a Zionist lawyer, to the Supreme Court. It was Bradel who then advised the president to join the war, ostensibly, because the Germans had sunk a USA ship, the SS Sussex. In reality, no USA ship was sunk and no lives of Americans were lost as it came to be noted later. The president then called congress and pleaded with it to declare war, which it did on April 6, 1917. The USA joined the war the same year and shifted the balance in favour of the allies. The then British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour wrote a letter (Belfour Declaration) to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, and issued a declaration in November 1917, which gave Zionists the right to establish a state in Palestine. It should also be noted that Britain had in 1915 promised Arab countries, then under the Ottoman Empire, independence if they supported them against the Central Powers. This had been put in writing by Hussein Sharif a leader of the Arab independence movement of Mecca, and Sir Henry McMahon, a British High Commissioner in Egypt in an agreement commonly known as McMahon- Hussein. It should also be noted that France and Britain had signed a secret agreement (known as the Sykes-Picot agreement) in 1916, which stipulated how the two countries were to share Arab territories under the Ottoman Empire upon its defeat. Under the said agreement Britain was to get Transjordan (today Jordan, Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Southern Iraq) while the French were to get Syria, Lebanon, Northern Iraq and South-Eastern Turkey. Russia was allocated the Turkish Straits and Ottoman Armenian Vilayets. Palestine was to be under international administration, meaning that any allied power could administer it. The three countries did not want any Arab country to know about the agreement because if they would have refused to revolt against the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian Revolution, Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party, made the agreement public which brought about tension since the Arabs realized that they had been duped.
After emerging victorious, the allied forces organized the San Remo conference in April 1920, where Britain was mandated to administer Palestine. Britain then appointed Herbert Louis Samuel, a Jewish Zionist, as its first High Commissioner. By appointing a Zionist, Britain proved how determined it was to facilitate the implementation of the Belfour Declaration. Furthermore, Herbert made Hebrew the official language along with English and Arabic. The Jews in this period were streaming into Palestinian land in the thousands, and, for example, a total of 99,808 Jews migrated to Palestine in a period of 10 years (1920 to 1929). This raised suspicion among the Palestinians, who reacted by holding demonstrations. Their resistance was violently repulsed by the Britons and the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization, who worked closely together in countering the protests. The migration forced the Palestinians to send their representatives to Britain in 1922 to argue their case with regard to halting the large immigration of Jews into their territory and also to press for their independence. Meanwhile, the Zionists and the Britons continued to work closely and were using all means possible to crush any rebellion in Palestine. This is attested to by the execution of Farhan al-Sa’di, who had led the powerful protest (Barack revolt) in August 1929. In the 1930s the protests intensified and many Palestinians, including women, were arrested, killed and had their houses demolished. The protests forced the British government form a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (Peel Commission) in 1936 ostensibly to investigate the cause of the protests. The following year, the commission gave its report and recommended the partitioning of Palestine into three parts, and also the removal of Palestinians from land allocated to Jews. The report was well received by the Zionists while the Palestinians were dismayed by it. This led to more protests, which were mercilessly repressed, and forced the protest leaders to seek asylum in Lebanon — leaving Palestinians without leadership. As this was going on, the British were disarming the Palestinians while allowing the Jews to carry weapons, claiming that the latter were the minority.
The Palestinians were then forced to defend their land and themselves against further suppression by Britain, and they did this by forming a guerrilla movement. This made the British bring thousands of its troops to Palestine to crush the revolution. The Zionist paramilitaries (Irgun, Stern Gang, Hagganah, Hadera) with British blessings, executed their terrorist activities against Palestinians by bombing their villages. Due to British support, the Jewish paramilitary grew more powerful and when the Second World War started, about 15,000 of them joined the British side and acquired great experience which they used to conquer more Palestinian land. It was during the Second World War that German leader Adolf Hitler killed millions of Jews as he blamed them for the economic problems afflicting his country. These killings are also attributed to the support that Jews gave to the Russian government during the war since most of them were carried out after Germany invaded Russia on June 22, 19412. It should be noted that Russia by then had outlawed any anti-Semitism and had granted equality to Jewish people. The killings, which were called the holocaust, led to an increase in Jewish migration to Palestine.
After the war, the USA emerged as the most powerful country replacing Britain, and this made the Zionists start courting them. The Zionists also reached out to the Jewish community in America for assistance, and this came in handy. With the support of the USA, the Zionists gained a lot of confidence and started to frustrate British rule by carrying out terrorist activities. On Monday, July 22, 1946, the Zionist terrorists bombed King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 91 and injuring 45 people. This building was targeted because it hosted the British administrative headquarters for Palestine. Jewish terrorism continued and surprisingly the British did not use any force to counter the terrorists as they did when the Palestinian revolutionaries resisted. This was attributed to the strong Zionist connection with diaspora Jews who had great influence in the British Government. Zionist lobbies in the USA and Britain made the British refer the Palestinian matter to the United Nations in 1947. And on November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly was held with the main agenda being Palestinian land. After this deliberation, the Zionists, who used to occupy 5.5 percent of Palestine, were unjustifiably given over 55 percent of Palestinian land. The assembly scrapped the word Palestine and instead used “Arab state.” The USA, which was the main architect of the resolutions, lobbied other countries by bribing and pressurising them to pass the resolution giving Jews 55 percent of Palestinian land. The resolution angered Arab countries, whose representatives stormed out of the assembly, and demonstrations were held all over the Middle East in protest. The passing of the resolution forced the Palestinians to begin to organise themselves militarily for their liberation, but this did not work out as they were militarily handicapped due to the disarmament carried out by the British. Their brothers in Arab countries volunteered to train and equip them, and on the other side, the Zionists turned their paramilitary terrorist groups into a modern army with over 40,000 fighters, 35,000 of them being Haggah. This was a large force, compared with the Palestinians whose armed force was around 2,000. The Zionists having the upper hand, planned executions and the demolition of Palestinians’ homes (Nakba). And the British, who by then were mandated to rule in this area, did nothing to protect the Palestinians. In May 1948, the British left Palestine and the Zionists inherited the state and continued the massacre and expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. Over 700,000 Palestinians were violently evicted and forced to become refugees in neighboring Arab states.
Renaming of Palestine as Israel
On May 5, 1948, the Zionists renamed Palestine Israel and declared it a free country. This forced other Arab countries, except Jordan,3 to organize armed forces of about 24,000 armed soldiers to help their brothers in reclaiming their homeland. The joint Arab army could not match the Zionists in terms of numbers, organizationally (as they did not fight as one unit), and weaponry, and due to this they sadly lost. After the war, Jews occupied 78 percent of the land leaving Palestinians with 22 percent. The war precipitated the 1949 Armistice Agreement, which saw Egypt retaining control over Gaza, while Jordan controlled the West Bank. Israel was later admitted to the United Nations on May 11,1949 during the UN General Assembly even after dispossessing Palestinians of their homeland and massacring tens of thousands of them. This decision infuriated the Arab representatives, who stormed out in protest. Israel then embarked on erasing Palestine from the world map by renaming towns that had Palestinian names with Hebrew ones. The Palestinian refugees who had left were then denied the right to return to their homes, and still live as refugees in neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon.
In 1967, Israeli generals convinced their government to attack Egypt because they argued it was ill- prepared and the chances of defeating it were real. The government agreed and they attacked Egypt and occupied the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza strip. They were determined to extend the war and attacked other Arab neighbours, killing over 15,000 Arab soldiers while they lost 700 in six days. By this action, they were able to occupy the West Bank and the Golan Heights in Syria. This went against the United Nations charter that forbids the acquisition of territory by military conquest. During this time, propaganda was manufactured that the Arab states were the ones that attacked Israel, and they only responded in self-defense. Israel also deliberately attacked a US Navy ship, which was in international waters, killing 34 US servicemen and injuring 174.
The Israelis did this to prevent the ship from reporting a deliberate massacre of 14 Indian United Nations peacekeepers that took place in Gaza shortly before Israel attacked USS Liberty. The Jewish lobby made sure that the facts were hidden, and instead a version of an accidental attack was promoted. The acquisition of the West Bank and Gaza meant that Israel was in total control of Palestine. It unashamedly started to construct homes for Jews in the said territory to erase Palestine history further.
In 1964, Palestinians formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to fight for the rights of all Palestinians. It called for a unified Palestine with rights for all and a state where Palestinians and Jews could live together. The organisation was first based in Jordan but it left in 1970 after its guerrillas clashed with the Jordanian army. It was forced to station itself in Southern Lebanon until 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon in an attack aimed at ending the PLO. This operation succeeded in making the movement relocate from Jordan to Tunisia.
In October 1973, Syria and Egypt attempted to reclaim their land (the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, respectively) acquired during the 1967 war. They made progress initially but due to the assistance that Israel received from the USA, were defeated in due course. This war precipitated the Camp David Accord, signed between the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which stated that the Sinai Peninsula be returned to Egypt. This agreement is believed to have led to the assassination of Sadat in 1981 by people who thought he had betrayed the cause of the Palestinians. Israel continued to capitalise on its military prowess by inflicting harm on Palestinians, and especially the refugees in Southern Lebanon. In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied a 10-kilometrewide strip north of the Lebanese border killing hundreds of mostly Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Furthermore, it invaded Lebanon for the second time in 1982 and, according to Ravcom newsletter, its troops stood guard outside the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut as Phalangist (pro-Israeli fascist militia) allies went door to door gunning down whole families, raping women and girls before murdering them, and castrating men and boys. Thousands of Palestinians lost their lives4 during this invasion. It was these heinous acts in 1982 that facilitated the birth of the Hezbollah movement, which resisted courageously and became the first Arab military group to force the Israeli army out of the occupied territory (Southern Lebanon) after 18 years of occupation. Since then, and up to the present, Hezbollah has enjoyed great respect among the Arab countries for its stand and determination in resisting external aggression, particularly from Israel.
Since the creation of the state by Zionists, Israel has never thought of resolving the issues with Palestinians peacefully, but ironically it has sought peace with other Arab neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan among others. When it comes to Palestine, Israel has always used violent means, and with the assistance of its main financer USA. In the late 1980s, after making sure it had sealed all avenues for achieving a Palestinian state (i.e., building Jewish settlements in the West Bank etc.), Israel ostensibly agreed to peaceful negotiations with the Palestinians. It is believed that Israel agreed to make peace with Palestinians after making sure that they had made the conquest and occupation of Palestine irreversible. This can be demonstrated by looking at some of the resolutions of the 1993 Oslo Accord, which were unfortunately deliberately dishonored by the Israelis. The said accord had stated that Israel was to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza within five years to pave the way for an independent Palestine state. Ironically, the Israeli government continued to build more Jewish settlements and to demolish Palestinian homes. When the PLO, which was representing the Palestinians in the Oslo Accord negotiations, objected to this, the media and the US president blamed Yasser Arafat, the then PLO leader, for frustrating the peace process. The victim became villain yet Arafat had agreed to forego 80 percent and take 20 percent of the original Palestinian land, and have a guarantee of the right of return for 4 million refugees for the sake of peace.
Ever since, there have been several peace agreements, but due to dishonesty within the Israeli leadership, all of them have flopped. The Palestinians have lost confidence in the PLO and Fatah (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) party for being too gullible and consistently falling into the Israeli trap as far as negotiations are concerned. The USA, a great financier and supporter of Israel, got very concerned about the unpopularity of Fatah and it was on this basis that it started pressurising Fatah to organise Legislative Council elections. The USA was very confident that Fatah would emerge victorious and thus embolden its legitimacy. This was not the case because when the said elections were held in January 2006, the Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) won 74 out of 132 seats, thus forming the government in Gaza. Hamas’ win surprised the US, Condoleezza Rice the then Secretary of State was quoted telling the press: “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing”. The win also caused a rift in the US administration (the Department of Defense) for failure to adhere to intelligence advice that had predicted a win for Hamas. Hamas was established in 1987 in Gaza by Imam Sheikh Ahmed Yasin and his assistant Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi after the start of the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Hamas started as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood but in 2017 it broke ties with group.5 Hamas has, since the time it was formed, been very critical of Israel’s deception when it comes to peace negotiations. It has always said that it is ready for genuine peace negotiations based on pre-1967 borders and the return of all refugees. Hamas has on many occasions said it does not have a problem with either Jews, Christians or Arabs and that it strives for a peaceful coexistence among all the people in Palestinian land. This fact is authenticated since one of its contenders (Hosam al-Taweel) for the 2006 elections was a Christian.6 Rather, what Hamas is against is Zionism, which continues to kill, detain, and imprison the Palestinians for demanding their right to ancestral land. It is unfortunate that imperialist countries, led by the USA, continue to term Hamas resistance as an act of terror, and thus labeling it a terrorist group.
There have never been Palestinian elections since 2006 due to the differences between Fatah and Hamas; both presidential and legislative elections have been postponed several times. Fatah’s leadership has lost confidence among the Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank. The leadership is afraid of calling elections because they know they will lose dismally: no wonder it keeps postponing the elections. On April 23, 2014, both parties agreed to end their differences by proposing to form a unity government in five weeks. The said government was sworn into office in June 2014 and one of its mandates was to organize presidential and parliamentary elections within six months.
Fatah and Hamas representatives after signing a deal to work together on April 23, 2014. (Photo credit: AFP)
The reconciliation was coldly accepted by both the US and Israeli governments, and the USA said that it was “very disappointed” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a halt to the so-called peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas unless he disowned the pact with Hamas. However, what both countries failed to tell the world was that their reason for opposing the pact was fear of Hamas’s established position concerning negotiations with the Israeli government.
Imperialist pressure on Fatah is one of the many reasons why the reconciliation has never prospered since. The Fatah has all along demanded the disarmament of Hamas so that it can take control of the Gaza Strip. While Hamas has been refusing saying it needs its security due to mass killings being carried out by the Zionists. In 2017, after realising that there was no way the 2016 Hamas victory could be snatched, the Israeli government turned Gaza into an open-air prison. Palestinians living in Gaza since then have been blocked by Israel from leaving Gaza unless they have a permit issued by the Israeli government. This has prevented many Palestinians from visiting their families in the West Bank. According to Human Rights Watch, this imprisonment has also prevented professionals, artists, athletes, students, and others from pursuing opportunities that cannot be found in Gaza and thus restricting their rights to work and education.7 Those who dare to use panya routes (unauthorised routes) are indiscriminately shot dead by Israeli security. Things are not that good on the border between Gaza and Egypt (Rafah), especially since 2013 when the military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The military government accused Hamas of aiding Morsi and thus came up with their restrictions. Many deserving Gaza residents are denied visas or permits by the Egyptian government to transit through or visit Egypt. This imprisonment hardship by Israeli Zionists is the one that forces the Hamas resistance movement like any other resistance to defend its people as well as to fight for the liberation of Palestine.
Conclusion
Both Palestinians and blacks in South Africa under the apartheid regime shared common experiences, and if apartheid was defeated, likewise Zionism will ultimately be defeated. Though these two countries are different, they share similarities. One of these is that both the majority of Jews in Israel and the Boers in South Africa came from Europe. Also, the Boers do not have many current connections to their European roots aside from a cultural heritage. Likewise, the majority of Jews were born in Israel thus they do not have any connection to their European roots. Therefore, a need to create one state that will accommodate Palestinians and Jews in the occupied territories as well as Palestinian refugees in neighboring countries needs to be emphasized. Though this will not be easy because of the fact that since the creation of Israel in 1948, Israeli Jews have been indoctrinated that they are superior and chosen by God to have privileges over the Palestinians (and everyone else). On the optimistic side, there is a section, though minority, that believes both the Palestinians and the Jews can live in one state. This minority needs to be encouraged that it is their belief that can bring equality and solidarity between the Jews and the Palestinians. Not many people, especially in the USA, believed that Jim Crow laws8 were to be abolished and segregation between blacks and whites was to end though racialism still exists today. Likewise, many people never imagined that the Pale Settlement in which Russian Jews were forced to live in the 18th century and the anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution laws in the same country were ever going to be abolished. Yet in 1917, after the Russian revolution, they were done away with.
It is important for all peace-loving people of the world to exert pressure on the Israeli government so that it stops killing people and destroying the homes of Palestinians on the pretext of defending itself from terrorism. One of the ways to do this is by supporting the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. Kenyan leaders have the habit of using taxpayers’ money to visit Israel ostensibly to learn from the country. This needs to stop as doing so legitimises the evil actions of the Israeli government against the Palestinians. Kenyans should unite in this by demanding that the government disassociate itself from the Zionist state until it respects the rights of the Palestinians and stops genocidal atrocities directed at the subjugated Palestinians.
The Kenya government needs to join other countries, among them Colombia, Bolivia, and Chile, who have cut ties with Israel over genocidal activities in Gaza. This will not be the first time for such an action as in 1973 the Kenya government followed other countries in recalling its ambassador to Israel. This was after the Zionists had refused to give back the occupied Arab land (the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights). Sadly, today, the Kenyan government has become, as Mao Tse Tung said, an “imperialist running dog”. It seems to be dictated to by imperialism on how to run the country and no wonder it issued a statement condemning Hamas and terming it a terrorist group to please its imperialist masters. Forgetting that the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) bears similarity with Hamas in that Mau Mau was resisting the occupation of Kenya’s land by Britain. Likewise, Hamas is a resistance movement fighting against the occupation of their land by the Zionists. The government having condemned Hamas contradicted itself by stating that Kenyan people share the same history of colonial rule with the Palestinian people. The statement even contradicted that of the African Union, of which Kenya is a member.
The Palestinian occupation and genocide, though painful, have also exposed the hypocrisy of Western imperialist countries and the United Nations, particularly the Security Council. The Security Council consists of 15 members — five permanent members (USA, Britain, France, Russia and China) and 10 members elected every two years. The permanent members are the only ones with veto powers, meaning that any of the five members can veto any resolution passed. This fact complicates the Palestinian issue because the US always vetoes every resolution that condemns Israel for its atrocities against Palestinians or calls for Israel to adhere to international laws. For example, since 1945 US has vetoed 34 out of 36 resolutions related to the Palestine occupation.9 This means that for Palestinians to get justice from the UN, the reconstitution of the Security Council is important. There is a need to democratise the UNSC by removing veto powers and adding permanent members from the Global South to it with all equal voting rights. The composition of the Security Council needs to be based on the population of the countries.
Let us educate other Kenyans who have fallen prey to the Zionist propaganda so that solidarity with the Palestinian people can have multiple voices and contribute to bringing change to the Palestinian people. Since, as Nelson Mandela said, our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.
References
- Vanity Fair [Online]. Available at: https://www. vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804, 3 March 2008 (Accessed: 8th November 2023)
- International Crisis Group [Online]. Available at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle- east-north-africa/east-mediterranean-mena/ israelpalestine/238-managing-palestines- looming-leadership-transition, 1 February 2023 (Accessed: 8th November 2023)
- Sand, S. (2010) The Invention of the Jewish People. London: Verso.
