Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

I am ashamed and outraged by Western hypocrisy, which is once again trying to impose on the rest of the world a distorted interpretation of the reality of a war in the Middle East.

In saying this, I claim the right -which some want to deny- to raise my voice in support of the martyred Palestinian people and to condemn the Israeli government, army, settlers and religious extremists who, in defiance of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination to simply exist, and ignoring the humanitarian law, are attempting to silence all resistance against the invader.

War crimes are committed on both sides, but let’s tell the whole truth as OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) does: 95% of the dead and wounded are Palestinians. What makes the life of an Israeli superior to that of a Palestinian?

By refusing to force Israel into an immediate ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian corridors, Westerners become accomplice to the Israeli government’s war crimes and genocidal program against victims described as “human animals to be treated as such” by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

They cannot ignore the map presented by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last September at the United Nations General Assembly, on which the Palestinian territories had been simply erased. Thereby, the continuation of the Nakba (the Catastrophe for the Palestinians) was announced to the whole world.

I admire my Israeli and Jewish friends who denounce this despicable situation.

In Germany today, to be a Palestinian writer like Adania Shibli means to be deprived of the prize that the Frankfurt Book Fair wanted to give her. Demonstrations in support of the Palestinians have been banned. In Lille, France, a CGT trade unionist was arrested in his home for expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza, and it took an appeal to the courts to be allowed to demonstrate, following the ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Macron and the President of the European Commission, Mrs von der Leyen, met Mr Netanyahu to ensure him of their support and encourage him in his determination to eradicate Hamas, described by the Americans and Europeans alone as a “terrorist” organization.

It doesn’t matter to them if, as much in the US as in Europe, the world in general and at the UN too, the war against Palestinians is roundly condemned. Do they realize that they are isolated, accomplices in the crimes against humanity committed before our very eyes by the Israelis? Do they realize that their allies, Mr Netanyahu and his government, are proto-fascists, war criminals both in the eyes of the world and of their own people? How can they remain deaf to the appeals of UN Secretary General, Mr Guterres?

The West, of which I belong, asserts its belief in its superiority, its rightful rights, its visceral mistrust of the rest of the world: until recently, the colonized, the “underdeveloped”; today, the migrants. Does the embattled West, armed to the teeth, realize the pitiful image it’s giving of us? No more talks of peaceful international cooperation! The West is preparing its arsenal of laws and weapons to counter all those it calls “terrorists” or enemies of our freedoms. Human rights will have to wait once again. So will the preservation of the planet.

And so, if for Biden, Macron et al, Netanyahu must be rescued once again, let’s be clear: “Not in our name!”

Pierre Galand,
President of the Belgian-Palestinian Association

This November 26, 2023.