The principle of a people’s right to self-determination has been with us in the US for a century, since Woodrow Wilson first set it forth as a goal of our foreign policy.
Here are two recent illustrations of the importance of the principle. Emphases mine:
1. The United States voted against the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, at the UN Human Rights Council the other day. From Just World News:
One of [five U.S. No] votes was about the Palestinians’ oft-reconfirmed right to self-determination. That resolution (A/HRC/13/L.27),
reaffirms the inalienable, permanent and unqualified right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including their right to live in freedom, justice and dignity and to establish their sovereign, independent, democratic and viable contiguous State; also reaffirms its support for the solution of two States, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace and security…
The U.S. representative voted against. The other 45 members voted in favor.
2. The Israelis raided a village in southeastern Gaza yesterday, killing four– reportedly three fighters and one civilian. Two IDF soldiers were reportedly also killed. The Israelis demolished a house deep inside Gaza, evidently as a form of retribution. Check out the pictures by Eva Bartlett of the International Solidarity Movement at that link.
And also at that ISM site is an account and photo from the day before of a 15-year-old’s shooting when he was trying to collect scrap metal near the border. Here is some background to the shooting:
-On 20 March, around 2:30 pm, Israeli soldiers arrested 17 Palestinians collecting rubble in the Beit Hanoun industrial area approximately 900 metres from the border, including:
Mohanad Al Kafarna, 11
Khalid Mahdi Hamdien, 14
Ismail Mahdi Hamdien, 13
Mohammed Al Basioni, 22
Mohammed Salih Afana, 22
Tareq Zyiad Al Afifi, 20
Mohammed Zyiad Al Afifi, 18
Tawfeq Samir Sababa, 19
Usama Mhammaden, 19
Ali Jamal Akhrawat, 24
Kamal Jamal Akhrawat, 20
Anwar Mohammed Hamad, 51
Alaa Al Masri, 18
Diab Al Kafarna, 20
Attaf Rafeq Hamad, 25
Ibrahim Mahdi Hamdien, 16
Those venturing to the border regions to gather rubble and steel do so as a result of the siege on Gaza which, along with Israel’s 23 day winter war on Gaza, has decimated Gaza’s economy, including 95 percent of Gaza’s factories and businesses, according to the United Nations. Additionally, these recycled construction materials are vital in Gaza where the Israeli-led, internationally-complicit, siege bans all but under 40 items from entering.
