Editor’s Note: The following statement was released today by the One Democratic State Campaign. Mondoweiss occasionally publishes press releases and statements from organizations in an effort to draw attention to overlooked issues.
On the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the declaration of the United Nations General Assembly on November 29 as an occasion for global solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their heroic struggle that continues for more than a century, the Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine calls on all freedom-loving people of the world to strengthen and expand their solidarity with the cause of Palestine.
These days, a dangerous liquidation scheme, represented by the deal of the century and the rush of Arab regimes to normalize their relations with Israel, threatens the just cause of the Palestinian people. This scheme is more dangerous than any other scheme since the 1960’s, when the Palestinian national movement was rebuilt as a national liberation movement.
We have already lived through 72 years of ongoing Palestinian Nakba, and Israel is still practicing systematic crimes of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, under the eyes of the international system, which granted legitimacy to the establishment of this colonial regime. We, in the Campaign for One Democratic State, ask, on behalf of the Palestinian people: How long can the official international community continue to turn a blind eye to the crimes of ethnic cleansing and apartheid that Israel is practicing, in flagrant violation of the international law on which it was founded?
Palestine is subject to a brutal colonial apartheid regime that does not respect international law. We have all recently witnessed the collapse of the illusion, cherished by the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, about the possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine. Therefore, despite the consistent absolute US imperialist support for Israel, and the complicity and inaction of the international community, global civil society is rising again, in sympathy with the Palestinian people and in support of oppressed peoples against oppressive capitalist regimes. In the context of the convergence of peoples’ struggles for freedom, justice and equality, a new horizon opens for the Palestinian struggle and for the return of the Palestinian cause to its natural place on the world’s agenda as a cause of national liberation and social justice.
Our struggle is inspired by the legendary struggle of the Palestinian people and by the movement against the South African apartheid regime. In response to the call by South Africa’s liberation movement, global civil society organized, in the late nineteen-eighties, an effective and influential boycott campaign against the apartheid regime. Israel is a settler colonial entity, and an oppressive apartheid regime, implementing a more brutal version of the defunct South African regime. We believe that the struggle against this racist regime must combine popular resistance on the ground with global civil resistance, represented by the boycott campaign. Civil society, people of conscience and people struggling for freedom all over the world can force Israel to comply with international law and to abandon its colonialist policy.
Just as South Africans called on international civil society to boycott goods and institutions of their oppressors, so do Palestinian institutions, trade unions and mass movements call on all people of conscience in the world to support the Palestinian civil campaign to boycott, divest and impose sanctions on Israel, until it complies with international law and the Palestinian people regain their basic rights. On this occasion, we turn to all the solidarity committees and freedom-loving people in the world to pressure their governments to impose sanctions on Israel, so that it stops its crimes and violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people.
“The Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine” believes that the struggle of the Palestinian people should not divide between Palestinians in the territories that were occupied in 1948, areas occupied in 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the diaspora. The time has come to bury the illusion of a “two-state solution” and restore the unity of the Palestinian people around a vision of national liberation and democracy and to develop a strategy for a phased and long-term struggle. The Campaign believes that achieving justice in Palestine requires the establishment of a single democratic state that would guarantee the return of the Palestinian refugees and grant equal rights to all its citizens, regardless of religion, ethnic affiliation, color and gender, on the ruins of the existing colonial apartheid regime.
In my estimation, returning to the original PLO objective of equality in one state will gain traction after Palestinians citizens or Palestinians under occupation engage a sustained campaign, using tactics like marches and placards familiar to the Western world. Elections may be necessary for Palestinians to come to such a consensus. Jews, I predict, would be in the forefront joining in on that campaign.
Our colleagues at Hasbara U will point out that the vast difference in wealth between the Palestinians and Israelis will make one state impossible. So I fed a description of the current situation into my quantum supercomputer and asked it to predict the future – my input:
2020: Israeli tech multi millionaires throw lavish wine parties on Tel Aviv rooftops at the same time Palestinians 20 miles away huddle over an open fire in an old oil barrel.
After 6.3 second of processing this appeared on the screen:
2030, one state with equal rights: Israeli tech multi millionaires throw lavish wine parties on Tel Aviv rooftops at the same time Palestinians 20 miles away huddle over an open fire in an old oil barrel. Just like the U.S.