What Does Free Palestine mean? How did we get here?
(in progress)
I’ve put together this website outlining the general context, history, and current situation in Palestine and the occupied territories. This is meant to be a primer for people who have little to no previous understanding of the area and how we got here.
I am a Palestinian American living in the US with dual citizenship to the Palestinian ‘State’ in the West Bank and the United States. My opinions and perspective come from not only from research but from my first hand experiences being in the West Bank for extended periods of time and the first hand accounts from hundreds of Palestinians.
Image shown and banner above are taken from my village of Arraba in the northern West Bank.
I made a twitlonger in 2019 explaining the context and current situation in Palestine. In that piece I mentioned mass displacement, ethnic cleansing, unfair and unequal treatment, and the outright dehumanization Palestinians face as a result of the current Israeli apartheid state.
No major news from the area has reached western public consciousness since that time, despite the fact that there have been almost 1,000 Palestinians killed, over 200 of them children.
This is unfortunately what a state of ‘normal’ is for millions of Palestinians—something no one should be subjected to or expected to endure.
Where is Palestine?
My experience in talking about Palestine has been mainly through niche gaming communities who have little to no prior understanding of the context or history of the area. I've provided maps of the main areas we are talking about for references below for geographical context. The West Bank is on the Eastern side of the country because it refers to being on the West Bank of the Jordan River.
When looking at these maps, pay attention to how much space is controlled by the occupying Israeli military. Even though the West Bank is ostensibly land given to the Palestinians under the Oslo Accords, Palestinians regularly have to interact with an occupying force in order to pass between their own villages, and in most cases the Israeli military does not allow them to pass through occupied land at all. These settlements are illegal under international law and are one of the main reasons why a two state solution is not realistic. The government in the West Bank has no recourse to prosecute any Settler who commits violence against Palestinians (a common occurrence), and the roads and borders are strictly under Israeli military control. What kind of state can exist under these conditions? Look to what Trump's "peace plan" looked like and tell me it does not resemble something else from history used to restrict movement and depopulate areas.
Another thing to note would be the separation of the main two political factions in the West Bank and Gaza. Fatih/Fatah controls the West Bank and is a secular organization while Hamas controls Gaza and is Islamist. I will be going more in depth on this later, but the last election in Gaza was in 2006 and a majority of the population who lives there were not able to participate in that election (and even if they did, it does not mean they should be killed for it). Gaza has been under a brutal blockade since 2006 that does not allow freedom of movement or many vital supplies needed to live a decent life.
You will oftentimes see maps like these in sequence on the left to shorten and describe the story of what's happened in Palestine. This is unfortunately an apt summary of why we have been calling for a Free Palestine since the late 1940s. Between 1947 and 1949, an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were removed from their homes and over 500 villages were depopulated/destroyed. This ethnic cleansing was also accompanied by dozens of massacres of Palestinian citizens in an attempt to get them to flee their homes. These events are collectively known to Palestinians as "Al-Nakba": The Catastrophe. These actions were taken by Zionist paramilitaries such as the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah, which committed mass atrocities and later became formally part of the Israeli army. For these Palestinians the destruction of their villages was an intentional act to never allow them to return to their homeland. These people and their descendants are still awaiting return. An estimated 5.9 million Palestinians are living in various refugee camps in the surrounding countries, often stateless and living in squalor. This refugee crisis is important to note in October of 2023, as people are telling Gazans to leave their homes/Gaza entirely. over 75% of Gazans are already there as refugees or descendants of refugees from the Nakba in 1948. They believe (rightly so) that if they leave the strip they will never be allowed to return to Palestine.
Late 1800s
1948
my village on the map (1800s)
Al-Nakba Continued
As a geographer, it helps me to understand the scale and severity of this ethnic cleansing by looking at older maps I have. It's very disheartening and sad to look across these maps and to look up the names of these villages and to see them completely wiped off the historic record. There are thankfully people who take it upon themselves to document these villages. Please take some time and go through this interactive map, pan through and see the scale and breadth in which people were forcibly evicted and removed. A majority of the houses (especially in major cities) were outright confiscated and lived in by Israeli Settlers. This act of stealing Palestinian homes is enshrined in law.
Justice and Free Palestine for me has to include these displaced people in the conversation. A common symbol of this need to return is that generations of Palestinians in exile around the world carry the original keys to their homes, longing to return to a home forcibly taken from them decades ago.
The Occupation
You will hear terms like "the occupation" thrown around quite often. The occupation of Palestine has been a reality since 1967, over 55 years ago. This is characterized by illegal land seizures, forced displacement, military judicial rule, settler violence, administrative detention, border control, and other generally abhorrent and unethical practices.
This occupation started in the 60s and has gotten worse over time. Things like the oppressive border wall between the West Bank and Israel were only put up in the mid 2000s, further cutting off access and movement to those in the West Bank. From the 1970s to 1990s, my father was a farmer in the West Bank in his teens and 20s before emigrating to the US. When he was young, despite being under the same occupation, he had access to parts of the Israeli economy and the ability to visit the Mediterranean sea. Today, my cousins who grew up in the same town as my father do not have any access to the Israeli economy and have never visited the Mediterranean sea, despite it being less than 30 miles away.
Here is a detailed look of the current situation in the West Bank. The constant taking of land and restriction of movement are the occupation's intended goals. I would advise you to look at the full image in order to grasp the full scale and consistency of these actions. When we talk about a Palestinian "state," remember that this is what Israel has been doing while posturing that they are for a two state solution. I have personally experienced military checkpoints and restricted movement within my own country, and this is not a "state" that anyone should accept. The government of the West Bank Fatah has no intention of changing the situation on the ground and often times are glorified security contractors for the occupying forces. Even access to our own water and wells has been restricted due to the occupation since 1967:
"Order No. 158: "Order Amending the Water Supervision Law" ordained that all wells, springs and water projects are under the full direct command of the Israeli Military Commander. Every installation or resource built without a permit will be confiscated."
Settler violence is a reality of day to day life for Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli occupying forces only have a duty to protect the settlers, not the Palestinians who face constant violence from the settlers. As soon as the violence in Gaza started, settlers in started enacting retaliatory violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Over 50 Palestinians were killed in the first few days in the West Bank. A settler was videotaped shooting a Palestinian point blank (WARNING: GRAPHIC). In another incident, 2 Palestinians who were in a funeral proceeding (from a previous settler attack) were killed by settlers when the road path was blocked off.
Passive voice used when describing thousands of trees being intentionally set on fire by Israeli settlers. Passive voice in journalism is often used to dismiss Israeli violence. The same publication (Reuters) intentionally omitted the verified news that Israel had killed one of their journalists in Lebanon.
Apartheid
The things I have talked about previously in this piece, from the separation wall, to the military courts, to restriction of movement should alone showcase the two tier system the Israeli government uses to oppress the people they occupy. The following are more examples of Israeli apartheid:
Palestinian children are not allowed to enroll in the same schools as Israeli students:
"City hall officials said that according to the family's address the child belongs at the Zevulun Hammer School. However, when his mother wanted to enlist him, she was told that according to policy the school does not accept Arab students... Officials even said that it would be better for the child if he studies in a school similar to 'his' culture, with Arabs."There exists a restrictive and segregated road system in which one's ability to drive on certain West Bank roads is dictated by whether or not their license plate shows that they are an Israeli citizen.
In 2018 Israel passed the nation-state law which expressed 3 things:
The State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people, in which the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
The State's language is Hebrew
The State views the development of Jewish settlements as a national value and will act to encourage it and promote its establishment.
These clearly favor a group of people through law over another, a clear implementation of apartheid. It is also important to note how this law explicitly makes clear the unwillingness of the State of Israel to allow the creation of a real Palestinian state. Don't just take my word on it, I've compiled a list of quotes from human rights organizations, literary scholars, Anti-Apartheid Activists from South Africa, the UN, former Israeli Prime Ministers, and former high ranking intelligence officers in the Mossad that uphold the assessment of Israel as an apartheid state:
Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1976 : “I don’t say with certainty that we won’t reach [the point of] evacuation, because of the [Palestinian] population. I don’t think it’s possible to contain over the long term, if we don’t want to get to apartheid, a million and a half [more] Arabs inside a Jewish state.” This was in reference to what would happen if Israel annexed the West Bank and assumed control over the millions of Palestinians there, which is not only a reality because of the 50+ year occupation, but also directly the goal from the Israeli government itself.
Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Most good faith examinations of the situation in Palestine will tell you that a two-state solution is completely dead and hasn't been a reality that Israel is willing to accept since the Oslo Accords.
Former Head of the Mossad (Israel's version of the CIA) from 2011-2016: “'There is an apartheid state here,' Tamir Pardo said in an interview. 'In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state.'”
Anti Apartheid and Human Rights activist Desmond Tutu in his piece Apartheid in the Holy Land: "What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it [Israel] did to another people to guarantee its existence. I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."
Multiple NGOs and Human Rights organizations who came to similar conclusions.
B'tselem has a good overview and also a illustrated explainer with similar examples to the ones I provided above.
Amnesty International put out a 280 page report concluding that the current state was a "Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity" and was an obvious example of apartheid.
A UN report calls Gaza an open-air-prison and says that "Apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories."
Areas in red were "heavily targeted". Over a million people (half of them children) live in this small area of Northern Gaza which was heavily bombed and continues to be bombed by Israeli forces.
It's remarkable how comfortable Israeli officials are in explaining and confessing that they want to and are doing war crimes in an area.
US State Department Memo: Staff were specifically asked not to publish press pieces containing the phrases “end to violence/bloodshed,” “restoring calm,” and “de-escalation/ceasefire,”
WHO statement regarding Israel's intent to bomb a hospital in Northern Gaza.
IDF spokesperson- “hundreds of tons of bombs” had already been dropped on the tiny strip, adding that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy”.
Fox News Jesse Watters: "I don’t like how people try to differentiate between the Palestinians and Hamas. To me, I see people with guns. That’s Hamas. The people without the guns are the Palestinians. They believe the same thing."
Gaza
I am going to spend this section to describe the situation in Gaza as of the attacks in the area in 2023. I am going to be as objective as possible here and leave my opinions for the next section. Currently there is a plan in motion of ethnically cleansing Palestinians through clear and intentionally planned war crimes. Equally important is the media's role in justifying innocent Palestinian deaths. Most media will refer to these attacks as "self-defense," but there is no valid military strategy that would justify the sheer magnitude of the attacks on Gaza. Over 1,000 children have been killed in Gaza and the count is increasing every day.
Residential neighborhoods being flattened in the week following October 7th
Gaza continued, Oct 7th
If you start from the assumption that a Palestinian civilian's and an Israeli civilians lives are equal (and hopefully this is the case), then there is no way to justify any of this. This is genocide and the intent from the Israeli government is not even denying that. Every civilian life lost in a war is tragic. We are only asking for you to view a Palestinian child and an Israeli child with the same amount of humanity. If you did, you would be condemning the IDF attacks and starvation tactics the same way you would Hamas's attacks.
For what happened on October 7th and how to explain it: On October 7th, Hamas militants killed over 1,000 Israelis. Estimates are at over 900 of these being civilians. Anywhere from 100-250 people are still being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas as of 10/17. One thing I want to make clear is that civilian deaths are tragic and unjustifiable no matter the method. Executing a child in his home by gunfire is tragic and barbaric, as is leveling his apartment.
When you are consuming media about this attack please try to keep in mind the following:
If you are American or in the West, you can empathize with some masked maniac entering a public area and shooting up the place. This is unfortunately a common and understandable fear due to the reality of mass shootings. Conversely, if you are in the West you cannot empathize as easily with being bombed while you are cut off from any resources. This is not just applicable to Gaza, but also to countless others in the world who have been shelled indiscriminately and cut off from resources like those in Iraq. The focus on the "people just trying to enjoy a music festival" also highlights the limits of our empathy, as it is much easier for us to see ourselves in that moment. An important question to ask is this: do Gazans not love music and long for peace? Do they not enjoy singing and dancing as well? I recommend you look for the Gaza episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. This episode is hard to find now, and was initially to be scrapped by CNN. Bourdain fought for the right to even have it aired, but here is a quote from the episode: "The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.”
Focusing on Hamas's methods of violence (oftentimes unverified and parroted before confirmation) while simultaneously ignoring the violence of the Israeli state is a deliberate act to further dehumanize anyone in Gaza and equate all Palestinians with Hamas. This doesn't only affect Gazans and Palestinians but Muslims as a whole and across the world. This is one of the hardest things to see and put up with, as we know what it leads to. This media emphasis also enables Israeli politicians and leaders to equate all Palestinian civilians with Hamas, which to the Western world, not only justifies but necessitates genocide. Former PM Naftali Bennet live on air said this as over 1,000 children were killed in Gaza: "Are you seriously—keep asking me about Palestinian civilians? What is wrong with you? Have you not seen what’s happened? We’re fighting Nazis.” This clear line of thinking shows that it doesn't matter how or how many Palestinian civilians die. People are not culpable for the horrific acts of their governments and they should not be held responsible or punished for those horrific acts. Famously this is how Osama bin Laden justified attacking civilians in the US.
More importantly than the media coverage after Oct 7th, I need to discuss more specifically how we got here. And although I have written and explained a lot of the struggles of Palestinians—from an apartheid government, to occupation, to settler violence and mass dispossession—these are not the only or most timely ways to explain what happened. I also want to be clear on my personal position that although I do not oppose armed resistance outright, the targeting and killing of civilians is never something I would accept or condone.
*If you have read up to this point as of 10/17 the rest of this is in progress, I felt the need to share this despite it being incomplete. As I was writing this on Tuesday morning, a hospital in Gaza was struck by Israel, killing over 500 people who were already destitute, scared, and hurt. I felt the need to post this despite it not being complete due to how paralyzed I feel currently, with no ability to help or change the situation for my brothers and sisters in Gaza while this is being reported on. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the only things that should be entering Gaza “are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid”*
HOW YOU CAN HELP
How do we move on from here?
My Signature on what's left of the Belfast Peace Wall. I dream that one day we will see the walls in Palestine fall the same way this one and the Berlin wall did.
If you are American, write a letter to your representative in support of the Ceasefire Now resolution
During the making of this website I realized the sad nature and reality of the situation in Palestine and wanted to keep this section at the end for a gallery of things I've taken pictures of that inspire me and give me hope for a Free Palestine, so that I can remember what we are fighting for.
Zaytoon (olive in Arabic) who has always loved the kufiyya, a symbol of Palestine
If you have made it this far thank you for giving me and the Palestinian cause the time - Anees