As we mark two years of intensified resistance and genocide– through a century marked by continuous genocide and resistance in Palestine and throughout West Asia – Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition emphasizes once more the necessity to stand behind our Palestinian people in confronting attempts of erasure and liquidation of our liberation cause. Palestinians in Gaza, throughout occupied Palestine, and everywhere in exile continue to defend their lives and fundamental rights against the genocidal Zionist entity, backed, funded and armed by the United States and fellow imperialist powers. Today, as US President Donald Trump markets his so-called “peace plan,” it is clear to us that Trump and Netanyahu are engaged in tactics intended to normalize colonialism and dispossession aimed at undermining the near-complete global isolation of Israel, to recover strategic grounds within the political arena from what they have decisively lost on the battlefield.
We stand firmly with our people in Gaza and all of their decisions. We know that the Palestinian negotiating team is working tirelessly to defend Palestinian rights, to bring the genocide to an end, to secure the withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza and to rebuild it, and to safeguard Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination by refusing to place the future of Palestine up for negotiations with the same parties who have been carrying out a blatant, overt genocide for the past two years. We also know the US empire is facing imminent decline and cannot mediate between its aircraft carrier in the region and the people it colonizes.
The record of the Zionist entity speaks for itself. Every ceasefire it signed, it broke; every promise it made, it violated. This is not a partner for peace but a serial deceiver and an ever-expanding killer of nations. Throughout this time, it has been backed up relentlessly by the United States, which not only continues to pour billions of dollars in weaponry to the Zionist genocidaires, but also vetoes every attempt at the United Nations to impose a ceasefire. The US government is directly lying to its people and the world about which party is responsible for repeatedly refusing to bring the genocide to an end. The United States is not just complicit in the Zionist genocide, it is in fact an active participant.
Once again, the reality is exposed before the world: as the Palestinian resistance emphasized its eagerness to carry out a prisoner exchange and bring the genocide to an end, the Zionist entity has continued bombing Gaza. The bombing in northern Gaza is so loud it can be heard in the south of the Strip; families in Gaza City continue to be hit by missiles and artillery shells, even while sheltering in tents in promised safe zones. Despite Trump’s statements on social media, the bombing and genocide has not stopped and there is no truce – there is only the ongoing brutality of the occupation, and the ongoing bravery and heroism of the Palestinian resistance and of the people as a whole.
The real source of power is that of the grassroots, worldwide. This weekend, millions of people around the world, from Los Angeles and New York to Madrid and Barcelona to Rome and Genoa to Rabat and Karachi, took to the streets to stand against the genocide in Gaza and for the liberation of Palestine, clearly rejecting the complicit paralysis of their governments and all attempts to silence the movement through repression, censorship and fear. The Global Sumud Flotilla and its dozens of boats sailing to break the siege on Gaza inspired the world, even as hundreds of internationalists remain jailed in occupation prisons, alongside over 11,000 Palestinian and Arab political prisoners subjected to the most extreme forms of torture, abuse and starvation. The international activists got a glimpse of Palestinian prisoner treatment as they were abused, tortured, and denied water.
While the U.S. and other Western governments have continued to arm and fund the Zionist genocide, earning it the rightful title of a Zionist-U.S. joint genocide of the Palestinian people, Arab and Islamic governments, as well as many around the world, have stood aside and refused to intervene, with very few honourable exceptions, such as Yemen and Iran, and the legal interventions of South Africa, Nicaragua and Colombia. However, the people of the world are imposing a true international isolation of Israel. It is because of the struggle of the Palestinian people and the global flood of solidarity that representatives of the world walked out of the United Nations when Netanyahu spoke, and that we are experiencing increasingly desperate attempts to silence voices for Palestine on social media and to terrorize the mass movement against genocide at the hands of the U.S. and other Western governments.
We must not be distracted by this latest plan. Our eyes must be fixed on Gaza. This latest colonial initiative is nothing more than a tactic meant to deflect attention from the progress we’ve been making in isolating Israel and its imperialist backers. Our call is clear: to stay focused, continue raising our voices, and amplify the power of people’s solidarity by escalating our actions to shut down the war machine.
Today, the lessons before us are undeniable:
Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition emphasizes that the only real peace will come with the liberation of our prisoners, the dismantling of Zionist colonialism, and the full realization of the Palestinian people’s rights — including the right to return to their homes and lands, from which they were expelled.
Let us stand together, redoubling our efforts, until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.
