Loading ...Troubling Terminology
By: Miko Peled / Arab America Contributing Writer
Palestine has been dissected and every region within it separated from the rest of the country. This was planned and executed by the Zionist state very early on. This separation has given the Zionists almost absolute control of the land, the people and the resources. In discussing the future of Palestine, the entire country should be discussed as one contiguous country and the Palestinian people as a nation.
The uninterrupted slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza is approaching its first anniversary and yet the discourse on Palestine seems to be stuck in the Zionist paradigm. Within this paradigm the legitimacy of the Zionist state is not challenged.
The call for a cease fire is one such expression of the Zionist paradigm. Calling for a cease fire when a genocide is taking place creates a false symmetry between the perpetrators of the genocide and the victims. Palestinians did not initiate the genocide, they are merely trying to survive. Furthermore, the expectation that a regime that is engaged in genocide will agree to a cease fire is completely unrealistic.
Still cease fire is the most common call heard in response to the slaughter taking place in Palestine. What would be appropriate is to call for an immediate arms embargo and sanctions against the party that is executing the genocide. However, because the discourse is held withing the Zionist paradigm, demands such as these are rarely heard.
In discussions on the future of Gaza and of Palestine in general we still hear people asking, “who will rule or govern the Gaza Strip?” or “who will replace Mahmoud Abbas?”
Neither the Gaza Strip or the West Bank are states or even independent political entities, but rather they are both prisons that were created by the Zionist state almost eight decades ago. These prisons need to be dismantled and the people who live within them should be allowed to live free. Minutes away from any point within the Gaza Strip there is an abundance of food, water and medicine and the people in the Gaza Strip are prevented from accessing this abundance because the Zionist state has imprisoned them.
Similarly, the West Bank has no history prior to the creation of the Zionist state. Like the Gaza Strip, it too was created as a space to enclose and keep Palestinians contained. Today, all that is left of the West Bank are prisons in which 3.5 million Palestinians exist without rights. Discussing the future of the West Bank and The Gaza Strip outside the larger context of a liberated Palestine means remaining within the Zionist paradigm.
The land, the rights, the food, water and the freedom that Palestinians deserve exist outside the walls of the prisons the Zionist state created. Post genocide, The Gaza Strip and the West Bank should be part of a free, independent Palestine just like the Naqab, the Galilee, Jerusalem and all other parts of Palestine.
Miko Peled is a renowned author, speaker, and human rights activist in Washington, DC. He is regarded as one of the most compelling voices advocating for justice in Palestine. Peled passionately supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and champions the vision of a single democratic state with equal rights for all inhabitants across historic Palestine.
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