Why the right of the Palestinian people is UnDebatable?
QatarDebate center used to introduce various local and global issues to the debate arena, where divergent viewpoints and multiple opinions are subject to the rule of logic, an argument against an argument. This gives a wide space for dialogue and disagreement, and the path towards the truth becomes clearer. However, the justice of the Palestinian cause is evident from various aspects and premises, and any discussion that rejects its justice adopts an immoral position necessarily. Injustice cannot be justified when what is right is clear, which is what we will show in this article through two aspects in which we answer the question: why the right of the Palestinian people is UnDebatable?
The first aspect: the settler occupation entity is illegal since its inception!
To understand the Palestinian cause, it is necessary to go back to its origins, and it is necessary to understand the full context of it. It is a common mistake today to look at the events in Palestine in a fragmentary way from the historical context. Although the establishment of the Zionist entity was announced in 1948, the origins of the cause go back about fifty years before that, when Herzl established the First Zionist Congress in 1898, in which he called for the establishment of a national state for the Jews. It is what the Zionist movement did later on the land of Palestine, supported by Western colonial powers such as Britain, where the Zionist movement exploited the persecution of the Jews in Europe to gain sympathy and support for its settlement project in Palestine. It also promoted its project among the Jews based on a Jewish religious vision to urge them to immigrate to the promised land and provided them with all kinds of possible incentives. Here lie several problems, some of which must be clarified:
First: The entity based on ethnic cleansing is an illegitimate entity!
Since its inception, the Zionist entity has been based on religious racial discrimination, represented by ethnic cleansing campaigns that included most of the lands of Palestine, and although the United Nations adopted the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” in 1948 [1], the Zionists at that time evacuated the indigenous population from their lands – with the exception of the Jews – using force and violence. They caused the killing and displacement of more than 70% of the original inhabitants of the land of Palestine, including Muslim and Christian Arabs, causing a war crime to establish their illegal state [2].
Second: The right of the owners of the land does not fall under the statute of limitations!
The Zionists believe that the Zionist entity should be a “Jewish state” on the land of Palestine that belongs to the Jews only and not to others. As a result, the immigration of Jews to the land of Palestine from all over the world was encouraged, and they were given the lands of the Palestinians simply because they are Jews without having any legitimate right. This was also reinforced by unethical laws such as the “Absentee Property” Law of 1950, which legalizes the theft of land for Jews [3]. However, the issuance of such laws and the passage of more than 70 years since the confiscation of these lands does not forfeit the right of the Palestinians to their lands. They did not give it up or sell it, and they did not choose to leave it voluntarily but were forced to do so using violence and intimidation, and this is what makes the Zionist entity the most prominent example of the crime of “settlement occupation” in contemporary history.
Third: The persecution of a group of people does not justify the persecution of others!
The Zionists used to promote misleading propaganda to the world that exploits the fact that they were persecuted for long periods in various parts of Europe, that they suffered from ostracism and injustice, and that they were victims of many heinous crimes such as the Nazi Holocaust. Despite the authenticity of this account, the Zionist propaganda deliberately ignores some facts:
- The land of Palestine was inhabited and it was not an empty land as the Zionist movement claimed, and therefore the settlement of the Jews in it caused many heinous crimes as we explained above.
- Persecution is immoral in all its forms, and this includes the crimes committed by the Zionists against the Palestinians such as killing, displacement and theft, and accepting this fact makes the Zionist propaganda inconsistent with itself, as it denounces the persecution of the Jews on the one hand and persecutes the Palestinians on the other.
- The Palestinians did not cause the persecution of the Jews in Europe and did not deprive them of their rights. Rather, the Europeans themselves were the cause of all the crimes against Semitism. By what right does the West allow itself – represented by the Balfour Declaration – to atone for European guilt at the expense of the rights of the Palestinians who had no guilt in the persecution of the Jews?
The second aspect: the continued attacks and violations of the Zionist entity.
Not only is the establishment of the Zionist entity immoral, but also the continuity of its existence. In every moment that has passed since June 1948 until today, we are witnessing continuous attacks and flagrant violations of the rights of the Palestinians, all of which would not have happened without the continued existence of this entity and the silence of the international community. Here, it is necessary to point out a set of problems related to the continuity of the existence of the Zionist entity:
First: The occupation entity continues with the crime of apartheid,
which crystallized in its legal form in 2018, when the occupation parliament approved the “Judaism of the State Law,” which literally states that “Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish nation” and that “only Jews in Israel have the right to self-determination,” completely ignoring any rights for the Palestinians on this land [4].
Second: The Zionist entity denies the right of return of the Palestinians displaced abroad…
…whose number reached more than 6 million refugees, according to UNRWA statistics in 2019 [5], which means that they continue to be deprived of their most basic rights stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On the other hand, the Zionist entity continues its racist settlement policies, which encourage the Jews of the world to emigrate and settle on the lands of Palestine.
Third: The occupation entity subjects all residents of the West Bank to the laws of indirect military rule,
as any recruit in the occupation army has the right to kill or arrest Palestinians and storm their homes without any judicial order. They are also prevented from their civil rights [6]. It recognizes the legality of these illegal and immoral practices, which means that recruits are not held accountable for their crimes and continue to commit crimes of persecution and apartheid.
Fourth: Continuing the occupation in the settlement expansion policies in the city of Jerusalem and the West Bank [6].
Palestinian homes are demolished and replaced with new settlements for Jews at the expense of the indigenous population in a clear continuation of the crime of ethnic cleansing, like what happened recently in their attempts to seize the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the Silwan neighborhood.
Fifth: Tightening an inhumane siege on the Gaza Strip
depriving its residents of their most basic rights of movement, treatment, access to water, electricity or fuel, and preventing the delivery of humanitarian and international aid to the residents of the Strip. In addition to the repeated brutal attacks on the Gaza Strip, the targeting of civilians, and the use of internationally prohibited weapons, in light of the shameful international silence.
In conclusion, the occupation has always succeeded in winning the international community to its side, which has always condoned all these heinous crimes such as ethnic cleansing, settler occupation, and continuous oppression against the Palestinians. However, it remains our duty to show the truth and deliver it to the world. The true debater seeks the truth and nothing else and bears the responsibility of condemning injustice and resisting persecution. For this reason, we call on all debaters around the world to use the power of the word through argument and logic in order to spread awareness of the suffering of the Palestinian people, and not to accept any compromise in the Palestinian cause, for the rights of the Palestinian people are “UnDebatable”.
Resources:
[1] United Nations, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, in General Assembly Resolution 260
[2] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006
[3] Palestinian Encyclopedia, Absentee Property Law, 1950
[5] United Nations, UNRWA Report on Palestinian Refugees Abroad, 2019
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