"A land without people, for a people without a land": this was the dream for Israel, advocated for by Zionists as far back as the late 1800s. This single statement encapsulates the inherently genocidal logic (and the counterintuitive justification) used to construct a state of Israel on Palestinian territory. The land was populated by hundreds of thousands of people before the first European settlers moved there; very much not a "land without people". And as for the "people without a land", not only did most Jewish people have no interest at all in the creation of an Israeli state, many were actively opposed to it: the Jewish people, more than many other ethnic groups worldwide, knew first-hand where ethnonationalism leads, and wanted no part in it. On these two lies - that Palestine was "without people", and that it should become a Jewish ethno-state - Europe (led by Britain) founded the state of Israel. That state will use any means necessary to rid Palestine of its people - and the blood of such a genocidal project stains America, Europe, and everyone who refuses to challenge the government in Britain.
Gaza is, and has been for many years, one of the most densely populated regions on Earth. Around 2.1 million people live there, in what has been described by many as "the world's largest open-air prison". It's the sort of density completely inexplicable except for the specific historical circumstances of the Palestinians: the vast majority of Gazan citizens are refugees, who the Israelis bombed, shot and bulldozed from their ancestral homes in the years between 1939 and 1950, now forced to live on two tiny strips of land. Gaza and the West Bank are all that remains of what was once a large, much less stifling, much richer, and infinitely safer, Palestinian land.
The bombing, shooting, starvation, drought, and disease that Israel unleashed on Palestine after October 7th was so severe that the total population of Gaza dropped by 6% in less than a year. As we now know too well (but must repeat over and over, louder and louder, until the words themselves become unignorable even to those totally prepared to deny them), Israel's most recent 'war' started with the bombing of hospitals. It started with the dropping of leaflets over dense cities, which described a 'safe zone' for people to evacuate to - and then with the bombing of those same people once they'd arrived at the 'safe zones'. It opened with a clear, explicit policy of total annihilation, and then continued it for month after month after month. Hospital after hospital, university after university, primary school after primary school, refugee camp after refugee camp, child after child after child after child.
Such brutality can only occur once a population is deemed 'less than human' - or, in fact, deemed not to exist at all. In 1969, Israel's Prime Minister, Golda Meir, said "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."
Such rhetoric continues: on the 9th of October, 2023, Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said: "We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel; everything will be closed.
"We are fighting against human animals, and we are acting accordingly."
These comments are clear displays of genocidal intent: once a people are declared non-existent, or described as "animals", particularly by high-level government officials, a genocide is about to take place, or is already underway. World media reported on Gallant's comment: world leaders saw it, and still did nothing to stop the Israeli government.
Everything Gallant said about the siege came to pass over the following year: Israel cut off electricity, leaving the few remaining hospitals incapable of rendering adequate care, and destroyed five water sanitation sites every three days, cutting Gaza's water supply by 94% by July 2024. They've blockaded food supplies for so long, and so brutally, that Palestinians are willing to risk death for a bag of flour; Israel is the proud pioneer of the 'aid massacre', shooting an increasing number of Palestinians to death daily at food distribution sites.
Rather than condemning this, European leaders have tripped over themselves trying to cover for Israel.
If Sir Kier Starmer's insistence that "Israel has the right to defend herself" by cutting off water to civilians wasn't revealing enough, perhaps the German Chancellor Mertz can help to clarify things:
Don't believe these notions of a "Zionist lobby" pulling a reluctant Europe into military support for a genocide they otherwise never would have taken part in. It was the British who gave the 'mandate' for Israeli settlers to occupy Palestinian land in the first place. It was the British who watched them conduct massacre after massacre, and did nothing. It was Europe who fed the myth that somehow the only way Jewish people could possibly be safe was if they constructed an ethno-state on an occupied land in the Middle East.
RAF planes run hundreds of surveillance missions over Palestine, identifying people and buildings for the Israeli military to bomb. Parts for F-35 fighter jets are manufactured and transported from the UK to Israel. The UK government is exporting weapons to the genocidal regime, and doing so without apology.
If Germany, the UK, France, and the rest of Europe, are so willing to get drenched in the blood of the Palestinian people, we've got to take it as a sign: this is the true face of Europe. Israel's genocide is, in fact, the "dirty work" of Europe's continued crusade against Arab peoples across the Middle-East. It's a continuation of - not a break from - centuries of British imperialist attempts to impose complete control over resource-rich, oil-rich strips of land, peopled or otherwise.
This is the same Europe, after all, which 'discovered' America, declared its native population non-existent or the equivalent of animals, and proceeded to commit genocide against them, slashing a population of ten million down to a few hundred thousand. The same "West" which captured and enslaved more than 15 million people for four centuries. The same Britain whose imperialist exploits stand unrivalled in history for their unrelenting bloodshed - in India, Africa, the entire Middle East, China, and for 800 years in Ireland.
Joe Biden is fond of saying: if there was no Israel, America would have to invent it.
Well, prior to 1948, there was no Israel. And Europe did invent it.
European leaders did not do so because they were led blindly by some magical, ultra-powerful lobby of cunning Zionists: Europe invented Israel because Europe wanted more control over the Middle East, and saw in Zionism an opportunity to install a sympathetic, highly-militarised state right where all the oil is.
Israel helped Britain and France to maintain control over the Suez Canal during a joint invasion of Egypt in 1956. They gather intelligence, and provide support for, British military efforts in the region. They deliver just as much, if not more, for the American state than America provides in return.
For as long as this is true, it should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that Israel remains, for example, in Eurovision: Israel is a wholly European vision. It is a key asset for the project of Western imperialism.
While imperialists continue to dominate Europe, Israel will continue conducting a genocide with impunity. While the majority of people in Europe continue to tolerate imperialism, imperialists will remain in power.
Palestine is not a land without a people. Israel is willing to make it one. They are willing to starve more than 2 million Palestinians to do so. Those Palestinians will starve - are starving - on our watch, unless we in Britain and across "the West" step the fuck up.
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