By Bill Fletcher Jr., NNPA Newswire Contributor
I was amazed by the audacity of Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” regarding the Israeli and Palestinians. It was called a “deal,” yet the Palestinians were never involved. It was called a “deal,” yet the Palestinians got nothing that they have demanded.
Think about it this way. A company wants your home. They tell you that they will offer you a specific price but that this price is non-negotiable. If you do not accept the price, they will take your land anyway. You may be able to continue to live on a portion of your property, but you will not have access to your kitchen, garage or bedrooms. What would you say?
Contrary to the myths that have circulated for years, when Jewish colonists came to Palestine, it was not vacant property. There were hundreds of thousands of Arabs/Palestinians living in what was first a province of the Ottoman Empire and, after 1918, a mandate/territory of the British Empire. The land was systematically expropriated. In the 1946-49 war (which began as a guerrilla war against the British and the Palestinians, and later became the so-called Israeli war of independence), thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes for what they thought was a temporary relocation until the end of the war. They were never allowed to return despite the fact that international law had dictated that the “right of return” was a human right of all those displaced through war.
The Palestinians have continued to face expropriation. And then comes Trump. Largely to advance his domestic agenda, Trump has appealed to so-called Christian Zionists and to Jewish Zionists to rally around him as the alleged friend of Israel. Despite repeated examples of what looks a LOT like anti-semitism on the part of Trump and many of his supporters, his willingness to support the objectives of the most right-wing factions of the Israeli political elite have served as a flag to which he wishes his supporters and potential supporters to salute.
Trump’s “Deal” is made worse by the expectation that there is nothing that Palestinians and their global supporters can do about it. This is why the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement has become so important. It is a non-violent means of resisting the Israeli effort to destroy the Palestinian people. It is not, in the least bit, anti-semitic. Rather, it is a movement against a policy and historical record of the suppression of an entire people.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com and a former president of TransAfrica Forum.
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