- Zionist settlers should leave Palestine and reside in Germany or the United States
As the U.S./“Israeli” aggression enters its third month, Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and member of the executive committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path movement, conducted a series of interviews with Arab and international channels, including al-Mayadeen, Al-Manar, Palestine Today and Press TV, as well as several global left publications.
Barakat noted, “As we speak, we commemorate the anniversary of the great popular Palestinian intifada, the longest uprising in the history of humanity against injustice. On that day, December 8, 1987, in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza, where today people continue to rise up against displacement, genocide and colonialism, today’s resistance was born. From year to year, from generation to generation, the Palestinian resistance has not died and will never die until it achieves its goals,” Barakat said.
“The international institutions, like the United Nations and other bodies, are entirely disregarded by the United States and ‘Israel’. In fact, they are even used as tools whenever it serves the interests of the United States, its Western allies and the ‘Israeli’ regime. They have been sidelined through the domination of imperial powers,” Barakat said. “Yet everywhere, around the world, people are still coming out in large numbers, after two months, under the banner, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ to demand an immediate end to ‘Israeli’ genocide and war crimes. Popular movements are escalating their involvement, toward direct action, confronting war profiteers, shutting down commerce and challenging the ‘business as usual’ of Zionism and imperialism.”
“This is not a battle in which our Palestinian people face only one genocidal enemy. In fact, the Palestinian people and the people of the region understand that the true criminals here are ‘Israel’ and its backers and supporters, led by U.S. imperialism,” said Barakat.
“The Palestinian Resistance, supported by its allies in Lebanon, particularly the brave Lebanese resistance, and our brothers and sisters in Yemen on the front lines of struggle, are pushing the United States and Israel into a strategic defeat,” he affirmed. “The Zionist enemy has entered a dark tunnel from which it will not escape. It is trapped there. The more killing they do, the more trapped they become. There is no future for Zionism in Palestine.”
Barakat continued, “From the first day of the aggression, we have said consistently that Israel and its backers would fabricate a series of lies against the Palestinian people and their Resistance in order to portray our brave fighters as savages and barbarians. This is based on over 100 years of experience. In reality, the source of destruction in the region is clear everywhere in the slaughter of children and elders, the bombing of hospitals, schools and universities. The Zionist enemy and its military forces are comprised of nothing but cowards and liars.”
“They have not only lied about the conduct of the Palestinian resistance. They have consistently lied about the number of their military casualties in the ground invasion of Gaza. They do not wish to show their fascist society that they are losing on the military front. Instead, they seek to gloat of an illusory ‘victory’ over a school, a hospital, or a crowd of kidnapped civilian refugees,” Barakat said. “Yesterday, the truth has begun to emerge, with the beginning of some still-underestimated casualty numbers revealing the reality. As they were killing babies and bombing residential buildings, the brave Palestinian resistance was destroying their tanks and armored vehicles.”
He continued: “Zionists and their backers do not seem to understand: weapons don’t fight, soldiers fight. And Palestinian resistance fighters have the soul of those who are defending and liberating their land, their people and their dignity. On the other hand, the invading Zionist forces have no cause and no soul. That is why they stay shivering in their tanks as they are destroyed by the resistance and release videos of them firing on empty schools and displaying colonial flags and signs on social media. The land is fighting this battle together with the resistance. The Palestinian fighters know every street in their refugee camps, every tree and every corner, while these invaders barrel in with their tanks. It is in this context that a handmade Yassin-105 is destroying a $30 million tank, as an indigenous guerilla resistance rejects a colonial invader.”
“This proves that the weapons of the popular classes, the weapons of the workers, the organized resistance of the oppressed, are more than capable of defeating the enemy’s most advanced technology when there is the necessary will, strategy and leadership,” Barakat said.
U.S. and “Israel” heading for defeat
“The United States and Israel are living through the beginning of their historical defeat for several reasons,” Barakat affirmed, noting that:
“First, the Palestinian people are united, more than ever, behind their resistance. This unity is perhaps greater than any other historical moment. Our internal front is united despite the few capitalist collaborators in Ramallah who want to wait in vain for the resistance to be defeated. This is why they do not show their faces or emerge before the people today,” Barakat said. “On the contrary, in these times of confrontation, all of the best of Palestinians, in Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora come forward – their fighters, and also their poets and teachers like the martyr Refaat al-Areer, their resilient youth, their doctors and nurses, their farmers and bakers, their singers, artists and painters,” Barakat said.
“Second, our people in Gaza are the true representatives of the Palestinian people. They come from Yafa, from al-Naqab, and everywhere in Palestine. Let us not forget that the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees, struggling for return for over 75 years,” Barakat said. “They built this resistance with their blood and sweat, with their sons and daughters, and they will not give it up. They are the strong shell that protects the resistance and they understand that their great, deep sacrifices will not be in vain. They also understand that October 7 was the flood that paved the way to a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea. As they launched the first intifada on December 8, they have launched this new Palestinian revolution on October 7, 2023.”
“Third, Palestinians will be victorious because it is clearer than ever that our movement is part of an anti-imperialist movement. Millions of people around the world are marching and chanting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ while the Western powers run to protect ‘Israel’. The Palestinian people see the oil flowing to these colonial powers to heat their winters, while not a drop of fuel reaches their hospitals. They see how they are besieged by the Camp David regime while their brothers and sisters in Yemen are fighting for their liberation. Today, the Palestinian people realize the importance of their resistance everywhere. They represent all of these people against a vicious enemy, and they ask for nothing more than justice, and nothing less than liberation,” Barakat noted.
Zionism and racism have no place in Palestine
He continued, “Palestinians have no choice but victory. ‘Israel’ has no choice but to accept defeat, whether all at once or bit by bit. That is why it is important to send a message today to the Zionist society. Hundreds of thousands of settlers have already evacuated Palestine. The displacement of the Palestinian people is not up for debate and is not on the table. It is time for those who are so committed to colonialism and the Zionist project to join those settlers and return to Europe and the West,” Barakat said. “Germany declares that the Zionist project is the project of the German state. The settlers can go to Germany and build their project there. Our message is clear: Palestine is not your homeland. Palestinians must return to their villages and towns from which they were forcibly displaced, and Zionists may return to the countries that are so eager to dedicate their funds and weaponry to support their genocidal project, particularly Germany, Britain and the United States.”
“Gaza’s resistance has stripped off all of the masks of so-called ‘Western democracy’,” Barakat said. “These illusions have been trampled under the feet of the Palestinian people and bombed under the shelling of Gaza. We see the Western powers, especially Germany, France, the United States, Britain, Canada, oppressing Palestinians and supporters of Palestine with police brutality, smear campaigns, raids, organization bans, demonstration prohibitions, parliamentary inquiries, while they send their weapons to explode on our children and our people. This oppression has even reached the most prestigious Western universities, with all-out attacks on professors and students who dare to speak for justice in Palestine. Many have lost their jobs, their scholarships and even their housing. The Palestinian resistance has repeatedly saluted those people for their brave stands.”
The “two-state solution” is betrayal
“The United States is saying publicly that if you want the bombs to stop dropping, you must accept the ‘two-state solution,’” Barakat said. “This is no longer a threat uttered in closed rooms. Deputy US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, declared it before the eyes of the world as he cast his veto on the ceasefire resolution. As a people, we are done with the so-called ‘two-state solution.’ An alternative revolutionary path for our people has been born, and the illusory Palestinian capitalist project of Oslo has been defeated.”
“Anyone who accepts the so-called ‘legitimacy of Israel’, its ‘right to exist’ or its ‘right to self-defence’ is a traitor to the 106 years of sacrifices of our Palestinian and Arab people since the Balfour declaration. We do not accept Zionism, racism, colonialism, apartheid and genocide in any part of Palestine, and anyone who does is a full accomplice to the slaughter of the Palestinian people,” Barakat affirmed.
“The safe place for Palestinians is Palestine. The safe place for Zionists is Europe, the United States and their fellow imperialist backers and sponsors,” Barakat said. “They are headed for a defeat in Palestine despite the genocide, and the Palestinian people and their resistance are on a path, together with all of their fellow resistance forces, that ends only with victory and liberation.”
Photos: Luigi Morris