Palestine stands for global resistance

Sara Flounders WW photo

The following is from a talk by Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, at the Palestine Plenary Session of the Jan. 16-18 Beirut International Forum for Resistance, Anti-Imperialism, Peoples’ Solidarity and Alternatives.

The United Nations just stands by, the European Union is in full support of the Zionist state and the whole war is paid for and equipped by U.S. imperialism. From Saudi Arabia to Egypt to India, nations who were once considered friends of Palestine stand by and watch Gaza burn—day after day after day!

The Zionists’ use of bunker busters, F-16 jets, cluster bombs, white phosphorus bombs and the systematic destruction of food warehouses and emergency relief provisions is all well publicized throughout the entire region, but absolutely nothing is done in the face of the most serious war crimes.

Why, why is this? The global inaction is because the rich and powerful are terrified of, and desperately want to destroy, resistance in their own countries. They want to destroy the glorious example of resistance—which Palestine represents to the whole world

Every one of the great powers and their collaborators hope that by attacking Heroic Gaza they can push back and demoralize the struggle in the whole region.

Gaza is a harbinger of wider war against oppressed people of the world. We are on the eve of a global capitalist crisis. This means massive insecurity, cutbacks in all social programs, unemployment for millions.

Millions of working people will seek to fight back against a system of endless war and greater and greater divide of enormous wealth for a handful and poverty for the overwhelming majority. Increasingly they will identify with and take heart from the many forms of resistance they see around them.

We need to militantly support Hamas, the democratically elected choice of the people, which is being demonized, hunted and assassinated by the Zionists, as is every heroic fighter.

We need to make it clear that we support the right to resist, the right to fire rockets, the right to dig tunnels, the right to organize the people against sure starvation and the blockade that Israel has criminally imposed.

For decades the Palestinian struggle has been the shining example to all the world of a people who refuse to submit to colonial domination, apartheid conditions, the most brutal forms of segregation and subjugation.

At this forum we salute the powerful resistance of Iraq and the struggle waged by all of the different forces opposing U.S. occupation.

We salute the resistance in Afghanistan—a resistance that the U.S. never expected.

We salute the heroic forces in Lebanon, led by Hezbollah, which organized such a devastating setback to Israel in 2006.

We stand with the people of Syria and with Iran, who, in the face of U.S./Israeli threats, have been steadfast.

We applaud the people of Venezuela and Bolivia, who have shown such great solidarity with the struggle in Gaza as they organize to build a more just society.

We must intensify the struggle against NATO, the U.S./European Union military arm. Now we need to connect the criminal role of NATO in Afghanistan, NATO in the Balkans, in Georgia—to the phony Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. Washington now wants NATO military forces in Palestine and Egypt! NATO is the U.S. shield to do what Israel alone can no longer do. It is an effort to impose greater U.S. control in the region. But there is greater and greater resistance everywhere to these plans.

Organizers represented at this forum are involved in the most practical work of mobilizing opposition at the grass roots. Collectively we have brought millions into the streets in public demonstrations of solidarity. This is true in the Arab and Muslim world, through the entire South, and also in the imperialist countries. In some places we have blocked and even occupied the embassies of Israel and targeted countries that have collaborated with Israel’s war crimes. Activists here today have taken boats to Gaza and taken up collections for people-to-people humanitarian aid.

From the U.S.—we are proud to have helped to organize many thousands of people in the streets, emergency demonstrations day after day for three weeks in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and many other cities.

We must sustain an ongoing movement to boycott, divest and to impose sanctions [BDS] on the Israeli state and war crimes charges on its leaders. We must demand an accounting from our own governments.

We need to continue and deepen all these actions to find the best way of throwing a giant shoe into the gears of the imperialist and Zionist war machines.

Sisters and brothers—Gaza stands for global resistance.

It is the resistance of a whole people against starvation, blockade and siege.

World solidarity is a responsibility!

Palestine is fighting for all of us!

We must fight for Palestine!