Libération - Blog Posts
Liberation tea set after DDay in France (End 1944/1945)
One coaster with the free French flag (FFL)
Another two with the English flag.
The main and the last rectangular one with the American one (Colors and stars)
Ensemble de napperons brodé en France reprenant les thèmes de la Libération : France Libre, GB,USA.
Liberation
The World vs. Palestine
You’ve probably heard or have already known about what is currently happening in Palestine. For those that don’t, the simple answer is the ongoing difficult questions about the ownwersip of land. Most people in the U.S call it a conflict or a ‘war’. But the genuine problem is that Palestine is in constant suffering, foregoing settler colonialism, military occupation, land theft, and ethnic cleansing from their neighbor, Isreal. It makes us ask ourselves why it is important to take a stand against oppression and injustice everywhere, and the scary nature of ‘othering’.
So, what are the arguments that started the deaths of so many Palestinians? From Israel, their argument is that Jerusalem is their homeland, and seeks the return of Jewish authority after 2000 years of being an ineffective exile. They have retained their culture and kept their holy land, Jerusalem, in all that time. Because Jews have kept a presence there for most of history, even if they were the minority, they say they represent the oldest definable group of people/culture still in existence that claim the land, and that all previous occupations and expulsions of their people were unjust, and it is rightfully theirs to return to, even if it means displacing the Palestinians. ‘‘The interactions between the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian [Hammas] including negotiations have always been based on respective political dynamics rather than on a sincere desire to establish peace. Most importantly, these events frustrated the peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli government. ’’
The Palestinian argument is that the Jews cannot suddenly ‘reclaim’ land when someone else is already living in it. Having relatives living somewhere 2000 years ago doesn't give you the right to take someone else’s home. The Palestinians as they exist today have been living there, close to 1300 years. Before the creation of ‘Isreal’ only 73 years ago, Palestinian Christians, Jews, and Muslims, peacefully co-existed in Palestine. The plight of the Jews, who have suffered in Europe, is not the Palestinians fault, as they have never tried to genocide them. There have been tensions, but for the most part, they have lived peacefully side by side, until those same Jews decided that they wanted control over their land. The Palestinian Christian community is the oldest Christian community in the world. According to the Congressional Research Service, ‘‘Israeli military occupation has been supported by U.S aid with 3.8 billion a year paid for by U.S tax dollars since 2016 for the next ten years. It is also supported by other countries who strike to oppress other small groups and countries like Canada, Australia, France, and Belgium. For FY2021, the Trump Administration requested $3.3 billion in FMF for Israel and $500 million in missile defense aid to mark the second year of the MOU. The Administration also requested $5 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance humanitarian funding for migrants to Israel.’’
Because Isreal has the support of these dominating countries like the United States and other colonial powers like the U.K that this will go on. For them to call out ‘Isreal’, they would have to start to answer questions about their origins and existence for the people they have colonized. So for those who believe it is just a ‘religious conflict’? It is not. A conflict means there is equal footing, the same way war would have two groups fighting equally. The Israeli government is spreading misinformation about its own settler-colonial existence, in order to conceal the fact that they ethnically cleansed and massacred over 540 Palestinian towns and villages in 1948, when they were previously called Zionist terrorists, and their village names replaced with new Hebrew placed names. Isreal is responsible for over 7.2 million Palestinian refugees and denies them their legal right of return. Saying that it’s a simple ‘religious conflict’ denies Palestine their right to liberation, justice, and freedom.
Free Palestine
