End the massacre of the people of Palestine! Palestine will win!

We are witnessing scenes of barbarism in the martyred land of Palestine, of unacceptable violence, that must be stopped and that are the entire responsibility of Israel and its protectors.

Israel's bombing of the besieged population of the Gaza Strip has already caused nearly a hundred and fifty deaths – including 40 children – and close to a thousand wounded. Residential apartment towers are demolished, leaving numerous families homeless.

In Israel, Palestinians are lynched, their shops destroyed and their homes invaded by bands of Israeli extremists in pogroms broadcast live on Israeli public television. The danger of an escalation of violence is very real.

This violence is not «the responsibility of the two parties». It has undeniable proximate causes:

• the Israeli authorities' attempt to evict dozens of Palestinian families from the houses where they have been living for generations in Sheik Jarrah and other East Jerusalem neighbourhoods;
• the ban on access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan and the violent crackdown on protesters;
• the murder of Palestinians by Israeli settlers;
• the unstoppable rise of increasingly extremist and racist forces in Israel.

These proximate causes are part of a fundamental cause: the Israeli occupation and the denial of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to have a sovereign and independent state, as stipulated in numerous UN resolutions.

Today is the anniversary of Nakba, the ethnic cleansing that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. An ethnic cleansing that continues to this day:

• It is alive in Sheikh Jarrah's evictions.
• It is alive in the illegal policy of building Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, where more than 600,000 settlers already live.
• It is alive in the bombing of martyred and besieged Gaza, the largest open-air prison on the planet.
• It was alive in the cold-blooded Israeli massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters during the Great March of Return in Gaza.
• It is alive in the illegal construction of the Apartheid Wall that is shredding and fragmenting Palestinian territory in the West Bank.
• It is alive in the Israeli military occupation of more than 60% of the West Bank (the so-called ‘Area C’).
• It is alive in the plans publicly announced last year by Prime Minister Netanyahu to annex a large part of the occupied Palestinian territory, tearing apart not only UN resolutions but even agreements signed by Israel.
• It is alive in the racist Law «Israel: the Nation State of the Jewish People».
• It is alive in the endless Zionist wars and massacres over decades.

The reality is undeniable: successive governments of the State of Israel do not aim to achieve peace or accept a Palestinian State, but to derail its creation and the two-State solution advocated by UN resolutions, paving the way for a single state of «Greater Israel» occupying the entire historical territory of Palestine.

It is shameful that the rulers of the US, the European Union and its member states – including Portugal – only take a stand when the violence initiated by Israel is faced with the legitimate defence of the Palestinian people.

It is revealing that in these official positions they consider it "unacceptable" that rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip on Israel, but they do not have a single word of condemnation for the real massacre that Israel is committing in the Gaza Strip and of its incomparably greater number of civilian victims at the hands of one of the biggest military powers on the planet.

It is outrageous that they talk about "Israel's right to defence" but never about the Palestinians' right to defend their lives.

It shows the utter hypocrisy of the governments that invoked “humanitarian” principles and the “responsibility to protect civilian populations” to start countless wars – the consequences of which were always worse than the alleged (and false) motivations – but who remain silent in condemning Israel's crimes.

Decades of favouritism by the US and other NATO powers – including the former colonial powers in the region – to the crimes of Israel and the destruction of any prospect of a political solution to the Palestinian question also opened the door to the violence we are witnessing today.

Those who were and are complicit in the Israeli sabotage of any negotiated solution to the Palestinian question have no moral or political legitimacy to condemn the resistance of the Palestinian people to the advance of the occupation.

This resistance is manifested in multiple forms, including the popular revolt in the streets, which is particularly significant today among Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is important to remember that the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, which the Government and the President of the Republic have sworn to uphold, recognizes in its Article 7 the right of resistance of peoples who are victims of oppression.

What more can be asked of the martyred people of Palestine, who for decades have seen all the promises made by the so-called 'international community' being betrayed?

MPPM demands that the Portuguese government firmly and unequivocally condemn the Israeli massacres, and that it accept its responsibilities in demanding that Israel respect international law.

MPPM reiterates its permanent solidarity with the people of Palestine and the struggle for their inalienable rights.

MPPM calls for a large participation in the scheduled protest and solidarity initiatives:

• Monday, 17th of May, at 6 pm, gatherings in Lisbon (Largo Martim Moniz) and Porto (Praça da Palestina, Rua Fernandes Tomás), jointly convened by CGTP – General Confederation of Portuguese Workers –, CPPC – Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation – and MPPM
• Tuesday, May 18, at 6.30 pm, at Casa do Alentejo, in Lisbon, Solidarity Meeting promoted by MPPM.

It's time to say Enough!

It's time to act!

It's time to recognize the State of Palestine!

It's time to defend world peace!

It's time to punish crimes against humanity!

Palestine will win!

May 15, 2021

The National Directorate of MPPM