PALESTINE “Let us live together in a single State for all its citizens”

Young Palestinians and Jewish Israelis discuss a democratic solution

In contrast to Trump and Netanyahu’s expulsion plans, with the complicity of Arab regimes, young Palestinian and Jewish Israeli activists have for months been discussing what could be a democratic solution. In a “message to Israeli Jews from Gaza”, Mohamed Zray, a genocide survivor and Gaza correspondent for the One Democratic State Initiative (ODSI), explains: “The Palestinian people were born of the Canaanites, Arabs, Turks, Kurds and all those who, one after the other, colonised this land. What prevented you, Israeli Jews, from becoming one of us too? The answer is Zionism. It was Zionism that rejected the possibility of creating a single Palestinian state for all its citizens, before 1948, and opted for the creation of a ‘Jewish state’ instead. Today, it is clear that this colonial state did not bring justice, democracy or equality to anyone. It has also failed its purpose of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians: millions of us are still here. We will not disappear and we will come back. (…) Give up your colonial privileges and let us live together in a single State for all its citizens. A State of justice, equality and democracy. The exact opposite of Zionism”. Responding to this appeal, one of the members of the group of young Israeli Jews who participated in this dialogue with activists from Gaza explained: “I fully share this vision, I completely share this criticism of the State of Israel. I want to assert my identity as a Hebrew Palestinian, and that defines my position on the current situation. I am not a supporter of Zionism, nor of occupation, nor of oppression, nor of inequality, nor of violence, nor of war and genocide. I stand for a free Palestine. And I define myself as a Hebrew Palestinian who aspires only to be a citizen of a democratic State of Palestine that will guarantee equality for all”.

Article from La Tribune des travailleurs (Workers’ Tribune, France)