Palestine Will Be Free

Even after a year of genocide, this truth remains as certain as ever.

Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images

There is little need, at this point, to catalog all of the horrors of the past 365 days. No genocide in human history has been as thoroughly documented, moment by moment, as Israel’s genocide of Gaza. Anyone who doesn’t know about what has happened in the past year—the tens of thousands of people Israel has killed; the thousands of massacres; the deliberate decimation of everything meant to sustain life in Gaza; the remorseless blocking of humanitarian aid; the famine and the polio; the destruction of hospitals and schools and religious sites and cultural treasures; the children blown apart day after day; the Israeli soldiers reveling in their atrocities—doesn’t want to know. Any American who is under any illusions about the depth of their government’s complicity in this catastrophe is lying to themselves. And the rest of us are all too aware.

It has been a terrible, terrible year: 365 days of pure hell, compounded by the fact that there appears to be no limit to the amount of barbarism that the supposedly “civilized” world is prepared to tolerate from Israel—or the repression our leaders are prepared to mete out against people opposing the depravity of the genocide.

There is no end in sight to the bloodshed in Gaza. And far from winding its violence down, Israel is expanding its footprint, causing carnage in Lebanon and stoking all-out war with Iran. US support for all of this is as unyielding as ever, despite the protests and encampments and the majority of Americans repeatedly expressing their desire for a ceasefire. So in a very real, awful way, the movement to end the genocide has failed, and we have to sit with that truth.

But the Palestinian people are still here. Palestine is still here. And I still believe, as surely as I ever have, that Palestine will be free.

There is nothing that can bring all of the dead back, or erase the misery and trauma of the living. But there’s also nothing that can make people unsee what they have seen this past year. All across the world, people have risen up in revulsion and dismay against Israel’s crimes. Students have put their bodies and their futures on the line. Artists have brought Palestine closer to the center of the cultural conversation than ever before. There has been a massive, historic shift in public opinion away from Israel and towards the Palestinian people. Zionism’s iron grip is slipping.

None of these things are enough to stop the genocide or end apartheid any time soon. But taken together, they show that the future is only headed in one direction—Palestinian liberation. More people in more places than ever before are simply not prepared to tolerate this level of injustice. The world is on Palestine’s side—and the people of the world won’t give up until Palestine is free.

More importantly, though, Palestinians won’t give up until they have secured their liberation.

It has always been clear what Israel thinks of Palestinians. Their defense minister notoriously said that Israel was fighting “human animals” in Gaza, and everything Israel has done to the Palestinian people since 1948 is a reflection of that genocidal bigotry. But one of the reasons colonizers lose in the end is because they believe their own lies about the people they oppress.

Gazans have responded to this year of genocide not as the subhuman monsters of Israeli fantasy, but as people whose courage and love are stronger than any bomb. Even as Israel reduces their entire world to ash and rubble, they have held on tight to their communities, made unfathomable sacrifices, and risked everything to protect each other. They have shown bravery that defies categorization. They have been subjected to some of the worst crimes of modern history and suffered incalculable losses, but they are still here and still resisting. They are, without question, the heroes of our time.

These are not the actions of saints. They are merely the actions of human beings who are not going to liquidate themselves just because their colonizers want to erase them from the earth. They are the actions of people who have the same hopes and desires as anyone, and who will never relinquish their intrinsic right to fulfill them. Israel does not understand that. Nor does the United States. They are both blinded by the racism and bloodlust and arrogance that has doomed empires since time immemorial, and that will doom their subjugation of Palestine.

So yes, I have no doubt that Palestine will be free. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but Palestine will be free. Today, 365 days into this genocide, it is up to all of us to remember that and to think about what we need to do to make that freedom real. Palestinians will never give in, and the rest of us can’t either. The struggle continues. We will win.

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On a personal note, I want to thank you, the readers and supporters of Discourse Blog, for sticking with us as we responded to this past year. It has not been easy, but having this platform—this place to mourn and rage and contemplate a better future together—has meant so much to us. Thank you for giving us that space. It is a debt we cannot repay.