(I’ll preface by saying English is technically my second language and I’m never sure if one should say Jew or Jewish person. Opinions are varied online and I’m still as confused after looking it up).

Palestinians have been forcibly evicted from their homeland (and more generally their homes) and are being relegated to tiny areas suppressed by Israel. The Gaza Strip is a major concern for the UN because of the living conditions there; Israel is looking to cut off water access and blockades the Strip with ships so that trade goods will not reach them and fleeing is mostly impossible. Since the 6 day war, Israel has invaded Palestinian land and still controls territory that historically belongs to Syria and Egypt.

Not only that, but there is a disinformation campaign from Israel and its supporters (Generally NATO, but not entirely) to paint Israel as the victim of “terrorism” while ignoring, for example, that it was policy for the IDF to kill children. They built a giant wall that makes the US border wall blush in comparison, just to keep Palestinians out.

The reason NATO countries are supportive of Israel is because it’s a great foothold in the Levant.

And for the few Palestinians allowed into Israel, they are relegated as second-class citizens. They are not allowed to ride some buses. They are bullied in the streets and the police do nothing – they will side with the Israeli citizens. And with the raids the IDF conducts in Palestinian quarters and territories (because they are seizing the land for their settlers), there is a very real fear that 50 years from now there will not be any Palestinians left in the region.

This is not only true to Palestinians, but also to African Jews. There are countless stories of Africans moving to Israel and they have to put up with gross exploitation, they are not protected, they are not full citizens. Even if they are Jewish.

I mean, even you – if you go to Israel as a tourist, prepare to be detained for hours by border control and questioned relentlessly. If you want to visit what is left of Palestine, prepare to be interrogated even more and turned away. They will seize your stuff, they will threaten you. This is how a terrorist organisation operates.

But let’s go back to Palestine. What we see happening in Israel and the occupied territories today is the kind of apartheid that was left behind in South Africa. It’s unjust, it’s a gross insult to Palestinians, and that is why they must have our support. The solution is to reinstate Palestine as the sovereign state in lieu of Israel, and they have made provisions to protect and give citizenship to the Jewish population, which would be ex-Israeli. As far as I’m aware only Jews are allowed to become Israeli citizens… but we also see that African Jews are being treated harshly and told to leave the country and go back to where they came from.

The creation of Israel itself is peak imperialism because Palestinians had no say in the matter. The country was divided in two by the British – as it was a British colony – and with UN involvement (though I am not sure the extent of their involvement) and basically left to fend for itself. Jerusalem and the region as a whole is important for all Abrahamic religions (Christians, Muslims and Jews) and it makes as much sense to give the land to create a Jewish homeland than it does giving the land to the Vatican. And really if the UK wanted to be nice and give some land to a genocided population, they could have given them their own territory and divided London to be administered equally. With the difference that if you create a state out of thin air, you can better control it. And again we see that Israel’s reason for existing is to terrorize the local populations and help imperial interests in the region.