i found this open letter on the ecosocialist…
Miraflores, September 17, 2011
His Excellency, Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
Mr. Secretary General:
Distinguished representatives of the peoples of the world:
I address these words to the United Nations General Assembly, to this great
forum that represents all the people of earth, to ratify, on this day and in
this setting, Venezuela’s full support of the recognition of the Palestinian
State: of Palestine’s right to become a free, sovereign and independent
state. This represents an act of historic justice towards a people who carry
with them, from time immemorial, all the pain and suffering of the world.
In his memorable essay The Grandeur of Arafat, the great French philosopher
Gilles Deleuze wrote with the full weight of the truth: The Palestinian
cause is first and foremost the set of injustices that these people have
suffered and continue to suffer. And I dare add that the Palestinian cause
also represents a constant and unwavering will to resist, already written in
the historic memory of the human condition. A will to resist that is born of
the most profound love for the earth. Mahmoud Darwish, the infinite voice of
the longed-for Palestine, with heartfelt conscience speaks about this love:
We don’t need memories/ because we carry within us Mount Carmelo/ and in our
eyelids is the herb of Galilee./ Don’t say: If only we could flow to my
country like a river!/ Don’t say that!/ Because we are in the flesh of our
country/ and our country is in our flesh.
Against those who falsely assert that what has happened to the Palestinian
people is not genocide, Deleuze himself states with unfaltering lucidity:
From beginning to end, it involved acting as if the Palestinian people not
only must not exist, but had never existed. It represents the very essence
of genocide: to decree that a people do not exist; to deny them the right to
existence.
In this regard, the great Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo is quite right when
he forcefully states: The biblical promise of the land of Judea and Samaria
to the tribes of Israel is not a notarized property contract that authorizes
the eviction of those who were born and live on that land. This is precisely
why conflict resolution in the Middle East must, necessarily, bring justice
to the Palestinian people; this is the only path to peace.
It is upsetting and painful that the same people who suffered one of the
worst examples of genocide in history have become the executioners of the
Palestinian people: it is upsetting and painful that the heritage of the
Holocaust be the Nakba. And it is truly disturbing that Zionism continues to
use the charge of anti-Semitism as blackmail against those who oppose their
violations and crimes. Israel has, blatantly and despicably, used and
continues to use the memory of the victims. And they do so to act with
complete impunity against Palestine. It’s worth mentioning that
anti-Semitism is a Western, European, scourge in which the Arabs do not
participate. Furthermore, let’s not forget that it is the Semite Palestine
people who suffer from the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Israeli
colonialist State.
I want to make myself clear: It is one thing to denounce anti-Semitism, and
an entirely different thing to passively accept that Zionistic barbarism
enforces an apartheid regime against the Palestinian people. From an ethical
standpoint those who denounce the first, must condemn the second.
A necessary digression: it is frankly abusive to confuse Zionism with
Judaism. Throughout time we have been reminded of this by several Jewish
intellectuals such as Albert Einstein and Erich Fromm. And today there are
an ever increasing number of conscientious citizens, within Israel itself,
who openly oppose Zionism and its criminal and terrorist practices.
We must spell it out: Zionism, as a world vision, is absolutely racist.
Irrefutable proof of this can be seen in these words written with terrifying
cynicism by Golda Meir: How are we to return the occupied territories? There
is nobody to return them to. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.
It is not as people think, that there existed a people called Palestinians,
who considered themselves as Palestinians, and that we came and threw them
out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
It is important to remember that: from the end of the 19th century, Zionism
called for the return of the Jewish people to Palestine and the creation of
a national state of its own. This approach was beneficial for French and
British colonialism, as it would later be for Yankee imperialism. The West
has always encouraged and supported the Zionist occupation of Palestine by
military means.
Read and reread the document historically known as the Balfour Declaration
of 1917: the British Government assumed the legal authority to promise a
national home in Palestine to the Jewish people, deliberately ignoring the
presence and wishes of its inhabitants. It should be added that Christians
and Muslims lived in peace for centuries in the Holy Land up until the time
when Zionism began to claim it as its complete and exclusive property.
Let’s not forget that beginning in the second decade of the 20th century,
Zionism started to develop its expansionist plans by taking advantage of the
colonial British occupation of Palestine. By the end of World War II, the
Palestinian people’s tragedy worsened, with their expulsion from their
territory and, at the same time, from history. In 1947, the despicable and
illegal UN resolution 181 recommends dividing Palestine into a Jewish State,
an Arab State, and an area under international control (Jerusalem and
Belem). Shamefully, 56 percent of the territory was granted to Zionism to
establish its State. In fact, this resolution violated international law and
blatantly ignored the will of the vast Arab majority: the right to
self-determination of the people became a dead letter.
From 1948 to date, the Zionist State has continually applied its criminal
strategy against the Palestinian people with the constant support of its
unconditional ally, the United States of America. This unconditional
allegiance is clearly observed by the fact that Israel directs and sets US
international policy for the Middle East. That’s why the great Palestinian
and universal conscience Edward Said stated that any peace agreement built
on the alliance with the United States would be an alliance that confirms
Zionist power, rather than one that confronts it.
Now then: contrary to what Israel and the United States are trying to make
the world believe through transnational media outlets, what happened and
continues to happen in Palestine —using Said’s words— is not a religious
conflict, but a political conflict, with a colonial and imperialist stamp.
It did not begin in the Middle East, but rather in Europe.
What was and continues to be at the heart of the conflict?: debate and
discussion has prioritized Israel’s security while ignoring Palestine’s.
This is corroborated by recent events; a good example is the latest act of
genocide set off by Israel during its Operation Molten Lead in Gaza.
Palestine’s security cannot be reduced to the simple acknowledgement of a
limited self-government and self-policing in its “enclaves” along the west
bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip. This ignores the creation of the
Palestinian State, in the borders set prior to 1967 with East Jerusalem as
its capital; and the rights of its citizens and their self-determination as
a people. This further disregards the compensation and subsequent return to
the Homeland of 50 percent of the Palestinian people who are scattered all
over the world, as established by resolution 194.
It’s unbelievable that a country (Israel) that owes its existence to a
general assembly resolution could be so disdainful of the resolutions that
emanate from the UN, said Father Miguel D’Escoto when pleading for the end
of the massacre against the people of Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.
Mr. Secretary General and distinguished representatives of the peoples of
the world:
It is impossible to ignore the crisis in the United Nations. In 2005, before
this very same General Assembly, we argued that the United Nations model had
become exhausted. The fact that the debate on the Palestinian issue has been
delayed and is being openly sabotaged reconfirms this.
For several days, Washington has been stating that, at the Security Council,
it will veto what will be a majority resolution of the General Assembly: the
recognition of Palestine as a full member of the UN. In the Statement of
Recognition of the Palestinian State, Venezuela, together with the sister
Nations that make up the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA), have denounced that such a just aspiration could be blocked by this
means. As we know, the empire, in this and other instances, is trying to
impose its double standard on the world stage: Yankee double standards are
violating international law in Libya, while allowing Israel to do whatever
it pleases, thus becoming the main accomplice of the Palestinian genocide
being carried out by the hands of Zionist barbarity. Edward Said touched a
nerve when he wrote that: Israeli interests in the United States have made
the US’ Middle East policy Israeli-centric.
I would like to conclude with the voice of Mahmoud Darwish in his memorable
poem *On This Earth*: We have on this earth what makes life worth living: On
this earth, the lady of earth, Mother of all beginnings/ Mother of all ends.
She was called… Palestine./ Her name later became… Palestine./ My Lady,
because you are my Lady, I deserve life.
It will continue to be called Palestine: Palestine will live and overcome!
Long-live free, sovereign and independent Palestine!
Hugo Chávez Frías
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
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