Yossi Schwartz (RCIT Section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 27.07.2025
After the expulsion of some 900,000 Palestinians by the Zionist monster in 1947-8, some of them arrived in Gaza. The Palestinians who remained in the State of Israel were subjected to military rule. This brutal military rule continued until the end of 1966. When planning the occupation of the West Bank, the Zionist government acted to create a conflict between the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Therefore, the military government under which the Palestinian citizens of the state lived was abolished. When the occupation of the 67 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza came, Palestinian citizens of Israel were perceived as collaborators with the occupier. In Israel, Palestinians who are citizens of the Zionist state have begun to be called Israeli Arabs. However, today’s genocide has made it clear to the “Israeli Arabs” that they are part of the Palestinian nation.
Two days ago in Sakhnin, there was a massive demonstration, with more than 10,000 demonstrators against the war and the starvation of the Gazans. The reporters of the Haaretz newspaper covered this demonstration.
The protest began with a march from the plaza of the Al-Nour Mosque in the city. It ended at City Hall Square, where the mayor of Sakhnin, Mazen Ghanaim, and the chairman of the Arab Society’s Monitoring Committee, Muhammad Barakeh, spoke. Suheir Salah, a social activist from Sakhnin who participated in the protest, told Haaretz that she “wakes up every morning with a sense of heaviness in her heart. Not because of what I see on the news — but because of what I don’t see on the street — the silence.” She said, “The children in Gaza are our children. Even if they are physically distant, they are part of our story. How can we continue to live our daily lives when we know that they are dying of hunger, and we are silent? The police can confiscate signs, detain people, and disperse demonstrations. But it will not be able to erase the feelings we have accumulated and the feeling that we are fourth-class citizens. I’m here to say – we won’t be silent.” According to one of the protesters, “The police can confiscate signs, detain people, and disperse demonstrations, but they will not be able to erase the feelings we have accumulated.”
In his speech, Ganaim called for an end to the war and hunger in Gaza: “We say this clearly – we and our people in Gaza are one people. We demand full equality and civil rights, not more wars.” The mayor added that he “wants a new Middle East. We want an Iron Dome, not a military one, but a civilian one, from within the people. We want education, employment, health, and to raise our children and grandchildren in the best possible way.” According to him, Arab society “wants to be a partner with those who recognize our rights.”
The chairman of the monitoring committee, Muhammad Barakeh, said in his speech that the demonstrators were “here to say a clear word against the extermination.” Later, Bracha asked, “Why is the police mobilizing enormous forces for a legitimate and legal demonstration that we have been holding for decades? It’s an attempt to intimidate us – but don’t intimidate us or silence the expression of our identity and belonging.”
However, Bracha is one of the leaders of Hadash, and therefore, he repeated as a mantra the unrealistic reformist program of two states. One is imperialist Israel on 80% of the land of Palestine, and next to it is the Bantustan of 20% of Palestine, which will continue to divide the Palestinian nation, or will be used by the Zionists to remove the Palestinian citizens of Israel to the mini-Palestinian state. He said:
“We demand that the State of Palestine be declared a sovereign state under occupation. This is Palestinian land – in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza – and the occupation must be removed from it,” Bracha added, referring to the attack on Knesset member Ayman Odeh last week: “The gangs that attack the Palestinians and Knesset member Odeh are more similar than anything else to the Nazis and the white supremacist groups in the United States – except that while their governments limit their violence, the Israeli government nurtures these gangs.”
It is no coincidence that he forgot to mention the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. Two days ago, a demonstration was held in Tel Aviv mainly by Zionists from the opposition to Netanyahu, calling for a ceasefire and the return of the hostages, but the speeches did not address the hunger situation in the Gaza Strip.
Two days ago, the police declared a demonstration in Haifa against the war illegal and arrested at least 24 demonstrators there. The demonstrators, who waved signs calling for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, were arrested a few minutes after the demonstration began. This, according to the police, is because their actions “are liable to disturb public peace.” The police used force during the arrests and even tore down protest signs.