Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN)
November 2024
After the 7th of October 2023, the world took on a different lens. On this pivotal date, imperialism and settler colonialism revealed their true dynamics, framing global perspectives into opposing narratives of oppression and resistance. Yet, the story of settler colonialism did not begin here; its roots run deep in the Arab region. To understand how we arrived at this moment, we must turn to history, tracing its origins and mechanisms over time.
In 1799, the French Napoleon issued a proclamation that called Jews the rightful heirs of Palestine.
In 1897, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, to promote the implementation of Zionist goals, namely the creation of a home for the Jews in Palestine under public law.
In 1907, the British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman organized a conference in England, attended by France, Holland, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. They decided that the Arabs, if united, were a very big threat to European countries and decided to promote division and separation in the region and establish a buffer state in Palestine populated by a strong foreign presence that would be hostile to its neighbors and friendly to European countries and their interests.
In 1916, the British and the French agreed through the Sykes-Picot agreement to divide the Arab world among themselves.
After assuming control in 1917, European colonial control by the British Mandate forced by the League of Nations, played a significant role in the confiscation of Palestinian land. In 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, wrote a letter known as the Balfour Declaration to one of Britain’s most influential Jewish citizens, Baron Rothschild. This letter expressed the government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Moreover, through the applied implementation of various legislations and laws, such as the Land Ownership Rights Settlement Law in 1928, the mandate aimed to privatize the 12 million dunums of communal lands. These measures facilitated the Zionist acquisition of large tracts of land from the newly established land market. Despite the favorable conditions provided for Zionist colonizers, by late 1940s, they only controlled approximately 7% of Palestinian territories.
In 1922, controlled by imperialist powers, the league of nations put Palestine under the British mandate which promoted waves of European Jewish immigration into our nation, trained and armed terrorist Zionist groups, and oppressed through arrests, torture, mass punishment and execution of all Palestinians who tried to protect their people and nation, even those who had a single bullet were hanged. Any Palestinian citizen carrying a knife was jailed.
Despite the horrific war crimes committed, Palestinians have displayed legendary resilience and resistance all through 100 years till now.
In 1921 was the first uprising in Yaffa, followed by the big Buraq Uprising in 1929.
The biggest uprising was the Arab Revolt in 1936, following the death of the resistance leader Izzeddin al-Qassam, the name which was adopted by the resistance movement now.
In 1937, during the Arab Revolt, Winston Churchill declared the same Crusaders’ values: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place”.
In 1939, the British smashed the revolution using harsh and cruel measures.
In 1948, in what is known as the Nakba, tens of massacres took place slaughtering thousands of Palestinian civilians, demolishing more than 530 villages including Deir Yassin, Jerusalem, and Qaysaria, and displacing more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands to live in tents in neighboring countries.
In the same year of the Nakba, the UN Resolution 194 calling for the right of return was approved but never applied.
However, the massacres continued. In 1956, the Kafr Qasim and Khan Yunis massacres took place.
In 1964, the Palestinians launched a new revolution by founding the Palestinian Liberation Organization to liberate their homeland and called to establish one Palestinian democratic state where all citizens: Muslims, Christians, and Jews can live as citizens with equal rights and obligations.
In 1967, backed by the Imperial United States, Israel occupied the rest of Palestine as well as the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai as well as parts of Lebanon.
In 1973, the fourth Arab-Israeli war took place to reclaim the recently occupied Golan Heights and Sinai. This war was victorious until the United States came to rescue its usual puppet.
Palestinians revolted against the Israeli occupation in 1987 referred to as the First Intifada or Uprising. Before the second intifada in 2000, the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO were signed in 1993. The established Palestinian Authority has since shed its revolutionary skin and transformed into a typical Arab state if not worse.
Now going back, systematic and genocidal wars were started in Gaza long before 7 October 2023.
In 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a massive 22-day military assault on the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,400 Palestinian civilians.
In 2012, Israel launched another massacre Operation Pillar of Defense, resulting in over 170 Palestinian deaths, extensive destruction of infrastructure, and severe damage to Gaza’s agricultural sector,
In 2014, Operation Protective Edge took place by the Zionists, causing devastating losses, including the deaths of over 2,200 Palestinians. It left tens of thousands of homes destroyed, displaced over 100,000 people, and severely damaged Gaza’s infrastructure, including its agricultural sector, water systems, and power supply, deepening the humanitarian crisis.
And again in 2015, over 1,500 Palestinian civilians were killed, 538 of whom were children.
In 2021, Israel launched a devastating and intensive 11-day military offensive. The war resulted in significant losses, with over 260 Palestinians killed, including 66 children. In Gaza, thousands of homes were destroyed or severely damaged, displacing over 72,000 people. Critical infrastructure, including hospitals, water, and
sanitation facilities, was heavily impacted, while extensive damage to agricultural lands and businesses deepened Gaza’s economic and humanitarian crisis.
And now in 2024 in its most aggressive and violent attack on Gaza yet and backed by the same colonial perpetrators of the crusade wars, Israel is committing a complete genocide and ecocide, with more than 50,000 Palestinians murdered and many more assumed under the rubble, 57% of whom are women and children. The bombs dropped on Gaza till now exceed 5 times the magnitude of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
As part of their genocidal campaign, the Israeli Occupation is waging a war of starvation. The occupation tightened its blockade on Gaza, closing all crossings and prohibiting the entry of aid trucks, which previously averaged around 500 trucks per day before. Long weeks passed without allowing any trucks to enter at all, or permitting only a few, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and disrupting relief efforts. Prices skyrocketed sharply, in addition to the direct targeting of relief trucks, their crews, and civilians in their vicinity. Moreover, the occupation has targeted agricultural lands and facilities through airstrikes and subsequent bulldozing. 80% of Gaza’s agricultural sector has been destroyed.
In the West Bank, the Israeli occupation continues to intensify its colonial and oppressive tactics against the Palestinians. To facilitate the expropriation of occupied land, thousands of acres of Palestinian agricultural land have been razed and uprooted by Israeli authorities and gangs. Palestinian communities now own less than 15% of the land of historic Palestine, represented by the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Of the remaining land, 60% of the West Bank is classified as “Area C” and is under full Israeli control and contains the majority of Palestine’s agricultural land and is being gradually confiscated by the Zionist settlements.
Since 7 October, the occupation has intensified its attacks against Palestinians, especially through arming illegal settlers. The number of illegal settlers in the West Bank totals 726,000, distributed across 179 settlements and 186 settlement outposts.
But as always, Palestinians along with regional resistance movements, have resumed their brave resistance. And as all Palestinians, we, the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, refuse to surrender to injustice, in 2000 we launched our green resistance movement under the slogan “They uproot one, we plant ten”. This year marked our third million fruit tree, planted all across Palestine. In Gaza alone, we have planted half a million fruit trees, and after each war waged by the occupation, we have implemented comprehensive projects to rehabilitate the agricultural sector.
On Palestinian land day this year, we launched our “Revive Gaza’s Farmland” project. So far, we have successfully cultivated over 900 dunums with different vegetable seeds and seedlings including cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, peppers and others. We have cultivated all across Gaza, from the North to the south, working with over 390 farmers.
I would like to conclude by saying that no matter what form of aggression they use and how long it takes, we remain steadfast in our commitment to resist and stand united against all their tactics. Together, we will continue this fight until liberation, justice, and dignity prevail.
This war had a very wide international consequence where many peoples on all cultural levels had the chance to discover more facts about the Palestinian cause and this includes many Jews who were previously blindfolded by the deformed and bought mainstream media. We believe that this marks the beginning era of the end of the Zionist toxic and cancerous gland in Palestine and the area. Together we fight, resist and achieve victory.