Free Palestine Alliance: it's colonialism, stupid

FPA Statement 12: Signs of Zionist Defeat Despite Palestinian Tragedy

Effectively, this is what this entire onslaught is about: control over the Arab nation and the placement of obedient functionaries as the effective powers over millions of impoverished Arabs. In this context, consider the position of Hugo Chavez. A similar position would not be possible by the Arab regimes due to their servitude to their colonial and neo-colonial powers. The real independence of Venezuela allows not only principled positions, but also the appropriate use of its wealth in the service of its own people and the people of the world.

Such was the essence of the conflict during the decolonization era of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, when the primary struggle was between colonists attempting to control wealth and resources and the colonized struggling to assert power over their own destiny. In 1956, the Tripartite attack on Egypt was in response to a Pan-Arabist perspective championed by Gamal Abdel-Nasser that Arab wealth belongs to the Arab people, and hence nationalized the Suez Canal to secure funds to build the Aswan dam and rebuild Egypt. France, Britain and Israel found that unacceptable and attacked, including attacking Gaza. The international solidarity that existed at that time, and the steadfast of the Egyptian leadership and people, secured a victory in the face of the onslaught. In the same context, consider the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954 against Jacobo Arbenz, who dared to challenge the robbery of United Fruit Company and the impoverishment of the Guatemalan people. Such were, and continue to be, the same pretexts used against the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other Latin American countries to destabilize liberation movements and sovereign nations in favor of colonial or neo-colonial control. On the African continent, Amilcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and many similar unique leaders for national liberation were targeted for attempting to secure freedom for colonized people.

Essentially, the wrath of colonists is aimed not only at destroying the lives of people and the robbery of nations, but also at the cumulative reservoir of the culture of resistance that humanity continuously achieves. The assault on Gaza, futile and horrendous as it maybe, could and has destroyed many lives. But certainly, it will be defeated in its attempt to destroy the Palestinian resistance movement to colonial control.