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Statement by the Global Palestinian Refugee Network (GPRN): The 46th Commemoration of Land Day
Statement by the Global Palestinian Refugee Network (GPRN): The 46th Commemoration of Land Day

Statement by the Global Palestinian Refugee Network (GPRN): The 46th Commemoration of Land Day

 

 

Although the 46th commemoration of the Land Day is taking place in a very complex local, regional, and international context, the Palestinian people still insist on retaining their land, the dignity of their martyrs and their right to resist. The Palestinian people are still fighting the Israeli colonial-apartheid system, while trying to shed Oslo and the destructive impact of the so-called peace process. Palestine's presence in most countries has become seasonal, ceremonial, and showy at the regional level, except on rare occasions and in a few countries. At the same time, the official Arab normalization with the colonial system worsens. At the international level, despite the recognition of Israel as an apartheid state by many non-governmental organizations and bodies, however, international double standards have been exposed in the light of what is happening in Ukraine. It reveals the extent of an international collaboration, mainly European and American, with the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime. In light of all this, the Palestinian people are still innovative and resolute in their forms of resistance and resilience, as they face the Zionist-Israeli strategy of seizing the largest amount of land with the fewest number of Palestinians.

 

On the 46th commemoration of Land Day, Israeli colonizers inhabit 86 percent of Mandatory Palestinian. The Palestinian people must restore their self-reliance and free themselves from the notion that the United Nations and its member states will come to their rescue, merely because the Palestinian cause is just.  We must raise our voice, as in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, and declare: We will not leave. We must adopt the resistance strategy announced by the guardians of Jabal Sbeih: No one can help you better than yourself. We must reiterate the similarity of the confinement and containment of the Palestinians in the Naqab in concentration cities with the Nazi concentration camps of WWII. We must join with the Jordan Valley to challenge the policy of denial of building permits and to impose Palestinian presence on the ground.

 

Accordingly, the 45 members of the Global Palestinian Refugee Network (GPRN) call for the following:

  • Rejecting and challenging the permit and planning regime that constitutes one of the pillars of the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime. These policies and practices imposed on our people target their land and existence, and by collectively rejecting and challenging them, they will fail.
  • Employing and combining all official and popular efforts to confront colonial policies in controlling and appropriating lands, especially what is known as the “master plans” in Palestine 1948 and the A, B and C designations of the Oslo Accords by creating facts on the ground and collectively taking practical steps to maintain a Palestinian presence.
  • Encouraging the Palestinian private sector and various national institutions to invest in establishing multiple projects that would strengthen the Palestinian resilience and presence in those areas.
  • Boycotting the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime, including rejecting and confronting all its policies and practices at the local and international levels and rejecting normalization.
  • Learning from the experiences of creative Palestinian resistance – as mentioned above- , and further developing, replicating and integrating the means and tools of those forms of resistance throughout Mandatory Palestine

 

Long live free Arab Palestine

Glory to the martyrs, and freedom to the prisoners

Return is our Right and our Will