CERAS STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE! OCCUPATION MUST END NOW!
At this time CERAS (Centre sur l’asie du sud/South Asia Centre) stands in solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people.
We deplore in the strongest terms the duplicity and hypocrisy of the so-called ‘international community’ which is silent about the normalization of occupation of Palestine – the longest military occupation in history, the daily violence, killings, imprisonment of thousands of Palestinian in Israeli jails (including women and children), the house demolitions, the so-called ‘settlements’ , the human indignities suffered by Palestinians daily, the deprivations of basic necessities of life because of blockades, the house raids at all hours of day and night.
A basic tenet of international law is that people under occupation have a right to resist. And throughout these decades of occupation the Palestinian people have been heroically resisting in quiet and in spectacular ways. By living as Palestinian in Palestine and in the diaspora, Palestinian people have been resisting. From the standpoint of international law, Israel has been committing war crimes every day of the occupation. By being an occupier, by ‘collective punishment’, by aggression against people resisting occupation, by unlawful detention and imprisonment for years at a time, by denying access to basic necessities of life, by dehumanizing Palestinians.
CERAS decries the governments of Canada, Quebec and Montreal for their support for the aggressor in this conflict; for normalizing occupation; for labelling the resistance fighters ‘terrorist’.
As an organization in support of peace, secularism and democracy in South Asia, CERAS, has watched with horror the growing closeness of India and Israel. At one time India was part of that family of nations that stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for justice and self-determination. But for decades now there has been a slide towards normalization of relations with Israel; with closer ties; with the purchase of military hardware from Israel. More recently, the forces of Hindutva fascism have been taking leaves out of the Zionist playbook, including the invention of the spurious ‘HInduphobia’ to silence critiques of the Modi regime’s actions, its consistent and concerted attacks on minorities in India and the upholding of caste privilege by Modi sycophants in the diaspora. They have invented ‘Hinduphobia’ so it can be deployed in ways akin to how anti-semitism is used to silence critics of Zionism and Israel, attack the BDS movement, etc.
What Palestinians demonstrated on Saturday 7th October was they will never accept occupation, that they will resist no matter the cost. Those in Israel and around the world who want peace must understand this. Palestine will be free!
cerasmontreal@gmail.com
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