Don’t be misled by Israel, Palestine and peace

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

The above saying, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, came to mind when I read Emmanuel Joseph’s account of his interview with Ital Bardov, the Israeli Ambassador to Barbados, in your May 10 edition, and Bardov’s anger at the decision of Barbados to recognize the State of Palestine and its land. message: “It is important for the people of Barbados to understand that Israel seeks peace.”

If the horror inflicted on the Palestinian people were not horrific, Bardov’s comments would be hilarious. What peace does Israel seek? More than 35,000 people have reported the deaths of Palestinians at the hands and weapons of the Israeli occupation forces in the past seven months. And that’s the reported deaths, it’s estimated that the number doubles if you look at the unreported or unfound. More than 15,000 of these are children. Israel directly targets and kills journalists, doctors, nurses, teachers, humanitarian workers, women and children.

The illegal occupation of land, destruction of property, arrests and detention without cause and trial, and the denial of basic human rights are all ‘peace-seeking’ methods of the Israeli government.

In 1948, upon the establishment of the State of Israel, 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes and lands and made refugees around the world with no right of return. It was the hope of the Zionist founders of the Israeli state that the old Palestinians, scattered around the world, would die and the young would be forgotten. But the young people did not forget it; they are Palestinian. The keys to their appropriated property were passed down from generation to generation and hung around their necks, a constant reminder of the injustice meted out at the Nakba or catastrophe on May 15, 1948.

Bardov talks about a two-state solution that he claims the Palestinians do not want, but which in reality destroys Israel. How can a two-state solution work if Israel continues to seize Palestinian territory in the West Bank, decimate the Gaza Strip and expel the Palestinians?

The people of the world are waking up to the lies that have been propagated for decades. Injustice, genocide and the cries of the oppressed will not go unnoticed or unchallenged forever.

Palestine was never a “land without a people for a people without a land.” Palestine is the land of the Palestinians. It is their state, their nation. That is what 143 countries of the 193 members of the United Nations recognize. Like it or not, that’s what Barbados announced on April 19, 2024. God bless Barbados and God bless the Palestinian people.

Suleyman Bulbulia