TPAN

This is the complete and only statement that we, the Tasmanian Palestinian Advocacy Network, will make about today, October 7 2024.

We condemn Israel’s 76 year occupation of Palestine. We condemn the USA for funding and arming Israel. We condemn Australia for continuing to supply weapons parts to Israel, refusing to sanction them, and demonstrating that there is no limit to what Australia will allow them to do. And we condemn Anthony Albanese, our so-called leader, and his statement released today, which is stronger than any statement he has ever made about the (40,000 confirmed, reportedly over 100,000) murdered Palestinians in the last year of genocide.

We acknowledge the loss of life that happened on October 7 2023 and maintain that it was the result of Israel’s 76 year occupation of Palestine, and the Western powers that have continuously enabled it while denying Palestinians any path to self-determination. Such events can only ever be understood in the context that they occur, and we condemn the efforts of politicians and establishment media to erase that context.

When you violently oppress a people for nearly a hundred years, don’t be surprised when they fight back.

When you steal their land and illegally seize their houses and demolish them to build your illegal settlements to (in your own words) establish a settler-colonial Zionist state, don’t be surprised when they fight back.

When you do not respect the sovereignty of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, do not be surprised when your sovereignty, illegitimately claimed on unceded land, is challenged.

When you hold thousands of Palestinian men, women and children (as young as 10 years old) in your prisons for years without charge or trial, do not be surprised when they fight back.

When you create a generation of orphans, children who have grown up knowing only military occupation, and the greatest number of child amputees in history, do not be surprised when they fight back.

When you burn their ancient olive trees, poison their water, steal their culture and treat them like animals, do not be surprised when they fight back.

When you keep an entire people in a cage for 20 years, you control every aspect of their lives and their movements, do not be surprised when they fight back.

When you and your allies undermine every single other path to freedom and self-determination available to Palestinians, when they peacefully protest and you unleash your snipers on them, when they attempt to negotiate in the halls of international law or apply economic and political pressure and you do nothing but undermine these attempts, DO NOT BE SURPRISED WHEN THEY FIGHT BACK.

Palestine will resist. And Palestine will be free. And get your hands off Lebanon and Syria and the rest of the Levant.