Palestinian political revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani described the relationship between Israel and Palestine as a ‘conversation between the sword and the neck’. Capturing the pulse of Palestinians, Kanfani insisted it was not a ‘conflict‘ between equal powers, but a struggle against settler colonialism and a fascist state.

In 1972, Israel murdered 36-year-old Kanafani and his 17-year-old niece, Lamees, with a car bomb. Whilst they killed Kanafani, they could never kill his ideas. Like Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Pio Gamo Pinto, and countless other anticolonial martyrs, Kanafani’s spirit lives on. 

As Kanafani asserted, responsibility for the attempted annihilation of Palestine – and systematic murder and maiming of Palestinians – rests with identifiable perpetrators. It is crucial to name, oppose, and break ‘the sword’.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank forces us to choose: either we dismantle the systems of domination that are killing and dispossessing Palestinians, or we accept them through silence. There is no neutrality amidst genocide – no comfortable middle ground to retreat to. It is solidarity and collective action or nothing.

Solidarity remains plagued by paternalistic charity and adventurism, or worse, is billed as a bourgeois fantasy to ‘save’ others. Responding to colonial violence in Palestine requires a far less arrogant and self-aggrandising posture: solidarity as a political commitment, strong bond, and lasting relationship. 

Solidarity mandates empathy, humility, and devotion. It involves listening, learning, taking risks, and confronting the powers-that-be. It also demands disciplined organising, collective ethics, knowing the enemy, and soberingly, sacrifice.

Knowing the enemy

We write from within two Palestinian-led grassroots movements dedicated to Palestinian liberation ‘from the river to the sea’. 

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) participates in direct action and on-the-ground accompaniment in Palestine. The Youth Front For Palestine (YFFP) engages in strategic disruption and political education throughout the UK. ISM emerged in 2001 during the Second Intifada after Palestinian popular committees called for international support. ISM is consensus-based, anti-oppression, and uses non-violent methods guided by local communities and activists. The YFFP was launched in 2022 after the Unity Intifada. It upholds the Thawabet and leads protests, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, and education events to pressure the UK government and businesses to end their complicity in the Gaza genocide. 

We believe it imperative to know the enemy. Hence, this series interrogates the historical and contemporary forces culpable for ethnic cleansing across the West Bank. Each entry will also focus on Palestinian resistance and sumud (steadfastness) amid Israel’s illegal occupation.

We do not describe the racial dehumanisation and spatial domination of Palestinians as oppression owed solely to the ethno-nationalist aspirations of individual war criminals like Netanyahu. Nor do we view fringe factions as the only culprits given polling indicates widespread support amongst Israeli society for ‘eliminatory’ attitudes toward Palestinians.

The terror, trauma, and death of Palestinians are historical features – the raison d’être – of Zionism (read: Israel). Therefore, we write from an explicitly anti-Zionist standpoint because we, like Kanafani, understand it to be a fanatical ideology and colonial scheme that demands violence and, ultimately, the eradication of Palestine.

Complicity and crackdowns

The crimes of Zionism have required complicity, apologia, and active participation from accomplices across the globe. Allies from the imperial West, most prominently the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, aggressively abet the settler-colonial war declared on Palestine through funding transfers, arms shipments, military intelligence, and diplomatic cover.

Western powers have referred to Israel as ‘the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk’ and endorsed its ‘right to defend herself‘ via collective punishment, a war crime. The West also punishes dissent and cracks down on activism when solidarity threatens ‘business as usual.’

Either we dismantle the systems of domination that are killing and dispossessing Palestinians, or we accept them through silence

History – not 7 October – is the starting point. Prior to and ever since the Palestinian Revolt of 1936, Zionist lynch mobs have seized territory and resources through an endless barrage of raids, massacres, and pogroms. Israel emerged as a nation-state hellbent on burying Palestinians in mass graves – just as it continues to do so with impunity today. No amount of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) or genocide denial from the international community can refute this truth.

For Palestinians, amid unchecked Israeli crimes against humanity and the imposition of state-sanctioned Jewish supremacy, reclaiming ancestral homes and living peaceful lives has become nearly impossible. 

Palestinians remain steadfast in fighting for freedom and their right to return. As Jawad, a Jordan Valley farmer we accompanied, reflected: ‘Settlers steal water and burn our fields, then say we don’t know how to manage the land like it’s our failure, not the occupation’s policy… …the land will return to its original owners’.

More Settlers, More Savagery

Since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Zionist settler violence across the West Bank has surged. Israel’s mandate is clear: steal Palestinian lands; establish illegal settlements; wipe Palestine off the map. This is nothing new. It can be traced back to the origins of Zionism in the late 1800s, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1948 Nakba (‘Catastrophe’), and the 1967 Naksa (‘Setback’). For over a century, Zionists have sought to erase Palestine. 

Israel’s apartheid regime ensures Palestinian claims to land and self-determination are stifled and disavowed. Settler attacks are savagely carried out to cleanse the countryside. Checkpoint abuses and police brutality serve the same purpose. After a village demolition, long-time Palestinian organiser Riham explained to us: ‘The settlers yell at us that we’re “infiltrators”, the funny thing is that my parents were born before “Israel” even existed’.

Racism is starkly evident in the legal system, refugee camps, and prisons. Israeli civil law governs settlers, granting them access to resources and official representation. Conversely, Palestinians are disciplined by military law and administrative detention.

Tariq, a Palestinian activist in Hebron, told us: ‘If we raise our voices, they say we’re being ‘aggressive’ and ‘violent’. If we stay quiet, we are accused of being “suspicious security threats”’.

Every facet of existence is subject to the directives of the Israeli army and Civil Administration. Control of natural resources and nature reserves further entrench Zionist rule. For many, the Palestinian Authority serves as a willing collaborator, if not betrayer. 

To exist is to resist

Marauding settlers are at the vanguard of land grabs. They infiltrate fields to establish ‘farming outposts‘ and greenwash them as ‘agricultural communities.’ The IOF simultaneously creates ‘facts on the ground‘ by arbitrarily designating ‘firing zones’.

Home demolitions are accelerating at an astounding pace. Planning commissions deny Palestinian permits while existing structures are razed by bulldozers. By contrast, the expansion of prohibited settlements is booming. Israel regularly sponsors new annexation projects and Israeli-only roads.

A Palestinian student named Yasmin we met in Ramallah explained: ‘You can see it; piece by piece the land is being cut up. It’s divide-and-conquer. The point is to make daily life so hard we give up and leave’.

Zionist settlers inflict harm and fracture communities through beatings, shootings, and attacks on Palestinians of all ages. Control is enforced by harassment, intimidation, and vandalism.  Israelis undermine Palestinian livelihoods by uprooting olive trees, burning harvests, poisoning water sources, and driving imported cattle through crops. 

Settlers employ psychological terror through night raids, ambushes, ‘price tag’ reprisals, arson, and the desecration of memorials to martyrs. As a Palestinian shepherd, Fayez, told us after one threatening incursion: ‘The soldiers said they’d burn us alive if we didn’t leave in two days. We’ve lived here for generations and don’t intend to leave’.

Such are the realities of ‘the sword,’ that is, Zionist settler colonialism. As numerous Palestinians reminded us along the way: ‘To exist is to resist’.