Source: Statement Petition
END THE ATTACKS AND OCCUPATIONS!
UPHOLD AND SUPPORT THE PALESTINIANS’ RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION!
In recent weeks, Palestinians in Jerusalem have mobilized and stood to defend their basic rights – for the right to self-determination as Palestinians, defend their homes, their families and generations against the Israeli government along with right extremist organizations’ attempt to drive them out and replace them with settlements of Jewish communities. Palestinians have been confronted with colonial and violent repressions since the late 1940s.
We, Mindanao grassroots,
tri-people and civil society organizations and individuals advocating
and working for peace, human dignity, human rights, ecological
sustainability and social justice join the global community in
unequivocally condemning the Israeli state’s persisting
settler-colonial violence against Palestinians (ethnic cleansing through
forced expulsions of families from the occupied East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah); the May 7 attacks on worshippers in the
Al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan; the brutal aerial bombardment of the
besieged Gaza Strip since May 10; and the racist police and mob violence
targeting Palestinian communities within Israel and other mixed cities.
In Jerusalem alone, hundreds of Palestinians have been injured and
dozens imprisoned. As a result of this violence there have been to date
at least 83 deaths in Gaza (including 16 children) 3 in the West Bank.
Seven (7) Israelis have also been killed. In these recent one-sided
bloody conflicts it is hard to believe that it is Israel which is
defending itself or what President Biden of the United States of America
(USA) would like us to believe.
This process of dispossessions
and injustices has continued to the present through military aggression,
occupation, and settlement, and through the legislated policies and
campaigns of the Israeli government. Worst is, anywhere in the world is
also faced with the threats of an unseen COVID-19 multiple mutations.
The
Palestinians’ struggle is not far from the Mindanao experience., The
question on the Right to Self Determination of the Indigenous Peoples
(IPs) and Bangsamoro has overlapped but the former has been downplayed
despite the passage of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997
and the evolving political entity of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region
in Muslim Mindanao. Ancestral Domains of the IPs are under attack by
armed groups and politicians; and corporate interests that have been
allowed by the Philippine state and Autonomous Region’s leadership in
the name of development and have resulted in massive displacements and
killings.
The Right to Self-Determination of a smaller nation
cannot be trampled upon by the Right to Self-Determination of the bigger
and stronger nation. On the other hand, Bangsamoro communities are
heavily bombarded by the government armaments in pursuit against the
splinter group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters resulting in more than 60,000 displacements and
deaths of dozens since February 2021. Obviously, this is a product of
building an exclusive peace amongst and within peoples.
There can
never be peace in non-recognition of the national rights of the
minorities and the continued assault to their territories and
generations in the guise of modernity, profit and even peace. This is
similar with the experience of the Papuans in West Papua, Indonesia;
Tamils in Sri Lanka; and all First Nations/Indigenous Peoples in the
world. We see a mass murder and global ethnocide against smaller and
weaker nations. The same horrors we had already and continuously
experienced in Mindanao as peace processes and the over-all framework in
addressing the national question are integration, exclusion,
subjugation and marginalization. This is always and almost the core if
peace is only seen using the lens of the majority nationality. And we
fully understood that there can be no real peace if oppression continues
to exist elsewhere.
We recognize that the path to justice in
Palestine is complex but we insist that the recognition of the
fundamental human rights of Palestinians, including self-determination
and the right of all refugees to return is the only just path for the
safety and dignity of both Palestinians and Israelis alike.
We
believe above all that this is not between religions and faiths but a
repression and colonization of Israel to Palestine and we demand an
immediate end to the violence and brutalities. No justification of
collateral damage (children and women) can justify such dehumanization.
We
call on the United Nation to urgently intervene and end the sufferings
of the innocent civilians of both Palestine and Israel.
We call
on social movements around the world to stand with the Palestinians and
the peace-loving Jewish, communities and the Oppressed Nations in the
world and Celebrate JustPeace!
End the civil and military occupations in Palestine!
Equal Democratic and National rights for the Palestinians!
Uphold and Defend the right to self-determination and the right to safe return for the Palestinian people!
Hold Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Government Accountable!
May 17, 2021
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