by Miguel Diaz-Canel, President of Cuba, published on Resumen English, October 28, 2023
Sixty-three years ago, in a historic speech before the United Nations General Assembly, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, said and I quote:
“Wars, since the beginning of humanity, have arisen, fundamentally, for one reason: the desire of some to dispossess others of their wealth. Disappear the philosophy of dispossession, and the philosophy of war will have disappeared! Disappear the colonies, disappear the exploitation of countries by monopolies, and then humanity will have reached a true stage of progress!”.
In this broad and profound idea is summed up the reason for the horror that the Palestinian people live today, confined by a new Apartheid to a minimal strip of land.
It is the philosophy of dispossession that today is causing a humanitarian catastrophe of Dantesque proportions.
But it is not just a strip of land that suffers the impact of Israeli missiles. It is the Palestinian people who are the target of the bombs. More than 3,000 children and 1,700 women have been killed in recent weeks, while thousands of people remain trapped under the rubble, waiting for rescuers to come and save or bury them.
More than 40% of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed and hospitals have been turned into morgues.
Cuba condemns in the strongest terms the bombardments against the population in Gaza and the destruction of their homes, hospitals and civilian infrastructure.
We repudiate the murders of innocent people as a result of the current escalation, which attacks with viciousness, without distinction of ethnicity, origin, nationality or religious faith.
We also share the pain for the suffering of the Israeli civilian victims of the conflict, but we do not accept a certain selective indignation that pretends to ignore the seriousness of the genocide that is being perpetrated today against the Palestinians, presenting the Israeli side as the victim and ignoring 75 years of attacks, occupation, abuses and exclusion.
Nothing can justify what your army is doing against Gaza. Nothing can justify the grave violations of International Humanitarian Law they are committing.
Israel is violating each and every UN resolution and each and every one of its obligations as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, fully confident that the paralysis of the Security Council on this issue will ensure its continued evasion of responsibility.
Even at the present grave juncture, the Security Council has not been able to call on Israel to stop the ongoing massacre.
The United States vetoed in that body a proposal that simply called for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow aid access to Gaza and ensure the protection of civilians.
Those who today oppose the cessation of violence in Gaza as a matter of the highest priority will have to take responsibility for the grave consequences this entails.
But the position of the U.S. government, which has historically acted as an accomplice of Zionist barbarism by repeatedly obstructing Security Council action on Palestine, undermining peace and stability in the Middle East with its offensive exercise of the veto, is not surprising.
A comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the conflict requires, inexorably, the real exercise of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to build their own independent and sovereign state, within the pre-1967 borders and with its capital in East Jerusalem.
There is no other effective way to stop this spiral of violence once and for all, save human lives and chart a viable course for peace.
Will the international community allow this untenable situation to continue, or will it remain hostage to an arbitrary exercise such as the right of veto that prevents it from acting as it should to stop the crime?
A group of countries, including Cuba, proposed to the United Nations General Assembly a draft resolution, which was finally approved, demanding an immediate ceasefire, the urgent establishment of a mechanism to protect the Palestinian civilian population, rejecting the forced displacement of civilians and advocating the sending of emergency humanitarian aid.
Every moment of inaction and passivity will cost more innocent lives. We must act immediately. We will continue to contribute as much as possible to legitimate international efforts aimed at putting an end to this barbarism.
History will not forgive the indifferent. And we will not be among them. It is time to put an end to the philosophy of dispossession so that the philosophy of war may die for lack of incentives.
Source: Granma
*Featured Image: An upscale neighborhood in Gaza after Israeli bombing. Src: Pravda