A People Under Siege: The Moral Collapse of a 21st-Century Occupation

Phalapoem editor, 22/11/25


In the 21st century—an age that celebrates progress, law, and human dignity—it should be impossible for an occupying power to imprison an entire population of six million people behind walls, checkpoints, and fascist policies designed to break the human spirit. And yet this is the reality in Palestine.

A reality that the world witnesses every day.

A reality that continues because those with the power to stop it choose complicity and silence.

This is not a conflict of equals.

This is not “security.”

This is systemized punishment, a machinery of apartheid, crushing a whole population for the acts of a few.

The Zionist occupying power has built its doctrine on a single word: security.

But security has become a shield for brutality.

The record is unmistakable:

• Entire cities cut off from food, water, and medicine.

• Families buried under rubble, children killed in deliberately targeted airstrikes that were “not mistakes.”

• Ambulances blocked, medics shot at, the wounded left to bleed out.

• Hospitals raided, gutted, demolished.

• Homes bulldozed in the middle of the night.

• A population starved, displaced, and suffocated under military rule.

And the most chilling reality:

Dossiers and testimonies from inside the regime confirm that soldiers received orders to kill indiscriminately, destroy everything, and treat civilians as expendable.

This is not misjudgment.

This is a fascist policy of domination, a deliberate system of cruelty.

Why does an apartheid regime still operate openly in 2025?

Because powerful Western governments protect it.

Because weapons and funding continue to flow.

Because diplomatic cover is guaranteed, no matter how many civilians are killed.

Because “international law” becomes a slogan rather than a standard.

When the ICJ orders protection of civilians and the occupying regime simply ignores the ruling—with no consequences—the message is clear:

The powerful may break the law.

The powerless may be broken by it.

What happens to an occupied nation when it loses hope?

Hope is the final defense of the human soul. It is the belief that tomorrow might be kinder than today.

When hope collapses:

• Trauma becomes inheritance.

• Despair becomes daily bread.

• Young people grow up believing the world has abandoned them.

• A people suffocated for generations may eventually conclude that justice is a myth.

This is not only a political crisis.

It is a humanitarian, psychological, and moral disaster.

The civilians within the occupying state face a choice that defines their history:

• They can refuse to be silent.

• They can challenge the apartheid structures carried out in their name.

• They can reject Zionist propaganda that paints domination as necessity.

• They can demand an end to a system that guarantees perpetual bloodshed.

They cannot claim innocence if they choose silence.

Silence is participation.

Silence is surrendering one’s moral agency.

What does it mean when a state violates ICJ rulings, ignores UN resolutions, and continues demolitions, killings, and settlement expansion?

It means the international system is failing.

It means human rights are conditional.

It means justice depends on geopolitics, not principles.

It means the occupied are treated like a laboratory:

their lives tested, measured, and managed, while their land is taken piece by piece.

If the world allows this, it destroys its own credibility.

Hope is not enough.

Hope alone cannot break walls, open borders, or resurrect the dead.

Hope must be accompanied by:

Sanctions and real consequences for the occupying regime.

A complete end to the occupation, not cosmetic reforms.

Equal rights for every person, no exceptions, no excuses.

Justice for every war crime, no matter who committed it.

A global refusal to accept apartheid as “security.”

Hope is the seed.

Action is the harvest.

Future generations will ask why the world allowed a modern apartheid to flourish.

Why powerful nations supported a regime that starved, bombed, displaced, and humiliated millions.

Why hospitals became battlegrounds.

Why children’s bodies became bargaining chips.

Why international law was written only for the weak.

They will ask:

How could humanity fail so completely, so publicly, so unforgivably?

The answer cannot be that we lacked information.

The answer cannot be that we were afraid to speak.

The answer cannot be that we chose comfort over conscience.

Because history will not be kind.

And the victims will not be forgotten.

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Apartheids’s Separation Wall Gallery

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Letter 3 to the Olive Tree: The Hands That Harvest

Phalapoem editor, 22/11/25


Dear Olive Tree,

When the autumn sun begins to soften over the hills of Palestine, your branches grow heavy with blessings. The valleys of Jenin, the terraces of Nablus, the slopes of Hebron, all come alive with the rustle of nets, the sound of laughter, the rhythm of hands returning home. The harvest has begun.

Families gather beneath your silver leaves, their hearts beating to the same ancient pulse. Grandmothers hum old Palestinian songs, their voices blending with the call of the wind across the fields. Children chase one another between your roots, their laughter echoing through the stone terraces built by their ancestors. Fathers and mothers work side by side, their palms roughened by love and the soil of generations.

Each olive they pluck carries the memory of a thousand yesterdays. It is not just fruit, it is testimony, identity, and resistance pressed into flesh. When they crush the olives, the oil runs like liquid gold, fragrant and pure, a sacred essence that binds them to the land. In every drop gleams the story of Palestine, its endurance, its grief, and its undying beauty.

Even in the hardest times, they come. No checkpoint can stop them, no separation wall can silence the call of the earth. To harvest is to belong; to touch your branches is to declare: we are still here.

Dear tree, you are the heart of this land, steadfast as the people who guard you. You have watched them return year after year, even when the world turned away. You have seen them plant new saplings beside the old, whispering to them the same promise that has kept us alive for centuries:

As long as the olive tree stands, Palestine lives.

With love, pride, and remembrance,

Your Child of Palestine

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Pro-Israel money pours in to unseat progressives in congressional races

Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush face formidable challenges but Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Summer Lee in stronger positions

Alice HermanJoan E Greve and Will CraftWed 17 Apr 2024 12.00 BST

Quarterly campaign finance reports reveal the Democratic representatives Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri – progressive “Squad” members – will face formidable challenges in their 2024 congressional primaries, partly due to the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups.

Ilhan Omar, of Minnesota, and Summer Lee, of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, have far outspent their primary challengers, and the Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American member whose outspoken criticism of Israel has brought the ire of her political opponents, does not yet face a challenger.

The powerful pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) is expected to lavish $100m on efforts to defeat progressive candidates it views as insufficiently supportive of Israel in 2024 – and the latest campaign finance reports in closely watched races pitting high-profile progressives against moderate challengers offer a preview of where the group may prioritize spending.

Bowman, the New York congressman and progressive, faces a particularly fierce campaign by George Latimer, a Westchester county politician who has so far raised $3.6m – nearly $1m more than Bowman. More than $950,000 in contributions to the Latimer campaign came through earmarked donations to Aipac.

Meanwhile the Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush and her primary challenger, the St Louis county prosecutor, Wesley Bell, have raised comparable hauls, with Bell reporting about $100,000 more than Bush, who has raised $1.6m. Although Aipac does not appear on Bell’s most recent campaign filings, he raised more than $650,000 in earmarked contributions through the group Democracy Engine Inc Pac – a donation platform that allows unpopular Pacs to obscure their donations and lists Aipac as a client on its LinkedIn page.

Asked about Aipac’s support for Latimer and its affiliation with Democracy Engine, a spokesperson for the group, Marshall Wittmann, told the Guardian: “We strongly support George Latimer who is a strong advocate for the US-Israel relationship in clear contrast to his opponent who is aligned with the anti-Israel extremist fringe.” (He did not directly address the question about Democracy Engine.)

In addition to the spending unleashed by Aipac so far in support of campaigns to challenge incumbent progressives, it is almost certain that Aipac’s political action committee and Super Pac will weigh in. United Democracy Project, the Super Pac launched by Aipac in 2022, spent nearly $33m in the 2022 election cycle and has so far spent more than $17m with $32m to spare as of 16 April, according to data from the non-partisan transparency group OpenSecrets.

Pro-Israel groups – which include Aipac Pac, United Democracy Project and Democratic Majority for Israel – notched some notable wins during the last election cycle, ousting the progressive congressman Andy Levin of Michigan in his incumbent-versus-incumbent primary and blocking candidates such as Donna Edwards of Maryland and Nina Turner of Ohio from advancing to general elections.

This time around, there have already been some surprises in the primary campaigns. Aipac poured more than $4.5m into the March primary in California’s 45th congressional district to prop up their preferred candidate, Joanna Weiss, but she ultimately lost to a progressive, Dave Min.

And although Summer Lee squeaked by in her 2022 primary against the moderate Democratic challenger Steve Irwin, her current primary opponent Bhavini Patel has struggled to come up with cash, raising a paltry $600,000 compared with Lee’s approximately $2.3m. Meanwhile, Lee has also faced opposition spending by the Moderate Pac, a Super Pac funded primarily by the GOP mega-donor and Pennsylvania resident Jeffrey Yass.

Omar and Tlaib, meanwhile, so far face little opposition spending. Omar’s primary opponent Don Samuels, who she beat narrowly in her 2022 primary, has raised a little more than $750,000, while Omar’s campaign has already generated nearly $5m in cash with four months to go before her August primary.

Only Tlaib – whose criticism of Israel provoked the Republican-controlled legislature to censure her last year – has raised more, with $6.5m on hand according to her latest reporting. Tlaib easily fought back a 2022 primary challenge and faces no opposition in her 2024 race so far, and she has already formed joint fundraising committees with both Bowman and Bush to help boost their financial standing.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, said the impressive fundraising haul from lawmakers like Lee and Tlaib underscored how progressives’ criticism of the Israeli government over the war in Gaza is resonating with Democratic voters.

“These are likely going to be some of the most expensive Democratic congressional primaries we have ever seen. And it is only that way because these candidates – be it George Latimer or Wesley Bell or Bhavini Patel – cannot stand on their own,” Andrabi said.

“They have to stand on $5m of money from Republican Maga [‘Make America Great Again’] donors that Aipac is funneling to them. That is the only way that they get a leg up against deeply popular progressives who are speaking of core values.”

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Unveiling the Suppliers: The Global Arms Trade and Israel

Voice of Palestine

In the complex geopolitics of the Middle East, the issue of arms supply to Israel plays a significant role in shaping regional dynamics and conflicts. The flow of weapons into Israel raises questions about accountability, ethics, and the consequences of arming a nation involved in prolonged conflicts and human rights breaches. Understanding the sources and implications of Israel’s weapons supply is crucial for addressing the broader issues of conflict resolution, human rights, and international security.

69% of the primary sources of weapons for Israel is the United States, which has maintained a close military alliance with Israel since its establishment in 1948. Through foreign aid packages and military assistance programs, the U.S. has provided Israel with a wide array of advanced weaponry, including fighter jets, missile defense systems, and precision-guided munitions. The annual military aid package from the U.S. to Israel amounts to billions of dollars, making the United States the largest supplier of arms to Israel.

In addition to the United States, other Western countries, including Germany(29%),  United Kingdom and France have also supplied weapons to Israel. These countries have sold various types of military hardware to Israel, ranging from armored vehicles and artillery systems to surveillance technology and electronic warfare capabilities. While these sales are often conducted through official government channels, they have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and activists for fueling conflict and violence in the region.m adm particular the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Furthermore, Israel has developed its own indigenous arms industry, which produces a wide range of weapons and military equipment for domestic use and export. Israeli defense companies, such as Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Elbit Systems, are globally renowned for their expertise in areas such as missile defense, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and electronic warfare. These companies not only supply the Israeli military but also export their products to countries around the world, further complicating the issue of arms proliferation and regional instability.

Beyond traditional state actors, the global arms trade also involves private arms dealers and brokers who facilitate the sale of weapons to Israel and other countries. These shadowy networks operate in the murky world of illicit arms trafficking, often evading international regulations and sanctions to profit from conflict and instability. The involvement of private actors in arms supply raises concerns about transparency, accountability, and the role of the international community in regulating the flow of weapons to conflict zones.

The consequences of arms supply to Israel extend beyond the battlefield, with significant implications for human rights, international law, and peace-building efforts. The use of weapons supplied by foreign governments in conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has resulted in civilian casualties, displacement, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian crises and starvation raising questions about the ethical responsibilities of arms suppliers and the need for stricter arms control measures  international measures to protect Palestinian civilians and punish these suppliers who had been reached the latest ICJ ruling on participation in genocide. 

The issue of arms supply to Israel is a complex and contentious aspect of the global arms trade, with far-reaching implications for regional stability, human rights, and international security. By understanding the sources and consequences of Israel’s weapons supply, the international community can work towards more responsible and accountable arms transfer policies that prioritise end of occupation, peace and dismantling of the  apartheid system to reassure security, stability and respect for human rights in Palestine and beyond.

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Child Abusers are Slaughtering Babies in Gaza

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Who Should Be Condemned and Punished: The Occupier with Apartheid Policies or the People Living Under Brutal, Illegal Occupation?

Phalapoem 21/11/25

In every chapter of modern history, one fundamental principle has guided the international community’s moral compass: an oppressed people’s struggle for dignity cannot be equated with the deliberate machinery of oppression itself. When we ask, “Who should be condemned—the occupier with apartheid policies or the people living under a brutal illegal occupation?” we are really asking a deeper question: Where does responsibility lie—on those who impose systemic injustice or on those who suffer under its weight?

1. International Law Is Unambiguous: Occupation Imposes Responsibility on the Occupier

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, and over 30 UN Security Council resolutions, the occupying power holds the primary legal and moral responsibility for the conditions under occupation.

Key obligations include:

• Protecting the civilian population living under occupation

• Prohibiting collective punishment

• Refraining from annexation or demographic engineering

• Respecting freedom of movement, political expression, and economic life

When an occupier instead implements apartheid structures, violates international law, and enforces a system of domination and segregation, condemnation becomes not political rhetoric but a legal requirement.

2. Apartheid Is a Crime of Power—Not a Response to Powerlessness

Apartheid, as defined in the Rome Statute and the International Convention on Apartheid, is the systematic oppression of one group by another with the intent to maintain domination. It is institutional, structural, and rooted in coercive control.

People living under occupation do not design checkpoints, build walls, confiscate land, demolish homes, deny freedom of movement, or restrict water, borders, and airspace.

They do not:

• Control a military apparatus

• Dictate the legal structure

• Possess sovereignty

• Create the policies that define daily life

Apartheid is not a spontaneous reaction of the oppressed; it is a policy of the powerful. Condemnation must logically rest on those who construct, expand, and enforce such a system.

3. Resistance vs. Oppression: The False Equivalence

Throughout history—from Algeria to Ireland, from South Africa to India—occupying powers have attempted to equate the resistance of the oppressed with the violence of the oppressor.

This is a well-documented strategy:

• Criminalize dissent

• Label all forms of resistance as extremism

• Justify harsher control

• Shift attention away from systemic abuses

But moral analysis requires context. A population denied basic rights for generations does not operate from the same position as a state with an army, an economy, and full international recognition.

Condemning those living under occupation for resisting is like condemning prisoners for struggling against their jailer while ignoring the existence of the prison itself.

4. Human Rights Are Universal—But Violations Are Not Equal

No one is above criticism. Individuals under occupation can commit crimes, and these must be condemned individually.

But equating such acts with the systematic, state-sponsored, decades-long violation of an entire population’s rights is intellectually dishonest.

A violent act committed by an individual cannot be compared to:

• Institutionalized segregation

• Indefinite military rule

• Land annexation

• Displacement and settlement expansion

• Denial of civil rights

• Collective punishment

• Blockades and sieges 

    .  Genocide and starvation 

One is episodic and personal; the other is structural and intentional.

5. The Real Question: Who Holds the Power to End the Suffering?

People under occupation do not have the political power, military capacity, or legal authority to end the conflict.

Only the occupier holds:

• Territorial control

• Military dominance

• The power to lift restrictions

• The ability to negotiate borders

• The authority to dismantle apartheid structures

Responsibility for ending injustice lies with the one who creates and maintains the system, not the one who survives it. People of the occupying power are responsible for their choice of keeping their superiority  and dominations. They can choose other means of ending their oppression.

6. History’s Verdict Is Clear

History judges empires, not the people they colonized.

It judged:

• Apartheid South Africa, not Black South Africans

• British colonial rule in India, not Indians seeking freedom

• French rule in Algeria, not Algerians under occupation

And it will judge modern occupations with the same clarity.

When deciding who bears moral and legal responsibility, the answer is unequivocal:

Condemnation belongs to the occupier that imposes fascist and  apartheid policies and violates the fundamental rights of an entire population, not to the people living under a brutal illegal occupation.

To condemn the oppressed for resisting is to demand that they accept injustice quietly.

To condemn the occupier is to uphold international law, historical precedent, and the universal values of human dignity.

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Opinion: I’m an American Doctor Who Went To Gaza. What I Saw Wasn’t War — It Was Annihilation

Source: Los Angeles Times

Displaced Palestinian children wait to receive food in Rafah, Gaza.

Displaced Palestinian children wait to receive food in Rafah, Gaza, on Feb. 9. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

BY IRFAN GALARIA

FEB. 16, 2024 12:08 PM PT 

In late January, I left my home in Virginia, where I work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and joined a group of physicians and nurses traveling to Egypt with the humanitarian aid group MedGlobal to volunteer in Gaza.

I have worked in other war zones. But what I witnessed during the next 10 days in Gaza was not war — it was annihilation. At least 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. From Cairo, Egypt’s capital, we drove 12 hours east to the Rafah border. We passed miles of parked humanitarian aid trucks because they weren’t allowed into Gaza. Aside from my team and other envoy members from the United Nations and World Health Organization, there were very few others there.

Entering southern Gaza on Jan. 29, where many have fled from the north, felt like the first pages of a dystopian novel. Our ears were numb with the constant humming of what I was told were the surveillance drones that circled constantly. Our noses were consumed with the stench of 1 million displaced humans living in close proximity without adequate sanitation. Our eyes got lost in the sea of tents. We stayed at a guest house in Rafah. Our first night was cold, and many of us couldn’t sleep. We stood on the balcony listening to the bombs, and seeing the smoke rise from Khan Yunis.

As we approached the European Gaza Hospital the next day, there were rows of tents that lined and blocked the streets. Many Palestinians gravitated toward this and other hospitals hoping it would represent a sanctuary from the violence — they were wrong. 

There were a limited number of local surgeons available. We were told that many had been killed or arrested, their whereabouts or even their existence unknown. Others were trapped in occupied areas in the north or nearby places where it was too risky to travel to the hospital. There was only one local plastic surgeon left and he covered the hospital 24/7. His home had been destroyed, so he lived in the hospital, and was able to stuff all of his personal possessions into two small hand bags. This narrative became all too common among the remaining staff at the hospital. This surgeon was lucky, because his wife and daughter were still alive, although almost everyone else working in the hospital was mourning the loss of their loved ones.

I began work immediately, performing 10 to 12 surgeries a day, working 14 to 16 hours at a time. The operating room would often shake from the incessant bombings, sometimes as frequent as every 30 seconds. We operated in unsterile settings that would’ve been unthinkable in the United States. We had limited access to critical medical equipment: We performed amputations of arms and legs daily, using a Gigli saw, a Civil War-era tool, essentially a segment of barbed wire. Many amputations could’ve been avoided if we’d had access to standard medical equipment. It was a struggle trying to care for all the injured within the constructs of a healthcare system that has utterly collapsed.

I listened to my patients as they whispered their stories to me, as I wheeled them into the operating room for surgery. The majority had been sleeping in their homes, when they were bombed. I couldn’t help thinking that the lucky ones died instantaneously, either by the force of the explosion or being buried in the rubble. The survivors faced hours of surgery and multiple trips to the operating room, all while mourning the loss of their children and spouses. Their bodies were filled with shrapnel that had to be surgically pulled out of their flesh, one piece at a time.

I stopped keeping track of how many new orphans I had operated on. After surgery they would be filed somewhere in the hospital, I’m unsure of who will take care of them or how they will survive. On one occasion, a handful of children, all about ages 5 to 8, were carried to the emergency room by their parents. All had single sniper shots to the head. These families were returning to their homes in Khan Yunis, about 2.5 miles away from the hospital, after Israeli tanks had withdrawn. But the snipers apparently stayed behind. None of these children survived.

On my last day, as I returned to the guest house where locals knew foreigners were staying, a young boy ran up and handed me a small gift. It was a rock from the beach, with an Arabic inscription written with a marker: “From Gaza, With Love, Despite the Pain.” As I stood on the balcony looking out at Rafah for the last time, we could hear the drones, bombings and bursts of machine-gun fire, but something was different this time: The sounds were louder, the explosions were closer.

This week, Israeli forces raided another large hospital in Gaza, and they’re planning a ground offensive in Rafah. I feel incredibly guilty that I was able to leave while millions are forced to endure the nightmare in Gaza. As an American, I think of our tax dollars paying for the weapons that likely injured my patients there. Already driven from their homes, these people have nowhere else to turn.

Irfan Galaria is a physician with a plastic and reconstructive surgery practice in Chantilly, Va.

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Humanity For All

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”No, it’s not antisemitic to protest against Israeli genocide in Gaza”

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