Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Updated a zine I wrote last year during the pro-Palestine student protests. Printout on Itch.

1. Current Day

In April 2024, hundreds of students at Columbia University began peacefully protesting the school’s investments in companies (Israeli and American) that support the war in Palestine.

As they were met by repression from the university, which sicced upon them riot police, they were joined by faculty and New Yorkers. Police arrested over 100 protesters, enabled by the admin revoking students’ enrollment to mark them as illegal trespassers.

Students across America took to their schools’ streets to protest in solidarity, demanding their admins disclose and divest pro-Israel stock. Why were they protesting in the thousands, and why were they met with violence?

2. Creation of Israel

Zionism is an ideology that Jews must create a nation-state to ensure their existence. It was inspired by European nationalist ideologies, the same which oppressed Jews and other racialized peoples in Europe.

In 1947, following decades of intense antisemitism (culminating in the death of 6M Jews during the Holocaust), the UK led a United Nations committee to determine the fate of Jews and export them from Europe to Palestine.

Zionists, backed by the powers which had historically oppressed Jews, took the chance to extend this treatment towards the current denizens of their ancestral homeland: Palestine, the site now destined for a new Israel.

3. Colonization of Palestine

Some Zionists had already purchased land in Palestine from British occupant forces to establish farming communes called kibbutzim. The land partitioned to Israel first was where a population of Zionists thus already settled.

However, the early settlers shared this land with native Palestinians, and also wanted more than they were assigned by the UK/UN. Driven by a fervor like that of European colonists in America, the settlers resolved to violently force Palestinians from their homes.

By 1949, Israeli settlers expelled 750k Palestinians and massacred 15k—over 80% of the native population. Israel’s territory also grew from 56% to 80% of the former Palestine area.

4. Intifada (Uprising)

On 7 October 2023, a coalition of pro-Palestinian militant forces launched a combined attack on Israel. Some were Islamic, others were Communist—their differences put aside to work together towards their goal of liberation.

During the attack, 1,600 militants were killed with 376 Israeli soldiers and 767 Israeli settler-civilians (1,143 total plus 3,400 wounded and 253 captives).

Israel responded by launching a bomb campaign against Palestinian people. 3k civilians were killed and 10k injured in the first week. Now, after 2½ years of bombing and ground invasions: 58k civilians were killed and 131k injured; and 85% of the Gazan population was displaced from their homes.

5. “Israel-Hamas War”

Few of the 58k civilians (some Israeli) killed by Israel were really in Hamas. While they say they killed 13k Hamas militants (a number matching the sum of adult men killed, which is strange!), the BBC in February 2024 determined that < 1k casualties were militants.

This suggests Israel’s motive is not to combat militants, but to slay as many Palestinians civilians as possible. Since settlers are now taking advantage of the deaths to claim abandoned homes and plan new property developments, we can surmise this is the real purpose of the “war” (or, the genocide).

Most recognize the war as a genocide, except for the US who supports Israel at the UN and vetoes on its behalf.

6. US Involvement

There is a false and antisemitic notion that the US is a puppet state of Israel. The reality is the other way around.

American defense firms like Lockheed Martin manufacture and sell weapons to help Israel in genocide; technology firms such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google develop software to use these weapons; and financial firms such as BlackRock and JP Morgan invest in all these other firms and each other.

All these firms also lobby governments on the federal, state, and local levels, as well as universities, to protect their interests in the war—who in turn send riot police or soldiers to quell dissent. All American society is invested in the continued genocide of Palestine.

7. Free Palestine!

Israel is the end-product of American colonialism, European nationalism and global capitalism. Its self-identity as a Jewish nation-state is a façade and a farse to justify its genocidal activity—and the support of the US.

Although a ceasefire is the best option in the short term to prevent the deaths of even more civilians, a ceasefire will not resolve the conflict at the heart of the struggle itself, which is the violent colonization of Palestine.

Palestine needs a single, secular state to represent its population, but Israel will kill tens of thousands with the US’ aid to stop such a state from forming. The only hope for Palestinian people is to resist their apartheid.