On the 1st Anniversary of Trump’s Fateful Promise

The guiding American philosophy and policy under President Donald Trump has been unwavering support for the Israeli occupation and settlements, enshrined under the notion of returning to the language, concepts and foundations laid down by the fateful Balfour Declaration of 1917.

The Trump administration has given the green light for the occupying state to accelerate the Judaization of occupied Jerusalem and to escalate the all-out war against its children, tightening the screws around them in order to expel them from the city and replace every last vestige of its Arab and Palestinian character with Jewish Zionism, religion and law. Having similarly been destroyed, the Palestinian economy is making way for its brutish Israeli replacement. Trump’s promises in support of the occupation have also constituted a green light for a number of U.S.-affiliated states to follow suit in recognizing occupied Jerusalem as the capital of the occupying power, where they now move their embassies and open commercial sectors in order to deepen ties with the occupation. This increased development comes instead of international censure, isolation and sanctions for crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

As the Israeli occupation cannot abide the Palestinian people establishing their own state upon its territory, it wages a ferocious war to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and advances a policy of Judaization throughout the Palestinian lands by erecting and legitimizing settlements, especially in Jerusalem, Hebron and the cities of the West Bank. Since last year, the Trump administration has moved beyond recognizing Jerusalem as the capital and has taken further steps toward advancing the occupation’s agenda.

Prominent examples include the shutting down of the office of the PLO delegation in Washington, the cutting of aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and the recognition of settlements. These policies have emboldened the military and security apparatus of the occupation to ramp up their efforts to steal and to Judaize Jerusalem, and have come in defiance of international law and in an attempt to rewrite the truth. The Palestinian people, the Arab and Islamic nations and supporters of their cause around the world reject these efforts, as shown in resolutions issued by the Arab League and the international community. Our steadfast Palestinian compatriots will not be forced to surrender or submit to the policy of fait accompli that the occupation is attempting to impose upon them. The apartheid regime now being implemented will eventually fall, no matter how long it may take.

Resolutions issued at the Arab and Islamic summits responding to American policy remain, for the most part, merely ink on paper. They have not found their way to actually being implemented, the summits having failed to apply the pressure needed for the U.S. and its supporters to turn from their destructive path. Meanwhile, other emerging and established institutions like the International Labor Organization, having denied the Palestinian people even a modicum of justice, continue to grow in influence. Racist and despotic systems of control have permeated the state of Palestine, cementing the formation of new and heightened divisions and providing the occupation with justification for its crimes of ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, the expansion of settlements and its assault on the unity of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian cause is facing its most serious challenge yet in how brazenly criminal Israeli occupation policy now defies international laws and legislation. This crisis demands effective Arab action to hold the occupying power accountable, to continue the Arab efforts to defend the rights of the Palestinian people and to unify the Palestinian effort so that national unity can confront the challenges to come.

Solidarity and support for the Palestinian people must move past rhetoric, past slogans, celebrations, declarations and resounding speeches. Support must be translated into practical and concrete steps, into actual implementation on the ground. It is time to lift the burden of historical injustice from the Palestinian people, who aspire to live like the rest of the world’s people in freedom, dignity and justice in an independent Palestinian state, and with Jerusalem still its capital.

The author is Goodwill ambassador in Palestine, and editor-in-chief for Al-Sabah (a Palestinian newspaper).