Richard Becker on how the Six-Day War unleashed the Palestinian resistance movement

With the conquest of the remaining 22 percent of Palestine in 1967, it appeared that the fate of the Palestinian people had been sealed.  But in a seeming paradox, the Six Day War led to the rise of the Palestinian resistance movement and new wave of popular radicalization across the region. 

Until the 1967 war, organizations such as Fatah- Palestine National Liberation Movement, and the Arab National Movement [ANM] led by George Habash, had placed their main hope for the liberation of Palestine with the Arab armies.  The outcome of the war brought that period to a close.  In 1968, Fatah and two organizations which emerged from the ANM, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine, took control of the Palestine Liberation Organization and launched mass resistance against the occupiers. 

Since then, the struggle has continued in many forms and the vicious Israeli repression funded by the U.S., has taken an enormous toll.  The dispossession of the Palestinian, the killings, systematic torture, the illegal settlements, the house demolitions, the destruction of olive and fruit groves, the theft of water, the lethal blockade and isolation of Gaza, the apartheid practice of the right of return, the apartheid roads, the apartheid everything – continue day after day. 

Since the 1967 war, according the Addameer prisoner rights organization, 800,000 Palestinian men, more than 40% of the adult male population, have been imprisoned.  Today, there are more than 6,300 Palestinians in Israeli prisons – every one of them held in violation of international law.  And there are 0 Israelis held in Palestinian prisons.  If that were the one and only fact one knew about the conflict there, one would know who is the colonizer and who is the colonized, who is the oppressor and who are the oppressed. 

The Palestinian liberation struggle continues under the most difficult conditions.  Many times since 1948, the Palestinians have been counted out, but they have never surrendered.

~ Richard Becker, "Fifty years later: Myths and facts about the Six Day War," Liberation, June 7, 2017

(This article is based on a talk by Richard Becker at a PSL forum in San Francisco on June 3, 2017.)

Assaf Harel on the importance of human rights organizations in Israel

The human rights organizations are the most legitimate and healthy thing today in Israeli society.  They are trying to wake a dormant society, a blocked society...  And the reason [prime ministers Naftali] Bennett and Bibi [Netanyahu] are spending so much time saying they're illegitimate is because they're saying the truth about the occupation and of what's happening.  And Bibi and Bennett know that on the day Israeli citizens wake up and discover what's happening beyong the Green Line, what it does to our solidiers, to the children who are raised there, to the elderly, to the families, to the millions of innocent people, what it does to our budget, our society, our economy?  On that day, the people will ask themselves if the occupied territories are really worth it.

[...]

If for once we could wake up before the war.  Because before now we only wake up after.  We had to have the Yom Kippur War to have peace with Egypt.  We had to have the intifada to have the Oslo Accords.  If only for once we could be smart enough to reach a peace agreement before the war.  Worse case, after it or another one after that, but in the end we'll wake up.

~ Assaf Harel, "Israeli comedian slams Israel for apartheid," Middle East Eye, 3:45 mark, March 2, 2017