On the Third Anniversary of the Genocidal War Against the Palestinian People
Statement by the Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe, Calling for an End to European Complicity in the Genocidal War
The third anniversary of October 7 falls at one of the most dangerous stages our Palestinian people and national cause have faced since the Nakba of 1948. Meanwhile, the ongoing genocidal war against our people continues, alongside the intensification of policies of killing, displacement, settlement expansion, detention, and land confiscation, in a continued attempt to erase the Palestinian presence and undermine its historic rights.
The Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe maintains that the past three years and the ongoing genocidal war cannt be understood as an isolated event that began on October 7, 2023. Rather, they must be understood as an extension of a settler-colonial process that began with the first waves of Zionist settlement, was consolidated in 1948 through the mass expulsion of our people from their homeland, and has continued ever since in different forms and through different means aimed at controlling the land and erasing the existence of Palestinian society on its own land.
The ongoing mass killing, starvation, siege, displacement, and destruction of the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip cannot be separated from land confiscation, settlement expansion, home demolitions, arrests, and settler attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem, nor from the ongoing assault and grave violations suffered by Palestinian prisoners in Zionist occupation prisons. All of these constitute different manifestations of a single settler-colonial system targeting the Palestinian people, their land, and their national existence.
On this anniversary, the Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe reaffirms the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to return, liberation, and self-determination, as well as their right to choose the paths and means of their national struggle recognized under international law for liberation from settler colonialism. The Palestinian people are the rightful holders of these rights and the sole authority in determining their national choices, with the ultimate goal of securing their full historic rights and the establishment of their Palestinian state throughout the entirety of the national territory.
After three years of genocide whose unfolding has been witnessed directly by the world, the continued complicity of the European political establishment everything taking place in Palestine is no longer acceptable. While broad sectors of European societies have taken to the streets, universities, and trade unions, demanding an end to the genocide and accountability for those responsible, European governments and institutions have continued their military, political, and economic relations with the Zionist entity, along with various forms of support and cooperation with it.
Accordingly, the Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe calls on European governments and institutions to move beyond statements of concern and condemnation and symbolic measures, towards a clear political and legal position that translates their responsibilities into action by ending all forms of military, political, and economic support that make the European Union a partner in the war of genocide and settler colonialism. It also calls for clear measures to sanction all those involved in the genocidal war and to pursue them through legal proceedings.
At the Palestinian national level, the Union stresses that restoring the unity of the Palestinian national movement and building a comprehensive national strategy have become a historic necessity for confronting the genocidal war and projects aimed at liquidating and fragmenting the Palestinian cause. Confronting the settler-colonial project requires rebuilding national unity on the basis of the historic rights of our Palestinian people. Accordingly, the Union reaffirms its commitment to the unity of the Palestinian people, their land, and their historic rights, and rejects all attempts to fragment the Palestinian cause geographically or politically, or to reduce it to a humanitarian crisis whose consequences are managed while settler colonialism remains in place.
At the same time, the Union salutes the Palestinian and Arab communities across the European continent that have served as a pillar of the solidarity movement with the Palestinian cause. We also salute the popular, trade union, student, human rights, and solidarity forces in Europe that have stood alongside our people. We call on them to develop their mobilization from solidarity into organized political and legal pressure that confronts impunity and pushes European governments and institutions to change their policies towards Palestine.
The passing of three years of genocidal war does not turn it into an event of the past, just as decades of the Nakba and dispossession have not extinguished our people’s rights through the passage of time. The Palestinian cause will remain a cause of national liberation, and our people will remain steadfast in their right to their land, return, freedom, and self-determination until settler colonialism is brought to an end and their full national and historic rights are secured.
Glory and eternity to the martyrs of our Palestinian people,
Freedom for our prisoners,
Freedom for Palestine.
Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe
