For The New Arab, Zoe Lafferty examined Israel’s cultural genocide of Palestine and how we must resist it:
Erasure of Palestinian history and identity allows Israel to label with ease the people it occupies as “human animals” as global governments call for their murder as if it’s a sport.
The silencing of Palestinian perspectives leaves misinformation on front page headlines to go unchallenged, helping justify Israel’s attacks.
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For decades Palestinian artists have been arbitrarily detained by Israel without charge or trial. In the last few weeks the destruction of cultural heritage buildings in Gaza, a war crime under international law, has been unprecedented. As has the killing of an unimaginable number of writers, poets, theatre-makers and journalists.
In a powerful act of global mobilisation, artists around the world are sharing testimonies and poetry to amplify Palestinian voices.
Most recently when much-loved poet, writer and academic Dr Refaat Alareer was deliberately murdered in Gaza, people rose to the challenge he penned in his last poem: “If I die, you must live to tell my story”.
The poem has been translated into 160 languages, and performed at vigils and Palestine solidarity rallies around the world.
People will try and tell you that “genocide” is overrused and the “wrong” word for what is happening. They are liars. What is happening in Palestine is an attempt at obliterating everything about the nation—its people, their cultures, and existence—and it goes beyond the land they claim is theirs.
Free Palestine.