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| Volume 54 Number 23, September 21, 2024 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Dr Husam Said Zomlot, Palestine's Ambassador to
Britain
On September 11, the final day of the TUC Congress, delegates gathered to hear from Dr Husam Said Zomlot, the Palestine ambassador to Britain, who gave the most inspiring speech to Congress on the rights of the state of Palestine, the Palestinians' heroic struggle and their right to be [1]. This followed the ambassador's address to the General Council in May. Firstly, the Palestinian ambassador, who had listened to the debate on Palestine just before he spoke, warmly praised the bedrock of solidarity of the trade union movement and the British people with the Palestinian people. He thanked them "for all that you have been doing over the months and years in taking to the streets every week in every city and in every town".
The ambassador pointed out that seventy nine years ago the world united in shock and horror and vowed never again would we allow such barbarity to be repeated with the horrors of the Second World War. Never again would we allow the persecution and attempted erasure of an entire people merely because of who they are. The entire rules-based order was supposed to make war obsolete and to forever ban evil atrocities like mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide. And yet here we are.
Next month, the ambassador said, it will be a year of mass murder, mass destruction and mass displacement in Gaza. During this year an entire eco-system of genocide has been established. It is not, he said, limited to just causing mass murder and damage. It is very deliberately designed to render life in Gaza unliveable, to attempt to break the spirit of the Palestinian people, to encourage yet again another mass expulsion.
Dr Zomlot continued, "We know, you all know, that Israel is disrupting the delivery of food, of water, of humanitarian aid. At the Egyptian border there are enough trucks that will feed Gaza for months to come, but which are stuck there. Israel is also dramatically obstructing what can come in not only in terms of these basic materials but also including medicine and hygienic materials."
"I will give you one example," he said, "which comes for a UK medical organisation operating in Gaza. They told us that Israel is only allowing in one type of antibiotic, even though we all know that bacteria grow resistant. This is deliberate killing by other means. That is why some British medical magazines like the Lancet have estimated that the number of people who have been killed so far is not 40-42,000, but is in fact 186,000. Taking this into consideration, those were murders of those who did not get treatment for their cancer, or they did not get kidney dialysis on time. And we are talking about thousands upon thousands."
Ambassador Husam Zomlot explained that 70% of Gazan homes have been destroyed, 90% of Gaza's hospitals destroyed, 80% of schools have been targeted and 100% of universities decimated. This is deliberate, he said.
Dr Zomlot underlined that for 76 years Israel has been allowed to act with impunity by a US that seized Palestine with impunity. This, he said, is how the lie of "a land without a people" came about and why they say that the Palestinian people have to be erased and why we are witnessing a genocide. But, he declared, despite the genocide, despite all the horrors, the Palestinians are too rooted like the roots of the ancient olive trees. "We are too rooted to be removed from our land," he said. "We are too resilient to be broken. And, yes, we have done it before as they could not erase us in 1948. They could not crush us in 1967. They did not wipe us out in Lebanon in 1982. And despite the horrors in Gaza they will not erase us from Gaza and we will arise again and rebuild Gaza." He continued, "We will remain in Gaza, we will remain in Jenin, we will remain in Jerusalem and in all the Palestinian lands and we will remain as refugees in exile holding onto our right to go back to our homes and farms."
Concluding his speech, the ambassador said that recognition of the state of Palestine is not a gift, it is not a favour, it is not a reward, it is not a punishment. It is a right that has been long overdue! "We must be united in saying no to impunity. No to divine entitlement! No to racial discrimination! No to selective implementation of rules! Enough is Enough! We say yes to an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Yes to accountability! All those war criminals must be accountable!" Husam Zomlot pointed out that it is unbelievable that we still have to make a case on the streets together to oppose those who are selling arms to Israel to commit genocide. "Palestine," he said, "is about all of us. Palestine's defeat is your defeat. Any right we give up is giving up on your rights. Our liberation is also your liberation. Our values are your values. Our future is shared. We will enjoy a lasting peace in a free, free Palestine!"
Delegates in turn had risen to the occasion in passionately debating and passing a motion Palestine supported by three of the largest unions in Britain - the NEU, Unison and Unite [2] - and backed by all unions present, to stand with the Palestinian people against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and against the British government's continued arming of Israel and their complicity in this Israeli genocide. A further emergency motion, supported by the UCU and RMT, was passed by Congress: Stop the escalation of war in the Middle East [3]. The motion condemned the bombing of Lebanon, carried out with the support of Britain, and condemned the attack on the territory of Iran. It supported a "call for a UK-wide workplace day of action in support of an immediate ceasefire".
Notes
1. TUC YouTube record of September 11, the final day's debate, including the
speech of Dr Husam Zomlot. His speech follows the debate on the Palestine
resolution C17 at 2h11m:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OKSXlMQkU&list=PLpWEQxwRfgp3A5-IjUEffWJiJCtUaTJyV&index=1
2. TUC Congress 2024 Motion C17 - Moved by the NEU, Seconded by Unison,
Supported by Unite
https://congress.tuc.org.uk/c17-palestine/#sthash.fTFagpWs.dpbs
3. TUC Congress 2024 Motion E3 - Stop the escalation of war in the Middle
East
https://congress.tuc.org.uk/e3-stop-the-escalation-of-war-in-the-middle-east/#sthash.siXDjm8Q.dpb|