This is a reminder to all of us concerned with humanity that each and every human being has to condemn the perpetrators of human tragedies, regardless of who they may be. Otherwise, humanity may witness yet another Hitler, if it hasn’t already.

The ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their homes, villages, farms, and ancestral lands has been an ongoing tragedy for the past 106 years. In the early 20th century, British forces assumed control of Palestine following the defeat and collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. On November 2, 1917, the British government issued the “Balfour Declaration” pledging to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, despite Jews comprising less than 3% of the Palestinian population as of 1900.

During the British rule of Palestine, the migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine commenced. Simultaneously, the formation of armed Jewish militias, such as Irgun and Haganah, was underway. Consequently, a fabricated narrative emerged, propagated by the World Zionist Organization (WZO), asserting that Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land.” This narrative was employed to legitimize the establishment of a nation in a region where none previously existed, the occupation of land that did not originally belong to them, and the tragic expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population.

The Palestinian people are resolute in their pursuit of freedom and fundamental human rights. As history has shown, the Palestinian plight is fundamentally simple: foreign forces arrived, seized our land, expropriated our farms and homes, and forcefully displaced us. Our determination to return to our homeland remains unwavering, even if it takes a hundred years.