The Ongoing Nakba - Speech

Palestine is a nation held hostage - a people in captivity to an ongoing Nakba (a Catastrophe) imposed by European settlers who did not come to coexist in peace. Zionists, driven by a nationalist-supremacist and ethno-racist ideology supported by British colonialism did not come seeking refuge-they came armed, organized in militias, and fueled by colonial arrogance. In 1948, they burned Palestinian families alive, massacred entire villages (Deir Yassin, Tantura, Dawayima, Safsaf, Ein al-Zeitun, Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, Acre, and Al-Majdal), and expelled over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. This was not a birth - it was brutal colonization and ethnic cleansing of its indigenous population. And it continues.

Today, as we mark the Nakba, we reject the language of erasure. This is not history - this is a present-tense catastrophe. In Gaza, in the West Bank, in refugee camps across the region, the Nakba lives on. Homes are still being demolished. Children, men, and women are still being shot in the streets and in their homes. Over 10,000 Palestinians are currently being arbitrarily arrested, tortured, raped, and murdered while being held hostage inside Israeli detention centers-hundreds of them are children as young as 12. Families are still being forcibly expelled from their land. Snipers stalk rooftops, soldiers raid villages, and apartheid deepens its grip.

Before October 7th even happened, 2023 was the bloodiest year in the West Bank’s modern history. Over 250 Palestinians were killed there alone and Gaza was bombed repeatedly. But Germany said nothing. Europe looked away. And while they bury the truth, they fund the killing.

From Elbit Systems to Rheinmetall to Siemens and Airbus and many more, German and Israeli companies are shipping the means of massacre: tanks, warships, precision drones, surveillance systems - all used to shatter Palestinian bodies and cities into pieces. Germany isn’t just complicit - it is a reliable partner in war crimes. This is not “defense.” This is calculated destruction, funded with full awareness. They are machines of siege, tools of genocide, exported proudly and profitably.

In addition to the moral collapse - it’s a betrayal to the international legal system. UN Resolution 194 (adopted in 1948) affirms the right of return for Palestinian refugees. And once again, the International Court of Justice, in its Advisory Opinion of July 2024, consolidated the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and ruled that Israel must withdraw immediately and unconditionally from all occupied Palestinian territories.

And when the International Court of Justice ruled in April 2024 that a ‘genocide’ in Gaza was plausibly taking place, it was Germany’s last chance-to at the very least-take all necessary steps to uphold international law. But instead Germany supports annexation, backs expulsion, funds apartheid, embraces genocide and enables war crimes.

Let us never forget: it was Johann Wadephul, Germany’s foreign affairs minister, who publicly stated that it is “understandable” for Israel to block aid from Gaza. In doing so- he is endorsing the starvation of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. What is Understandable? This is Starvation as policy. This is the language of fascism and terrorism-dressed in suits that shakes hands shamelessly with wanted war criminals. Germany has not learned a thing. They just transferred their contempt from their victim to their victim’s victim.

As a clear continuation of the ongoing Nakba, Benjamin Netanyahu, originally from Poland who once held a refugee document to Palestine, has declared his intention to forcibly expel the population of Gaza and the West Bank and occupy the remaining territories. Who is he to decide where Palestinians live, erase our homeland, steal our land and water, and uproot generations? He is nothing but a criminal colonizer.

We are here not to mourn or to ask for pity, but to resist loudly. The Palestinians are survivors of an ongoing colonial European-supremacist oppression. And still, they rise. Still, they fight. Still, they refuse to disappear.

Our solidarity must be sharper than their propaganda. Our words must pierce through the fog of lies. If you are not naming the oppressor, you are siding with them.

So we say it plainly: The right of return is non-negotiable. The resistance is legitimate. The occupation is evil.

And from wherever we stand in the world, we will carry this truth - unshaken until liberation comes, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.