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The Nakba never ended: Stand with Palestine against genocide, starvation and annexation

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada is meeting as actions take place across the country and around the world to commemorate the Nakba and to demand an end to Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people.

This year, Nakba Day marks not only the memory of the mass displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, but also its continuation.

The Zionist paramilitaries that began the Nakba became the Israeli ruling class, fully backed by U.S. imperialism and NATO governments, including Canada. Since then, Israel has been allowed by imperialism to carry out its expansionist agenda through genocide and horrendous crimes against humanity. This is because Israel continues to act as an important military, intelligence and economic outpost for US-NATO imperialism in the resource-rich and geo-politically important region of the Middle East. It is clear that the interests of imperialism are in direct contradiction with the right to sovereignty and self-determination of nations and basic international law, which is supposed to protect the world from acts of barbarism.

In October 2023, Israel launched a military campaign that mirrors the aims of the Nakba: the forced displacement and destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza. More than 1.9 million people, 85% of the population of Gaza, have now been forcibly displaced from their homes.

The latest genocidal campaign has destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and homes. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, by July 1st last year, 85% of health facilities were damaged or destroyed, including 32 of 36 hospitals. UNICEF reports that 80% of Gaza’s schools and universities are no longer functional. Earlier this month, Israel used drones to bomb and stop the latest Freedom Flotilla from delivering aid to Palestinians. Israel has even attacked the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), bombing its food warehouses, banning its operations, and pressuring donor countries to cut life-saving aid. Recent efforts to privatize this aid by Israel and the U.S. show that imperialism is trying to assert greater control over aid in order to keep the United Nations out and to better use aid as a weapon to further its aims.

Israel has blocked food aid from entering Gaza for over two months, inflicting mass starvation on a civilian population already devastated by over a year and a half of relentless bombing and war crimes. Israel’s openly declared plan to fully annex Gaza and ethnically cleanse its population is being seriously considered by the U.S. government, as the Trump administration has contacted Libya to see if it would be willing to take one million Palestinian refugees.

We condemn the shameful complicity of the Canadian government, which not only denies the ongoing crimes in Gaza, but also denies the crimes of the past. Canada boycotted the first-ever UN event commemorating the Nakba in 2023. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called Trump’s plans to forcibly displace the population of Gaza “deeply disturbing”, and France, Canada and the UK have recently threatened vague “concrete actions” if Israel continues to escalate, Canada has taken no real action, and Trudeau and Parliament have not recognized that a genocide is taking place. The Canadian government continues to export arms to Israel, offer political cover, and remain silent while hospitals are bombed and families starve.

The Communist Party of Canada joins the global demand for justice and liberation. We reiterate the calls heard around the world for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza and all occupied territories, and the lifting of the siege that has created mass famine. As violence escalates in the West Bank and Israel expands its illegal settlements, threatening full annexation of all Palestinian lands, the world, including Canada, must act.

We reaffirm our full support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, return, and liberation.

The Communist Party of Canada demands:

  • An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli troops
  • The lifting of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza since 2006
  • The dismantling of settlements in the West Bank within 12 months, as prescribed by the UN
  • The creation of a viable Palestinian state within the pre-June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital
  • The right of return for Palestinian refugees from 1948
  • An end to the apartheid regime in Israel, and its democratization, secularization, denuclearization, and demilitarization
  • The release of all Palestinian political prisoners and an end to arbitrary detentions
  • That Canada implement an immediate two-way arms embargo
  • That Canada immediately recognize the Palestinian state and support Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and end all diplomatic and economic ties with Israel until the genocide is stopped

Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada