The Case for Palestine: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care

Copyright © 2024 by Dan Kovalik

Foreword copyright © 2024 by George Galloway

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Hot Books books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

Hot Books® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

Please follow our publisher Tony Lyons on Instagram @tonylyonsisuncertain.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-8059-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-8060-6

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the memory of Heba Zegout, a talented painter and parent of four children, who was killed on October 11, 2024, when Israeli forces bombed her apartment building. Heba wrote to me shortly before she, along with two of her children, were killed in the bombing, simply stating, We are sitting with the children. There is bombing. I feel afraid. I never heard from Heba again. Heba’s two surviving children are now orphans, and their whereabouts are unknown.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people helped me along my journey of learning and understanding about the Palestinians struggle. First and foremost, I am grateful to my students who initially inspired my curiosity about the truth of Palestine: Khalil Al-Wazir, Yara Zarir, Enas Alsaffadi, and Bisan Nimer. I am also grateful to my friends in Gaza whom I have stayed in touch with over the years, including during the current Israeli assault on Gaza: Maysaa Ghazi, another great artist and the sister of Heba Zegout; Ola Al Asi, a brave journalist from Gaza City; and Rola Abu Aziza, who has generously been helping her fellow brothers and sisters in Gaza survive during the Israeli assault.

I also wish to thank those who helped me in my travel through the West Bank, including Amal Wadan and her husband Mohammad, Fadia Barghouti, Khaldoun Barghouti, Uri Davis, Zakaria Odeh, and Saleh. I also want to acknowledge my dear friend Abir in Beirut, who has been an immense help to me in my travels in Lebanon. Finally, I would like to thank Kate Daher, a great teacher and friend and someone who has guided me in my understanding of Palestine.

CONTENTS

Foreword by George Galloway MP

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Short History of Zionism and the Founding of Israel in Historic Palestine

Chapter 2: The United States Assumes the Sponsorship of Israel

Chapter 3: The Reality of the October 7 Attacks

Chapter 4: Israel Carries Out Genocide, Not Self-Defense, in Gaza

Chapter 5: Genocide in the West Bank

Chapter 6: The United States, Israel, and the Modern-Day Persecution of the Christian Church

Conclusion: The Case for Palestine

Appendix A: Homily of Lutheran Minister

Appendix B: Statement of Armenian Patriarchate

Appendix C: Resignation Letter of Craig Mokhiber

Notes

Index

FOREWORD

The Case for Palestine is written by a friend of mine. But that’s not why it’s so important. The Palestinians are dying for more people to read this book. Because if enough people knew what Dan Kovalik knows, Joe Biden—who ended a half century in office rightly known as Genocide Joe—would have never been able to help kill all those children in your name.

This book sets the scene for what happened in the infanticide of 2023/24. In the femicide. In the genocide. For it was all those things and more. Many perished in the slaughter but so did much of what people believed. About Israel, about the so-called west, about the human rights narrative we are so selectively fed. About the limits of the politics we knew—before. Because things will never be the same again.

A whole new western generation just watched their own Vietnam War, this time in 5G, live, HD, with slo-mo.

They saw the reality of colonial war; they saw the heroism of resistance; they saw the cowardice of their compatriots and how that was replaced by outrage as people came to know, and as people came to change.

In fifty years of involvement in the cause of Palestine, I have known many massacres. But I never knew such a transformation in attitudes—so much so fast.

In days, weeks, months, way less than a year, Palestine became the moral centre of the world. For the majority world, it had long been. For the western hegemon, it quickly became so. Governments began to fall over it. Oppositions began to fall, too. Great media institutions began to fail over it. New ways of seeing things arose like a great wave which swept so much detritus away. And this wave is still coming after them. Them? The rulers who misruled us, the media which misled us, the academia which mistaught us, the books which lied to us.

New leaders like Dan Kovalik are now among us. New books like his are our weapons. Bear them proudly and find willing hands to carry them everywhere.

I have waited a long time to be able to approve this message.

—George Galloway MP

House of Commons

Westminster

PREFACE

What we are witnessing in Gaza is a mass killing of children in slow motion. There is no food left.

—Jason Lee, Save the Children

There is a whole segment of Israeli Society that is a copy of Nazim. They’re transformed into paranoids from a master race, exactly like Hitler youth.

—Moshe Zimmerman, Israeli historian

As one can imagine, writing this book has been like aiming at a moving target. Every day brings new, and sadly more horrifying events, as the US/Israeli war on Gaza and the West Bank continues. The war is now into its 153rd day as I write these, the final words I will be able to write before The Case for Palestine goes to print. I fear that by the time this book is published, the more appropriate title may be, The Eulogy for Palestine. I pray this is not the case.

Many of us have been waiting with bated breath for the news of a cease-fire that has not come, and which now seems will not come for some time. While we have been teased with the possibility of such a cessation in the slaughter, including by President Joe Biden, who predicted the imminence of such while licking an ice cream cone, it is evident that the United States and Israel do not want an end to this anytime soon.

A revealing interview with US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby in The New Yorker reveals this fact.¹ In this interview, while Kirby states that the Biden administration would like to see a short humanitarian pause in Gaza of around six weeks, it does not believe a general cease-fire is in the interest of Israel, and the United States therefore does not support one. The result is that the war will go on indefinitely, and most likely to the end—that is, to the end of Gaza.

While the figure generally given at this point of Palestinians killed in Gaza is around 30,000 (the vast majority being women and children)—a figure that has seemingly not budged for weeks—I agree with commentators such as Ralph Nader that this has to be a gross undercount. And it seems that it would have to be in light of the fact that the figure is based upon numbers being provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry. Given that there is nearly no functioning hospital left in Gaza due to their systematic destruction by the Israeli military, it seems virtually impossible for the Health Ministry to be able to keep a running tally of the dead and wounded, especially now that people are beginning to die quietly in their homes of starvation and disease. That is why Ralph Nader, for example, believes that the number of dead in Gaza is probably closer to 200,000, and I think he is right.

As Nader opined on March 5, 2024,

In recent days, the situation has become more dire. In the March 2, 2024, Washington Post, reporter, Ishaan Tharoor writes: The bulk of Gaza’s more than 2 million people face the prospect of famine—a state of affairs that constitutes the fastest decline in a population’s nutrition status ever recorded, according to aid workers. Children are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known. Aid groups have been pointing to Israel restricting the flow of assistance into the territory as a major driver of the crisis. Some prominent Israeli officials openly champion stymying these transfers of aid.

Tharoor quotes Jan Egeland, chief of the Norwegian Refugee Council: We must be clear: civilians in Gaza are falling sick from hunger and thirst because of Israel’s entry restrictions. . . . Life-saving supplies are being intentionally blocked, and women and children are paying the price.²

We are now daily seeing gruesome photos of dead, severely emaciated Palestinians—mostly children—who resemble Nazi concentration camp victims. And, in many ways, that is exactly what they are.

Famed Palestinian novelist, Susan Albulhawa—raised in an orphanage in Jerusalem but now a resident of Philadelphia—bravely traveled for two weeks to Gaza in late February to early March 2024. Albulhawa wrote about her time there, including in a must-read article, History Will Record That Israel Committed a Holocaust. In this piece, Albulhawa writes:

Journalists and politicians call it war. The informed and honest call it genocide.

What I see is a holocaust—the incomprehensible culmination of 75 years of Israeli impunity for persistent war crimes.

Rafah is the southernmost part of Gaza, where Israel crammed 1.4 million people into a space the size of London’s Heathrow Airport.

Water, food, electricity, fuel, and supplies are scarce. Children are without school—their classrooms having been turned into makeshift shelters for tens of thousands of families.

Nearly every inch of previously empty space is now occupied by a flimsy tent sheltering a family.

There are barely any trees left, as people have been forced to cut them down for firewood.³

Albulhawa explains that while she had read everything she could about the situation in Gaza, and watched every video, no matter how gruesome . . . nothing can truly prepare you for this dystopia. What reaches the rest of the world is a fraction of what I’ve seen so far, which is only a fraction of this horror’s totality. What impressed Albulhawa about what she saw was not just the death and devastation, but the absolute degradation of the people there—a degradation brought about by Israel’s purposeful denial of all of the necessities of life, but especially water, to the people of Gaza. As Albulhawa explains, The scarcity of running or clean water degrades the best of us. Everyone does their best with themselves and their children, but at some point, you stop caring. At some point, the indignity of filth is inescapable. At some point, you just wait for death, even as you also wait for a ceasefire. As she sums it up, Gaza is hell. It is an inferno teeming with innocents gasping for air. But even the air here is scorched.

And despite the crocodile tears of US government officials about the civilian death toll in Gaza, and their claims that they so desperately want to alleviate the death and suffering, the Biden administration’s every action belies such claims. Thus, as detailed below, the Biden administration cut off all funding to UNRWA—the lifeline for Palestinians, not just in Gaza, but indeed for six million Palestinians throughout the Middle East region—and appears to have no intention to reinstate it.

As discussed further below, the United States, Canada, and a number of other European nations completely cut off funding to UNRWA within hours after the International Court of Justice found that South Africa’s claims of genocide against Israel were plausible and ordered preliminary measures to be taken to halt it. The cessation of benefits was based on Israel’s claim that twelve UNRWA officials, out of 30,000 total, had some role in the militant attacks of October 7.

Evidence of this has always been lacking, and now UNRWA has come forward with allegations that UNRWA staff were kidnapped and tortured by Israeli forces who tried to coerce them into falsely confessing about participating in militant activities. Reuters cited an UNRWA report for claims that said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.⁴

This in turn follows a new UN report detailing the horrendous mistreatment of Palestinian women and girls by Israeli forces—mistreatment that has included murder, sexual assault, and rape. Thus, according to the February 19, 2024, UN report,

Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received. We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces, the experts said.

The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.⁵

The UN report continued, ‘We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,’ the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

This UN report came out as the Israeli claims of mass rapes on October 7, as promoted by the New York Times, continued to fall apart in the face of the great journalist work done by The Grayzone, The Electronic Intifada, and The Intercept. The New York Times ended up being forced to walk back its story—which portrayed these claims as fact—given the denial of family members of an alleged rape victim that she had been raped, the denial of Kibbutz Be’er residents that rapes had occurred in the kibbutz on October 7 as the Times had claimed, and the revelation that two of the individuals who contributed to the Times story had absolutely no journalistic experience but were in fact biased supporters of Israel, bore deep-seated hatred toward Palestinians, and were attempting to promote the rape claims to justify the brutal assault on Gaza.⁶

Back to the issue of the White House’s feigned concern for the welfare of Palestinians in Gaza, the Washington Post reported that the Biden administration has secretly made over one hundred arms shipments to Israel during the first 150 days of the war on Gaza, making the slaughter of civilians there possible.⁷

What about the airdrops of food by the United States, and what about Biden’s plan to build a new port on the Gaza shore for the delivery of humanitarian aid? In short, these are at best a Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound that the United States itself has helped to create, and it is being done for purely propaganda purposes and for the purpose of giving Biden political cover in the face of an electorate that is progressively rising up against his policies in Gaza. And indeed, Biden aides have anonymously told the press just that.

Thus, as explained by journalist Aaron Maté from The Grayzone, which has done amazing work covering October 7 and its aftermath, the airdrops amount to a few trucks’ worth of aid—compared to the thousands of trucks that Israel is blocking with US support. ‘The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border,’ Doctors Without Border said Friday. ‘Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies.’⁸ What’s more, as Maté notes, Israel has been firing upon crowds that have gathered to try to receive the aid which the relatively few trucks allowed into Gaza have brought.

These incidents have now become known as the flour massacres, referring to the most notorious event when, as the BBC would later confirm despite Israel denials, Israeli forces fired upon Palestinians in Gaza who tried to gather flour being handed out by aid trucks.⁹ The result of this one incident, according to the BBC, was 112 dead and 760 wounded.

As Maté further explains, in terms of the promised port, Biden’s

own aides acknowledge that this is a ruse. According to the Washington Post, administration officials quietly concede that only by securing the opening of additional land crossings would there be enough aid to prevent famine. And given that the pier will take at minimum 30 days to complete, that [raises] questions about how famine in Gaza will be staved off in the critical days ahead, the New York Times notes.

The White House has given the answer: rather than compel Israel to open those land crossings and prevent famine, it is instead adopting the Israeli position that the land crossings can be used as a tool of leverage against Hamas—and that Israel can control everything that gets in.

As Israel actively blocks hundreds of trucks waiting to bring aid to Gaza by land, and as the Biden administration dithers on plans for a water port, famine is setting in. Even by the end of February, the UN and international aid groups were sounding the alarm about the imminence of mass death due to hunger and thirst. As one media account related on February 28:

Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza—one-quarter of the population—one step away from famine, Ramesh Rajasingham, the deputy chief of the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA), told the UN Security Council (UNSC).

One in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition and wasting and practically all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on woefully inadequate food aid to survive, he told the meeting on food security in Gaza.

If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable and the conflict will have many more victims, he said.

Israel’s assault upon Palestinians in the West Bank, described in detail below, is intensifying as the world’s gaze is on Gaza. As France 24 explains, Since October 7, according to the Palestinian Authority, more than 420 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers. Thousands of others have been arrested. Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups say the number of incarcerated Palestinians has jumped from 5,200 before October 7 to about 9,000.¹⁰ About a third of these are being held in administrative detention, meaning that they are being held indefinitely and without charge.

Sadly, one Palestinian arrested and being held in administrative detention is my new friend Fadia Barghouti, who I met in the West Bank in December 2023, and who you will learn more about below. Fadia’s husband and one of her sons were already in jail when she was arrested. As her brother Khaldoun told me, she is now being held in an Israeli prison near Haifa, far away from her home village and her family, and her family has been unable to have any contact with her.

Notwithstanding all of these horrors, the worst in Gaza may very well be yet to come in the form of Israel’s planned ground invasion of Rafah, where around 1.5 million Palestinians are living in makeshift tents. Netanyahu has said that he will order this invasion whether a temporary cease-fire is agreed to or not, and while I doubt much of what is said by Netanyahu, I take him at his word about this. And the results of this, as the United States knows full well, would be disastrous. Thus, a leaked cable from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) concludes that

A potential escalation of military operations . . . within Southern Gaza’s Rafah Governorate could result in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, including mass civilian casualties, extensive population displacement, and the collapse of the existing humanitarian response, multiple relief actors have warned USAID’s Levant Disaster Assistance Response Team, the cable says.

In its Key Points, the cable says, An offensive in Rafah would likely block the entry and transport of fuel and life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout the enclave, rendering critical infrastructure inoperable and leaving people in Gaza without food, medicine, shelter, and water.¹¹

However, the same cable sadly notes that Rafah, already suffering a major bombing campaign by Israel, may have already reached a point of no return.

In short, the situation for the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, is dire. Indeed, I agree with the memes being posted on social media that say, If you ever wondered what you would do as a German during the Holocaust, you know now, because you’re doing it. That is to say, the crimes against the Palestinians, only made possible by the massive assistance of the United States, are so grave that one’s actions or inactions at this time to stop them will be the measure of that individual for all times. One’s very soul is at stake in the face of this genocide, and this, in the end, is the strongest case for defending Palestine.

INTRODUCTION

We care a lot about the Palestinians. We are on the verge of achieving our freedom, it will not really be complete until our brothers the Palestinians, who fought with us and supported us, will achieve their freedom.

—Nelson Mandela (1992)

I am both astonished and outraged by the fact that those who represent the descendants of a people who were persecuted for centuries for religious or racial reasons. . . . That the descendants of this people who are today the decision-makers of the State of Israel, that they could not only colonize an entire people, partly drive them out of their land and seek to expel them for good. . . . But also, after the massacre of October 7, engaged in a real massive slaughter on the populations of Gaza and continue, incessantly, hitting civilians, women, and children. And to see the silence of the world, the silence of the United States, protectors of Israel, the silence of the Arab states, the silence of the European states who claim to be defenders of culture, humanity, human rights.¹

—Edgar Morin (102 years old), Jewish World War II resistance fighter who fought as a lieutenant in Charles De Gaulle’s Forces Françaises Combattantes

As I finish up this book, Israel has begun a major bombing campaign of Rafah where 1.4 million Gazans have fled to because they were told by Israel that this would be a safe zone for them. Israel waited until the first kickoff of the Super Bowl to begin this bombing, knowing that the gaze of the world, and especially of the United States, would be focused elsewhere. I have been seeing a number of people on social media refer to this as the Super Bowl Massacre.

The US Senate, giving the green light to Israel to carry out this massacre, voted overwhelmingly on Super Bowl Sunday to move forward consideration of an appropriation bill that would provide Israel $14 billion in emergency military aid, and to give President Joe Biden carte blanche authority to provide stockpiled arms to Israel without notice to Congress. This same bill would prohibit funding to Gaza’s lifeline—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Just two days later, the Senate approved this bill even after it witnessed the carnage in Rafah.

Despite the Biden Administration’s claims that it was concerned about the civilian killings in Gaza, and in Rafah in particular, and that it made these concerns known to President Benjamin Netanyahu, Politico reported that the truth appeared to be otherwise. As Politico explained, "The Biden administration is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety. Three US officials, granted anonymity to detail internal discussions, told NatSec Daily no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences."²

There was something poetic about the timing as the Super Bowl has become a monument to the US military and war, with the game being immediately preceded by the national anthem, a giant US flag spanning the gridiron, a US Marine color guard playing under an Air Force flyover costing around $4