By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

“Let’s be clear, statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward.”

So said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, addressing the General Assembly’s meeting on the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

This week, ten more nations have recognized the Palestinian State: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Portugal, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Malta, Monaco, and Andorra. Over 150 countries now recognize Palestine as a state, including 14 of 15 members of the United Nations Security Council. The only outlier: the United States, which consistently wields its Security Council veto power in defense of Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving Tel Aviv en route to the UN General Assembly, again rejected Palestinian statehood, vowing, “This will not happen.” Israeli protesters gathered at the airport to denounce him.

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic, with yet another report, this one from UN, that Israel is committing genocide. On top of the slaughter and starvation of civilians, the Israeli military is ethnically cleansing Gaza City, a city of one million people, leveling it. The BBC reported that Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich said last week that Gaza could be a “real estate bonanza,” adding, “We’ve done the demolition phase… Now we need to build.”

The situation is dire and worsening as well in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, where a sophisticated system of apartheid has been imposed on the millions of Palestinians who have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Palestinians are daily subjected to military raids, mass arrests, home demolitions and land seizures. Israeli settlers regularly assault and kill Palestinians with complete impunity – often while Israeli soldiers look on. Illegal settlements continue to expand while new ones are built. Israel recently approved a controversial new settlement in the so-called “E-1” zone, which would effectively cut the West Bank in two, making a two-state solution practically impossible.
“We’ve seen over the course of this hideous conflict the U.S. and Israel’s isolation deepening on the world stage,” Ishaan Tharoor, global affairs columnist at The Washington Post, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “You’ve seen all these governments, especially now in Western Europe, recognizing that — no one’s under the illusion that making this move creates a Palestinian state, but it shows a level of political commitment to the Palestinians that many believe is necessary, and it’s a reminder to Israel that what Israel is doing won’t be ignored.”

At a side event near the UN, a number of world leaders, diplomats and others gathered to honor the legacy of the late Uruguayan president, José “Pepe” Mujica, who died last May, one week before his 90th birthday. Mujica was part of the “Broad Front” that resisted Uruguay’s US-backed dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s, during which time he was imprisoned and tortured. Among those who spoke were Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, and Spanish President Pedro Sánchez.

Said Sanchez, “What would Pepe Mujica say about what’s happening in Gaza? What would he feel seeing the strip turned into a cemetery for children? What would he think of a world that displays the rhetoric of human rights but allows their systematic violation?…I think what prime minister Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is beyond words, but it has a word which defines it, and it is ‘genocide.’”

Reflecting on the four decades of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, President Sanchez said, “[We] have learned to value freedom because we know the price of losing it for all of us…Today, authoritarianism once again walks arrogantly across the world.”

Spain and Italy, another nation that endured decades of fascism, have dispatched naval vessels to assist the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza. With over 40 boats of various sizes, it is the largest such aid flotilla by far. Previous flotillas have been attacked by Israel, including the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara, when Israel killed nine activists including a US citizen.

The current flotilla has been attacked repeatedly, with explosive drones, communications jamming, and more, but no injuries…yet. Israel is widely considered to be behind the attacks, and hasn’t denied it. David Adler of the Progressive International, on the lead boat, called in to Democracy Now! from the Mediterranean Sea near Greece.

“We are packed to the gills with basic and critical humanitarian aid, baby formula, medicine, food and water. However, we’re not naive about the scale of the suffering in Gaza and the scale of the humanitarian crisis, that requires a much larger and more ambitious response…We are here to establish a humanitarian corridor for states themselves to assume their responsibilities and to deliver the aid at the scale that Gaza requires.”

Adler and the flotilla activists are demonstrating a basic precept of organizing: when the people lead, the leaders will follow. Palestinian statehood is an essential goal; however, now, nothing is more critical than ending Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza.