I heard an important talk this evening.
I was at the Al Salam Community Centre and mosque in Adelaide with more than 200 others who had responded at less than 24 hours’ notice to hear a speaker.
The Community Centre belongs to the Islamic Society of South Australia and the meeting was chaired by Mike Khizam from the Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA).
And the speaker? His name is Miko Peled.
He is the grandson of a Zionist who was a signatory of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. He is the son of an Israeli general who commanded troops during the so-called Six-Day War of 1967.
His message was simple. The Zionist state of Israel was a terrorist creation, a racist and apartheid presence that has no right to exist, and must be replaced by a single secular state – “from the River to the Sea – will I get into trouble for saying that?” - where Jews and Palestinians have equal rights.
He described the current Israeli aggression against the Palestinians of Gaza as the continuation of 75 years of efforts by Zionism to wage war, not on this or that Palestinian resistance organisation, but on the entire Palestinian people.
He said that Israel was a gangster state that had been humiliated by the events of October 7. In the week that followed, it had lost a mass of territory and its armed forces and security service had been paralysed in front of the whole world. Its military was a paper tiger incapable of facing a serious
fighting force, so in pure gangster logic it was taking revenge against the poorest and weakest sections of the Palestinian people.
He said that known deaths among the Palestinians currently stood at 20,000 people, but that figure could rise to as many as 50,000 once all bodies had been excavated from the rubble of civilian society.
He said that the initial military success of October 7 had not yet resulted in political gains for the Palestinians. The hostages seized on October 7 were intended to be traded for the release of many of the 6000 Palestinians held in Israel jails, but since then the number of jailed Palestinians had doubled to 12,000.
He said that it would be unrealistic to expect anything good to come so quickly after October 7. The Zionists had created a compelling, well-financed story since 1947 that controlled the terms for public discussion of the issues. No opposing view could yet penetrate public discourse.
However, truth was on the side of the Palestinians. The so-called “two state solution” was a myth. The state of Israel would never agree. An independent Palestinian state would never be allowed to exist alongside a Zionist entity.
He said the international community must demand sanctions against Israel, insist on a no-fly zone over Gaza, and take steps to dismantle the apartheid regime in Israel.
While he had never met a Palestinian who did not want to see Palestine freed, it would take a long time, under the repressive conditions imposed by the Zionist state, for a unified strategy to emerge. Even so, Palestinians were teaching their children that the Jews were not their enemies -it was Zionism.
The Zionist state would always try to label its opponents as anti-Semitic. He had faced that accusation himself. The Palestinians had nothing to apologise for. Zionism had 75 years of oppression and murder that it must first apologise for.
Israel must be made a pariah state through sanctions, divestment and boycotts. There should be no Israeli representation in any international arena.
At the end of his talk and the subsequent question time, Miko Peled received a well-deserved standing ovation.
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