🤥 It all started on October 7.

Historical amnesia and dishonest selective historiography enables Israel to keep breaking international law with impunity. As the UN Secretary General said, “it is important to recognize the attack by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. Palestinians have been subjected to over 100 years of war, displacement, occupation and discrimination by Israel and her imperial backers.

Ignoring the last 75 plus years of ethnic cleansing, exile, massacres, occupation, torture and systematic discrimination faced by Palestinians is an ahistorical, decontextualized and ultimately dehumanizing tactic tantamount to saying Palestinian lives don’t matter.

October 7 was not the cause but a symptom of decades of brutal Israeli displacement and military occupation of the Palestinians and of Gaza more specifically. To deny this is to deny Palestinian humanity and ignore or decontextualize every other case of anti-colonial violence in history, whether in Ireland, Algeria, South Africa, Vietnam, India or elsewhere.

The conflict began with the Zionist movement aiming to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, resulting in the displacement of Palestinians. Over 75 years, Palestinians have suffered under Israeli occupation. October 7 received attention because it marked a setback for the colonizer, who has historically oppressed the colonized people.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and other human rights organizations provide detailed reports published before October 7, documenting Israel’s apartheid policies, war crimes and violence against Palestinian civilian populations. Israel is in breach of at least 28 UN resolutions passed condemning its actions and policies over decades. This all started well before October 7.

Here’s a non-comprehensive list of Israeli massacres committed against the Palestinians before October 7:
Deir Yassin Massacre – April 1948, over 110 Palestinians massacred.
Abu Shusha Massacre – May 1948, over 70 Palestinians massacred.
Tantura Massacre – May 15 1948 (Israel’s “independence” day), 200-300 Palestinians massacred.
Lydda Massacre – July 1948, up to 200 Palestinians massacred.
Saliha Massacre – October, 1948, 60-94 Palestinians sheltering in a mosque massacred.
Al Dawayima Massacre – October 1948, estimates place the number of Palestinians massacred at up to 1,000.
Qibya Massacre – October 1953, 69 Palestinians massacred.
Kafr Qasim Massacre – October 1956, 48 Palestinians massacred.
Khan Younis Massacre – November 1956, over 275 Palestinians massacred.
Al Aqsa Mosque Massacre – October 1990, 23 Palestinians massacred.
Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre – February 1994, 29 Palestinians massacred (current Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had a picture of Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the massacre, hanging in his home until 2020).
Jenin Refugee Camp Massacre – April 2002, 54 Palestinians massacred.
Gaza Massacre – December 2008/ December 2009, over 1,400 Palestinians massacred.
Gaza Massacre – November 2012, up to 1,500 Palestinains massacred.
Gaza Massacre – 2014, upwards of 2,200 Palestinians massacred.
Gaza Massacre – Great March of Return killings 2018/2019, upwards of 189 Palestinians massacred carrying out peaceful protests.
Gaza Massacre – May 2021, at least 130 Palestinians killed.