Last week, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, released her fourth report on the situation in the occupied territories since taking the position in 2022. In this report, she says, firmly and factually, that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel has committed genocide has been met. This was on the basis of three genocidal acts; by killing Palestinians, by causing them serious bodily or mental harm, and by deliberately inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. These acts were carried out with the requisite intent, that of intending to destroy Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group. She also argues that Israel’s actions are a natural progression to a genocidal logic which is inherent in its settler-colonial project in Palestine, calling it a ‘tragedy foretold’.

Albanese reported receiving threats after the publication of the report and shortly after it was made public, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the US had long opposed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and noted that she has “a history of antisemitic comments”. It is befitting the state of Western journalism that there were few reports of what this history actually entailed. The Times of Israel reported that it had carried out an ‘investigation’ in 2022 which “exposed Albanese’s history of antisemitism”. What it in fact uncovered was a mistaken reference to Jewish lobby instead of Israel lobby in a conversation from a decade ago in 2014. Albanese has since apologised for the misstep. This is not a history of antisemitism, in fact it is not even an instance of antisemitism at all, this is an attempt to silence all those fighting for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

While those who are fighting for this right are many, we know how unrelenting this silencing can be. After Operation Cast Lead, the UN Human Rights Council mandated an investigation into the human rights violations committed during the military operation. Richard Goldstone was appointed to head the commission. He was a distinguished South African jurist, Jewish, and an ardent zionist. The other members were Pakistan’s Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers. The Goldstone report was damning and found that Israel had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in the operation. Two years later, after a campaign of intimidation and harassment against him, Goldstone, in an op-ed for the Washington Post backpedalled on much of the report’s findings, effectively disowning the report, and diminishing himself. To this day, we do not know what made him do such a thing but it is anyone’s guess – the pressure may have been so much that he capitulated, torpedoing his own credibility in the process. The rest of the Commission jointly issued a statement maintaining that the report and their findings were solid.

We believe this is why it is important that we issue this statement of support. That the campaign of vitriol is likely only starting and its effects can be devastating. For much of the Global South, Palestine remains the last mandated territory which is still fighting for decolonisation. It is the last territory in which now the third generation of Palestinian children continue to listen to their grandparents tales of a home that they are not allowed to return to. And this fight has ripped apart the ‘rules-based international order’ which the West has vehemently argued existed. Yet, now, the Global South are the ones enforcing the rules of international law we are so often accused of breaking. We remain the ones shouting that the norms we made in the ashes of the Holocaust should not be set aside while another genocide is underway.

There may be no conflict in living memory which has been as polarising and closely watched as Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. And those who speak up for Palestine will be deplatformed, vilified, and insulted while advocating for those who live under a colonial occupier which bombs, mutilates, and tortures them, day after bloody day. This statement is not simply one of support, it is also an emotional expression of gratitude. We thank those who are risking their lives and livelihood for the Palestinians.

Keep going, we are with you.