United Nations Overwhelmingly Votes for Immediate Humanitarian Ceasefire in Gaza

worldwide tensions and that that would cause much suffering and much displacement, and would be unjust — and, obviously, they were right. And so, when I speak about this, I speak from a place of knowing that my people have lived side by side, in peace, with Jewish people. And this is not something that has been magnified or exaggerated. This is something that is well-documented historically. And so, it is very unfortunate, to say the least, that an ideology, an exclusivist ideology, has been used to do what has been done to my people and is still being done. And it’s used as a pretext to continue to dispossess us and to continue to colonize our lands and treat us as less than humans. This, to me, is something that contradicts every principle, every human and legal principle, of equality, of justice, of freedom, of self-determination. And so, for all those who use rhetoric of, quote, unquote, “equality, democracy, freedom,” understand that you cannot espouse these values and continue to support Israel, which continues to terrorize and ethnically cleanse my people. AMY GOODMAN: Nada Tarbush, I wanted to ask you what message you have to the people of the United States, because you lived in this country, Ohio. You went to college in Florida. You taught, I understand, in various educational institutions. You worked in business in Miami. And now you are at the U.N. as the counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the U.N. in Geneva. NADA TARBUSH: You know, I think it’s important to realize that when the United States chooses to support Israel as it does, the political establishment is supporting colonialism and apartheid — a colonialism and apartheid that is being committed in the name of the Jewish people, as if they are not — as if they do not have ethical faculties. And so, the message I have to Americans is that an ideology that is based on racism cannot be supported. The U.S. establishment must stop advocating for, you know, continued military and economic support in its name. And we see that, in many places, in mestizo communities, in civil society, even in the U.S., you see many Jewish Americans who are against what Israel is doing. And we see that, across the globe, there are people who are against what Israel is doing, because they see it’s something that goes against the grain of what we call humanity, legal principles, et cetera. And so, to those who say — who believe in human rights, who say that they are fighting against forms of oppression and abuses of power, those same standards must be applied to Israel. And you cannot prance in history and to tell people that there has been, or is, a worse genocide or more high level of something else that must take precedence over the legitimate rights of my people to live in freedom and dignity and to have their rights respected under international law. So it’s about time for Americans to recognize that their government must not be supporting what Israel is doing, because Americans’ taxpayer money is being used for this, and because this is a country to which Americans cannot feel they owe anything and cannot feel they need to be giving any kind of support at this point in time. And so, my message is to wake up and to stand against this racism, against this colonialism. And it is a moment of urgency, because we are talking about lives. We are talking about, currently, people being murdered and being dispossessed. And so, any further support from the U.S. establishment to Israel means complicity in supporting colonialism and apartheid. AMY GOODMAN: Nada Tarbush, we want to thank you for being with us, counselor to the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the U.N. in Geneva. Thank you for joining us today. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. As we continue our coverage of the crisis in Gaza and Lebanon, we will turn now to a leading legal expert in Geneva on humanitarian law. And then we’ll go to Lebanon, and we’ll go to Cairo. Stay with us.