This is the Inevitable Result of 75 Years of Illegal Occupation
and Brutal Violation of Palestinians’ Human Rights

“We are in a state of war.... The enemy will pay a price like they have never known before,” declared
Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately after the beginning of the Hamas
forces’ military operation against Israel.
Netanyahu’s words conceal a fundamental historical fact: Israel has been in a state of war
against the people of Palestine, whom he now blatantly calls “the enemy,” for the past 75 years.
The “enemy” he is referring to are the Palestinian people, who have been enduring 75 years of
violent occupation, bombings, mass arrests and imprisonment, torture, assassinations, and exile
at the hands of the Israeli State, just because they would refuse to submit to the illegal
occupation of their land and the blatant violation of their fundamental human rights by the
Israeli occupation forces.
More deceiving is the claim that this was a “surprise” attack by the Palestinians. But looking
back at the shameful history of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people in the past seven
decades, and its recent offending actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, no rational mind would
be “surprised” by the Palestinian reaction.
The historically inevitable bloodshed that has started, and has already taken too many lives, is
the Israeli States’ own doing. The State of Israel has no other party to blame for this human
catastrophe than itself.
However, this is not where the blame stops. The government of the United States is equally —
if not more — responsible for the current tragedy. Decades of unconditional support for the
Israeli State’s violations of international law and human rights, tens of billions of dollars’ worth
of military aid to Israel with eyes closed to the atrocities and terrorism committed by Israeli
military and settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories, and persistent blocking of every
effort by the international community to call Israel into account for its illegal actions, all have
contributed to this horrendous situation.
We call upon the international community to take every necessary collective action to stop this
bloodshed based upon the globally recognized international law and the United Nations Charter.
This bloodshed will not be the last until the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is ended
and the human rights of the Palestinian people are recognized and fully realized.

U.S. Peace Council
October 8, 2023