The National Assembly Party (NAAS) condemns the Zionist occupation’s aggression in Jerusalem, the brutal militaristic attack on worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque, the ongoing forced expulsion of Palestinians, and the transgressions against the people of Jerusalem, namely the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. The NAAS condemns the occupation’s practices, and all powers that support it, whether global, or among the autocratic Arab regimes.
The NAAS asserts that the occupation would not have been able to continue its decades-long crimes without this international cover and complicity. It would not have been able to continue unabated without collusion of Arab rulers who use the aid of the occupation to their only end: to support their rule, against their own people. Dictatorship and occupation in the region go hand in hand, to suppress the peoples of the region, and force them to acquiesce to both, with the end result being that both occupation and autocracy are buttressed.
The region’s governments have repeatedly put the lives of our peoples on the negotiating table, even contributing to the war against the Palestinian people. Domestically, these governments have adopted the occupation’s modus operandi, in their practices of repression, expulsion, and denial of justice. The Saudi authorities, specifically, have specifically tailed the occupation in describing Palestinians as ‘violent,’ blaming them for their plight, and attempting to whitewash the occupation. The Saudi authorities have pursued widespread campaigns of arrest, imprisonment, torture, and forced expulsion, in total harmony with Zionist practices – even targeting people who express sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, or oppose the occupation’s aggression and transgressions.
In calling the forces of occupation by their name, in holding them responsible for their crimes, we never forget that autocracy in the Arab world and the Gulf is in bed with the occupation and is the basis on which it survives. We, therefore, reiterate that the media smear campaigns launched in the Gulf – namely Saudi Arabia – against Palestine, the Palestinian cause, and Palestinians themselves, represent no one but the security apparatuses that run them. They are by no means are representative of our people who have always maintained their support for the Palestinian cause, and every just cause around the world.
What the occupation forces are doing is nothing less than an egregious violation of human rights and international law. The international silence over these crimes is nothing but complicity. Even though Palestinians bear the brunt of the harms caused by Arab regime’s collusion, our peoples were not spared. We have experienced mass arrests, torture, transgressions, and surveillance due to this collaboration against the peoples of the region. The international celebration of Arab regime’s reproachment with the occupation is flies in the face of our peoples’ right to self-determination, and will certainly breed animosity towards those who buttress the regimes which, in collaboration with the occupation, fight against our peoples.
The NAAS calls upon our people, and all people of good conscience across the globe, people of all religions, nations, and backgrounds, to stand with Palestinian rights. We call upon them to stand united against all kinds of bigotry and hatred, which target people based on race, religion, or otherwise; against oppression and occupation; against the exploitation of difference to oppress and sow the seeds of conflict.
The NAAS calls upon all people of good conscience to stand for human rights and with the oppressed; to end support for oppressors, whether occupiers or autocrats. To put an end to attacks by international powers against the interests of oppressed peoples. We do so to save Palestine, and to save the world from all kinds of oppression and brutality, and from the global encroachment of a repressive environment from which we will all suffer.