Fact Sheet

Palestine: The facts

  • SWOP Team
  • min read
Razor wire across the top of the concrete wall

Razor wire runs across the top of the concrete wall that surrounds Gaza. 

Image credit: Egyptian Convoy to Gaza, Palestine by Gigi Ibrahim is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Since October 2023, Israel has bombed, starved and laid siege to the Gaza strip, killing over 45,000 people. The Israeli Defence Forces have systematically destroyed homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches and civilian infrastructure. Most of Gaza now lies in ruins. More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been displaced. Israel has prevented food, medical supplies and other basic necessities from entering the strip, leading to starvation and outbreaks of diseases like polio and hepatitis.

Israel’s decimation of Gaza led the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to declare in January 2024 that there is a ‘plausible case’ that Israel is committing genocide. In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as two Hamas leaders.

Yet almost all Western leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, continue to support Israel to the hilt, providing a constant supply of weapons to allow it to continue the slaughter in Gaza.

How long has Palestine been occupied?

Palestine was effectively occupied by the British from WW1 until 1948, when the UN partitioned the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and granted statehood to Israel. 750,000 Palestinians were violently expelled from their land, in what is now known as the Nakba. The refugees and their descendants have not been able to return.

After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, West Bank (Jordan) and the Golan Heights (Syria), doubling the size of its territory. While it partially withdrew from the West Bank and from Gaza in 2005, Israel continued to expand its settlements – with over 700,000 settlers now living illegally in the West Bank – and built a militarised border wall around Gaza, which it has kept under siege since 2007.

Does Israel have a right to self-defence?

Israel claims it is waging a war of ‘self-defence’, after Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza on 7 October 2023, killing around 1200 people. But under international law, Israel is considered an occupying force and is therefore responsible for the wellbeing of the occupied population. As an occupying power, Israel has no legal right to self-defence against this population, even in the context of armed conflict. It is also legally obligated by the ICJ to provide reparations, including the return of all land and assets taken since 1967, evacuation of all settlers, dismantling of segregation walls and allowing displaced Palestinians to return.

What’s the difference between Zionism and Judaism?

Judaism refers to people of the Jewish faith or people who identify as ethnically or culturally Jewish. Zionism is a distinct ideology that emerged in Europe in the 1880s. Its leaders argued that to escape antisemitism, Jews needed their own state. Until the end of WW2, Zionism was marginal amongst the Jewish populations of Europe and America. Many Jews waged courageous struggles against antisemitism and rejected the notion that they must leave their homes and settle another land to be safe.

Zionism – which claims an inherent right for Jewish people to live in historic Palestine –  is now the official ideology of the Israeli state. While Zionism is influential today within Jewish communities around the world, many Jewish people reject the conflation of Judaism with Zionism, alongside Israel’s colonisation of Palestine.

Is Israel an apartheid state?

The term ‘apartheid’ – originally used to describe South Africa – refers to a political system in which racial segregation is explicitly enforced. Various international rights organisations now describe Israel as an apartheid state. In the West Bank and other parts of the Occupied Territories, for example, Palestinians must pass through military check points to go about their daily lives, while certain roads and areas are for the exclusive use of Israeli citizens. Israel’s 2018 Basic Law enshrined the country as the ‘nation state of the Jewish people’, legalising discrimination against Palestinian and non-Jewish citizens.

In 2022, Amnesty International described how ‘interlocking administrative and legal systems... have controlled Palestinians’ legal status, deprived them of the right to nationality, placed extreme restrictions on their freedom of movement, deprived them of political and civil rights equal to Jewish Israelis, and precluded any possibility of them enjoying equality in access to land, property and resources’.

Why does the West support Israel?

The Israeli war machine could not survive without the West’s support, particularly from the US. Since its founding, Israel has received around $475 billion in economic and military aid from the US – more than any other country. The US made over 100 military sales to Israel in the year following October 2023 alone.

Western support for Israel arises from the role it plays in global imperialism, particularly in the Middle East, an oil-rich region that includes crucial trade routes like the Suez Canal. The region has also seen multiple popular uprisings against Western imperialism and the dictators it backs. Israel is sometimes referred to as the West’s ‘watchdog’, because of its willingness to do the West’s dirty work – stamping out popular unrest and dominating ‘uncooperative’ regimes through military force.

Israel has also long provided arms, surveillance and training to oppressive regimes – including Pinochet in Chile and Apartheid South Africa, and more recently the Myanmar military and Modi in India – for which the US has either given its blessing or turned a blind eye.

What is Australia’s role in the genocide?

Australia is a key player in the Western imperialist alliance and has provided important political and military support for Israel during its war on Gaza. Despite Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s claims that Australia doesn’t supply weapons to Israel, records show that $13 million of Australian-manufactured arms and ammunition were exported to Israel from 2018 to 2023. Australia is also part of the global supply chain for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, which are assembled in the US and sold to Israel., with more than 70 Australian companies involved in the production of components.

Pine Gap – a vital US surveillance facility near Alice Springs – controls satellites above Gaza, providing direct intelligence to the US and Israel to carry out airstrikes.

Multiple Australian universities have ties with weapons manufacturers and with Israeli universities, including the Hebrew University, whose campus is located in occupied East Jerusalem. ANU has invested $480,000 in weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin, while the University of Sydney’s Eggleton Research Group brings together groups like Lockheed Martin, L3Harris and the RAAF for research with military applications.

What can we do in Australia in the struggle to free Palestine?

Mass movements in Australia have played an important role in global campaigns against war and racism in the past. Bans on weapons shipments and boycotts of South African companies and sports teams helped to topple Apartheid, while mass moratoriums and industrial strikes eventually made it impossible for Australia to remain involved in the Vietnam War.

History shows us that we can have a serious impact on Israel’s war on Palestine from here in Australia. But there is an urgent need to build a powerful mass movement to force Australia to break its ties with Israel and end its support for the horrific war in Gaza. This means calling on the Albanese government to sanction Israel, agree to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu, immediately end the provision of weapons components and military intelligence, and cut all ties to Israeli institutions involved in the oppression of the Palestinian people.

We’ll need to campaign hard in our workplaces, schools, universities and communities in order to build the power necessary to break with Apartheid Israel and the war machine of Western imperialism – and work towards a free Palestine.

References and sources

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