NO
Speech by Peter Eisensteing, Oct 7th, Oslo
Two years to the day a genocide began.
Or did it begin 77 years ago?
What single death marks the beginning of a genocide –
And what death will mark the end?
Today, two years to the day,
our leaders would have us recognize October 7th as a day of terror.
But we cannot do that
because we recognize resistance is not terrorism.
In 1943, Marek Edelman helped organize the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,
which the Nazis called terrorism.
Marek Edelman never apologized
and no one need apologize for October 7th.
But this is no time for words.
For what words do our leaders have for us?
To paraphrase Tacitus:
«To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire;
and where they make a desert, they call it Palestine.”
How dare they claim to recognize Palestine,
a land as old as time,
now made sacred by the blood of its martyrs.
But in our leaders’ words we recognize their lies.
For all they do is buy more time for the génocidaires
who find the true meaning of zionism
in the slaughter of innocents.
We, here in Norway, we who just held elections,
re-elected the same génocidaire politicians,
the same zionists
who cry crocodile tears while profiting from
Arms sales. Weapon sales. Stock market gains.
And the formerly left/liberal politicians,
all of whom waved the Palestinian flag and wore the watermelon pin,
now can be seen in the halls of the Storting
with no more demands for Palestine,
only excuses of “not so fast”
as they discuss and debate
how those profits shall be spent,
the profits from what Francesca Albanese
calls the “economy of genocide”.
The whole Western world is built upon
the economy of never ending genocides.
The genocide of the Aboriginal peoples is happening still in Australia.
The genocide of Native Americans is happening still in the Americas.
And the European holocaust is happening still,
only it has been transposed onto Palestine.
Genocide after genocide where the genocidaires went unpunished,
allowing today’s génocidaires to stand on the shoulders
of those who genocided before.
This is no time for words,
no time for revenge.
This is the time, finally, for peace and justice.
Peace is not merely the absence of war,
Not merely the end of the genocidal slaughter,
peace is the presence of justice.
And the genocide will end,
not when the killing stops,
but when justice is served.
Justice is not an eye for an eye,
not when the crime is genocide.
Justice is not to forgive and forget,
not when the crime is genocide.
True justice is the creation of the future
as it should have been.
True justice acts as a guarantor that such crimes,
of which Palestine is simply the most recent victim,
will never happen again.
The only way to ensure that this crime will not happen again
is to punish those responsible.
And while we do not have the power to bring others to justice,
we have the power over our own.
Jonas Gahr Støre, Espen Barth Eide, Jens Stoltenberg –
none of these are any less guilty
than Netanyahu and Trump, von der Leyen and Starmer.
Until these Norwegians are in the Hauge,
our passivity makes us complicit in their crimes.
And the blood money of the oil fund,
of which our politicians are so proud,
must be dedicated to the creation of the future
as it should have been.
And that future is a free Palestine.
Please never refer to this as the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.
This is the US – European genocide against Palestinians.
Israel is nothing more than the bastard child of US-European Zionists.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!