# Prague for Palestine -- speech for Brno 27. 11. Hello everyone and thank you for joining today's protest.  Writing a speech for a demonstration where I'm not physically present is a strange experience. I don't know you, and you don't know me - and yet, I feel more connected to you than I do to most people I pass on the street every day. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Johana, and I organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations and events with the Prague4PalestineYouth Collective. For the past 783 days, I have been watching a horrific genocide unfold in Gaza - the final solution of a century-old ethnic cleansing project underway in historic Palestine. I know you have been watching too. I have seen every single hospital bombed and stormed. I know you have seen it too. I have seen every single university and school in Gaza targeted by airstrikes. I know you have seen it too. I have seen Palestinian mothers crying desperately as they struggle to feed their starving kids. I know you have seen them too. I have seen Palestinian fathers run through rubble and fire with the lifeless bodies of their children hanging limp in their arms. I know you have seen them too. I have seen the brave Palestinian journalists, who have been my source of information about the developments on the ground, get killed off one by one. I know you have seen them too. I have watched in disbelief how western media chose to abandon every principle of journalistic integrity in order to manufacture consent for genocide. I know you have watched too. I have watched with outrage how the same politicians who claim to uphold the universal values of human rights toss their principles aside in favour of profit from the weapons trade. I know you have watched too. I have seen hands covered in the blood of Palestinian children rise up as they voted to sabotage every single ceasefire resolution at the United Nations. I know you have seen them too. I have seen beheaded babies. Dismembered bodies. Organs handed over to grieving families in plastic bags to bury. I have seen the video of israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian man in prison. I have seen a university student burn to death in a hospital bombing while still attached to an IV. I have seen the woman who identified her husband from his skull found in a mass grave at the Al Shifa hospital. The father crying after his newborn twins got killed while he went to pick up their birth certificates. The decomposed premature babies left behind in incubators.  I have seen them. I have seen it. I have seen it all. And I know you have too. For over 2 years of genocide, we have all been navigating this strange world that demands we forget and deny what we have seen. The dissonance is ever present, constant and persistent. In this world that refuses to acknowledge reality, we have become the guardians of truth. It is a strange role to find yourself in. It's one I personally never imagined taking on. I have had endless discussions with genocide apologists. I know you have too. I have cried over it. I know you have too. I have been called a terrorism supporter over it. I know you have too. I have lost friends over it. I know you have too. The world has not suddenly become a hostile place - reality has not suddenly shifted. It's just the mask that has cracked. It put on full display the lie we have been fed - the lie of liberalism, of human rights, of international law, of the so-called "western democratic values". As we begin to recognise the reality of the current world order as a pathetic cover for modern imperialism and neocolonialism, we must remain acutely conscious that while this reality might be new for us, it has shaped the lived experiences of not only Palestinians, but all free peoples of the Global South. The struggle that connects us all is one against the very empire that raised us with the hopes that we would become its agents - docile, unquestioning, complacent, and above all complicit. We must refuse. We must resist. As allies to the cause, our resistance must be guided by the brave Palestinian people resisting on the ground in Palestine. This struggle is their struggle, and as we join their efforts, our role is one of dismantling the empire from within and amplifying their voices. To center ourselves in the struggle, to impose solutions or push for compromises is to reinforce oppressive structures and betray its central idea - a truly liberated Palestine, from the river to the sea. Normalisation is betrayal. If the system tries to convince us that even a ceasefire is a radical position, the only appropriate reaction is to be unapologetically radical in our solidarity. Normalisation of Palestinian suffering at the hands of the Zionist project paved the way for genocide. I have seen it, you have seen it - but Palestinians saw it coming from miles away. Negotiations facilitated by western leaders have enabled further dispossession. I have seen it, you have seen it - but Palestinians saw it coming from miles away. The word "peace" has become a weapon in the arsenal of colonizers. I have seen it, you have seen it - but Palestinians saw it coming from miles away. We owe it to them to not avert our gaze when confronted with uncomfortable truths. And the truth is that it is our labour and our taxes that fuel an oppressive system that values profit over human lives - from Palestine to Congo to Sudan. Anything less than total liberation is not enough. Accepting anything else is capitulation. Dear friends, for the past two years we have been witnessing a livestreamed genocide on the screens of our phones. We now know that the system we live in is not broken - it is working precisely as designed in order to maintain the dominance of the Western empire. Yet the might of the empire has not managed to defeat the brave Palestinian people who remain proud and steadfast on their land. To quote the legendary Palestinian writer Ghassan Khanafani: "You might have heard news through the imperialist propaganda system that the Palestinian people are currently exhausted, that they have given up the struggle, and that they are defeated by the reactionary Israel. Comrades, do not believe them. There is no end to our struggle." Free Palestine is a promise. We must keep up the struggle in unconditional solidarity, with Palestine as our compass - until total liberation from the river to the sea, and from every river to every sea.