[News] On heroes and preachers: A new Gaza resistance paradigm

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Aug 12 11:24:34 EDT 2014


*On heroes and preachers: A new Gaza resistance paradigm*

*http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=718732*
Published Thursday 07/08/2014 (updated) 10/08/2014 11:59
*By Ramzy Baroud 
<http://www.maannews.net/eng/Search.aspx?AUTHOR=Ramzy%20Baroud>*

/Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor 
of PalestineChronicle.com.

His latest book is "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story." /

"Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison, of course!" was the 
title of an article by Jo Ehrlich published in *Mondoweiss.net 
<http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/where-is-the-palestinian-gandhi-in-israeli-prison-of-course.html>* 
on Dec. 21, 2009. That was almost exactly one year after Israel's 
concluded a major war against Gaza. The so-called Operation Cast Lead 
(Dec. 27, 2008 -- Jan. 18, 2009) was, till then, the deadliest Israeli 
attack against the impoverished strip for many years.

Ehrlich was not in the least being belittling by raising the question 
about the 'Palestinian Gandhi' but responding to the patronization of 
others. Right from the onset, he remarked: "Not that I'm in any way 
playing into the Palestinian Gandhi dialogue, I think it's actually 
pretty diversionary/racist. But sometimes you have to laugh in order not 
to cry."

Indeed, the question was and remains condescending, ignorant, 
patronizing and utterly racist. But the question was also pervasive, 
including among people who classify themselves as "pro-Palestinian 
activists."

Now that Israel's latest war -- so-called Operation Protective Edge -- 
has surpassed Cast Lead, in terms of duration, causalities, level of 
destruction, but also the sheer horrors of its targeting of civilians, 
as dozens of families were entirely wiped out -- the Gandhi question 
seems more muted than usual. To understand why, one needs to first 
examine the reason of why Palestinians were demanded to produce a 
non-violent Gandhi alternative in their struggle for freedom in the 
first place.

The Second Palestinian Intifada or uprising in 2000-2005 was inaugurated 
with an extremely violent Israeli response. Israeli leaders at the time 
meant to send a message to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that 
they had no patience for any act of collective defiance, as they were 
convinced that Arafat engineered the Intifada to strengthen his 
political possession in the "peace talks," which, ultimately proved a farce.

Caught in an impossible situation -- massive US-fed Israeli war machine 
that harvested hundreds of lives every month -- and having no faith in 
their leadership, Palestinians resorted to arms, using suicide bombings 
as well as other violent methods. The tactic raised much controversy -- 
due to the death toll among Israeli civilians -- and was quickly used in 
Israel-western propaganda to, retroactively explain Israel's military 
occupation, and justify its harsh military tactics.

Those who dared explain Palestinian violence within its proper and 
larger context, or underscore that many more Palestinian civilians were 
still being killed by the Israeli army were shunned by the media, and, 
at times, were seen as a liability by those who insisted to classify 
Palestinians within a narrative of victimization.

Many westerners (from presidents, to philosophers, to journalists, to 
activists, etc) deliberated the matter with much enthusiasm. The fact 
that few western countries have truly experienced anti-colonial national 
liberation struggle in their modern history, thus lacking real 
understanding of the humiliation and anger experienced by colonized 
nations, seemed to matter little. Some were simply concerned about 
Israel, and no one else; others, wanted to preserve the image of the 
Palestinian as an occupied, hapless, eternal victim.

The most obscene presentation of this language was made by then-newly 
elected US President Barack Obama, who stood at a Cairo university 
podium on June 4, 2009, to convey to Palestinians a most denigrating, 
insensitive and highly inaccurate *message: 
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09>*

"Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and 
killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in 
America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of 
segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. 
This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; 
from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that 
violence is a dead end."

Obama's message painted the Palestinian struggle as an abnormality in an 
otherwise a perfectly peaceful national liberation struggles around the 
world. The message is of course untrue. Moreover, he either didn't know 
or wished to ignore Palestinian history where popular, nonviolent 
resistance that goes back to the 1920s and 30s, and arguably, earlier 
than that.

Obama, like many others, failed to appreciate the level of extreme 
Israeli violence, which employ weapons that Obama had himself supplied 
Tel Aviv, to subdue Palestinian resistance and maintain a relatively 
easy military occupation and thriving Jewish settlements built illegally 
on stolen Palestinian land.

But the decisive point in the discussion was the Second Intifada, which 
wrought much Israeli violence resulting in the death of thousands. The 
political implications of the uprising were also quite significant as it 
divided Palestinians between those who were intimidating by the Israeli 
tactics into submissions (the so-called moderates), and others who 
seemed unrepentant (the so-called radicals).

For nearly ten years now, the debate raged. Some out rightly condemned 
Palestinian armed resistance, others offered mutual criticism of Israeli 
and Hamas violence, while another group simply preached about the 
*futility 
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/171515/abbas-un-and-futility-armed-resistance>* 
of armed struggle in the face of a country with nuclear weapons capable 
of blowing up much of the globe at the push of a button.

That debate, although made for an exquisite discussion on online 
newspapers and social media, hardly registered amongst ordinary 
Palestinians, especially those in Gaza. While Gaza intellectuals did 
contend with new ideas of how to build international solidarity to end 
the Israeli siege, get their message out to the world, and even question 
the timing of firing rockets into Israel, few probed the principle of 
armed resistance.

Of course, Palestinians know best, much better than Obama and other 
preachers elsewhere. They know that collective resistance is not always 
a tactic determined through social media discussions; that when one's 
children are pulverized by US-supplied killing technology, there is no 
time to lay flat and sing "we shall overcome," but to prevent the rest 
of the tanks from entering into the neighborhood -- be it Shujaiyya, 
Jabaliya or Maghazi.

They also know that Israeli violence is a result of a decided political 
agenda, and is not tailored around the nature of Palestinian resistance. 
But more importantly, history has taught them, that when Israelis come 
to Gaza as invaders, few will stand in Gaza's defense before the 
western-financed death machine but Gaza's own sons and daughters. If 
Gazans don't defend their cities, no one else will.

Although the disparity of the fight between Israel and Palestinian 
resistance is as highlighted today as ever before, Palestinian 
resistance has matured. The fact that they killed *dozens of soldiers 
<http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israeli-mood-turns-dark-mounting-casualties-24652707>* 
and only three civilians should be noted, as is Israel's disgraceful 
targeting of hospitals, *schools 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/us-little-doubt-israel-bombed-gaza-school-2014731172852773778.html>*, 
UN shelters and even graveyards. Maintaining that level of discipline in 
the most unequal fight one can imagine is as close to the very 
battlefield ethics that the US and Israel often breach, but never, ever 
respect.

As great as Gandhi was in the context of his country's struggle against 
colonialism, which remains a source of inspiration for many 
Palestinians, Palestine has its own heroes, resisters, women and men who 
are engraving a legend of their own in Gaza and the rest of Palestine.

As for those who have busily asked the question of where is the 
Palestinian Gandhi, it is much more affective for them to use their 
energies to block their governments' shipments of weapons to Israel, 
which, as of August 6, killed nearly 1,900 and wounded over 9,500, the 
vast majority of them *civilians. 
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/gaza-civilian-death-toll-military-training-experts>* 

-- 
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