[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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