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December 04, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/04/the-mockingjay-of-palestine/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/04/the-mockingjay-of-palestine/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><b><big><big>“If we burn, you burn
with us..."</big></big></b></div>
<h1 class="article-title">The Mockingjay of Palestine</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by RAMZY BAROUD</div>
<div class="main-text">
<p>Raed Mu’anis was my best friend. The small scar on top of his
left eyebrow was my doing at the age of five. I urged him to
quit hanging on a rope where my mother was drying our laundry.
He wouldn’t listen, so I threw a rock at him.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean for the rock hit him, but it did. My father
dragged to me to his house kicking and screaming, while
carrying a colourful rubber ball and a doll for gifts. I was
mostly embarrassed that I hurt my best friend.</p>
<p>Several years later, Raed, now 15, was shot by Israeli
soldiers as he helped our neighbours dig a grave for a kindly
man who was killed by Israeli troops earlier in the day, while
performing Eid prayers.</p>
<p>On that day, my father had taken us to extend holiday
greetings to relatives in a nearby refugee camp in Gaza when
the “Eid Massacre” took place in my home camp of Nuseirat.
Every holiday there seemed to be a massacre. Nuseirat, the
rebellious camp of resilient refugees was chosen on that
particular Muslim holiday to be taught a lesson. Raed was one
of that day’s many victims.</p>
<p>A friend told me that Raed was bleeding profusely as he
ramblingly walked soon after the Israeli army chopper shot
him. He arrived to my house, which was adjacent to the
graveyard, and desperately knocked at the door yelling my
mother’s name: “Auntie Zarefah, please open the door!”</p>
<p>But my mother was already dead. She was buried in the
“martyrs’ graveyard,” where my grandparents, both refugees
from historic Palestine, were also laid to rest. The tiny
grave of my oldest brother, Anwar was also there. He died at
the age of two because my father had no money to treat him at
a proper hospital. Raed is now buried only a few feet away.</p>
<p>I could have never imagined myself drawing parallels between
Nuseirat, and its heroic people and a Hollywood movie; the
struggle of my people is too sacred to make such comparisons.
But I couldn’t help it as I watched the latest from the Hunger
Games franchise, “Mockingjay.” A feeling of anger initially
overwhelmed me when I saw the districts destroyed by the
heartless rulers of the Capitol. As I watched the movie, only
Palestine, but particularly the Gaza resistance was on my
mind.</p>
<p>The Capitol – with unmatched military technology and access
to an enormous media apparatus – was unstoppable in its
brutality. Its rulers, who claimed to have superiority over
all the inhabitants of the dystopia of Panem, had no moral
boundaries whatsoever.</p>
<p>The Hunger Games, the story’s version of a reality television
show, was created as an annual event to celebrate the victory
of Capitol over a previous revolt by the districts. It also
served as a reminder of what the Capitol was capable of if
anyone dared to rise up again in the future. The show’s
participants – mostly children who were chosen or volunteered
in a process called the “reaping” – came from every district.
The contestants had to kill one another for the amusement of
the Capitol, which drew its strength from the division and
oppression of others.</p>
<p>But the districts rebelled. They ought to. They resisted
because there can be no other response to systematic
oppression but resistance. District 13 was annihilated early
on so that the rest of the districts dare not entertain any
ideas aside from the Capitol’s insistence that resistance is
futile. Panem’s ruthless president was adamant at referring to
those who defied the Capitol as “radicals,” and not “rebels.”
At times, the Capitol tried to turn the districts against one
another, inciting civil war.</p>
<p>The Gaza connection became too stark to miss when Katniss,
one of the early “tributes,” and the symbolic “Mockingjay” of
the resistance uttered these words soon after the Capitol
bombers destroyed a hospital full of unarmed men, women and
children, killing everyone: “I want to tell the people that if
you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if
there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you
know who they are and what they do.” The similarities in this
drama were eerily similar to the bombing and complete
destruction of al-Wafa hospital in Gaza in late July of this
year, the only rehabilitation centre in the strip for
thousands of victims of Israeli atrocities.</p>
<p>Her message to the Capitol: “You can torture us and bomb us
and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?
Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”</p>
<p>It is as if the author of the Hunger Games, <a
href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suzanne_Collins"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://en.wikiquote.org']);">Suzanne
Collins</a> knows so much about Gaza; as if she had
fashioned her stories to tell of a real fight between a brutal
Capitol, called Israel, and rebellious districts called
Palestine; it is as if Gaza is district 13; and that despite
attempts at repeated annihilation for the last 65 years, but
particularly two genocidal wars in 2008-9 and 2014, the
resistance is still alive.</p>
<p>Does Collins know that Katniss, who didn’t choose such a
fate, but had to step up in defence of her people, is
represented in thousands of men, women, and yes, children of
Gaza? Does she know that her stories were already written and
enacted by real people, who may never have heard of her
franchise and may never live to watch her movies? Does she
know that criminal leaders such as President Snow are not
something of fantasy, but they actually exist, here today in
the persons of Benjamin Netanyahu and countless other Israeli
leaders who call for the absolute annihilation of Gazans at a
whim?</p>
<p>As for Gaza’s Hunger Games, the similarities are uncanny.</p>
<p>Just before Israel imposed sever economic sanctions on Gaza,
to punish Palestinians for the result of their democratic
elections, top Israeli government advisor, Dov Weisglass made
a spine-chilling promise: “The idea is to put the Palestinians
on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” (AFP, February
16, 2006). This was not a passing statement.</p>
<p>After much legal wrangling, an Israeli human rights group,
Gisha, <a
href="http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=588:qput-the-palestinians-on-a-dietq&catid=1:alerts&Itemid=34"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.medialens.org']);">managed
to obtain documents</a> that showed that Israel’s official
policy in Gaza since then was that of “deliberate policy of
near-starvation,” and that “security” had nothing to do with
the Gaza blockade.</p>
<p>In Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, over 1,400 Palestinians were
killed and 5,500 wounded. But in Israel’s latest war the <a
href="http://www.imemc.org/article/68429"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.imemc.org']);">price
tag for resistance was increased to 2137</a>. More are still
dying from their wounds.</p>
<p>Gaza stands in ruins. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed,
villages erased and whole families annihilated. Hundreds of
schools, hospitals and mosques were blown up in an orgy of
death and destruction unprecedented.</p>
<p>Yet the resistance is yet to be defeated in Gaza. Because
resistance is not men and women with guns. Resistance is an
idea, pure in its intentions, romantic, at times, maybe, but
certainly the work of an entire collective, who had chosen to
die fighting, if they must, but never live carrying the
shackles of a slave.</p>
<p>Not even the chilling words of Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker
of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) were enough to intimidate
Gaza. In his <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/concentrate-and-exterminate-israel-parliament-deputy-speakers-gaza-genocide-plan"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://electronicintifada.net']);">Facebook
plan to destroy the resistance</a> on 1 August, 2014,
Feiglin called for the “conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and
annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters,” in
addition to pushing its remaining inhabitants into
concentration camps near the Sinai desert. “In these areas,
tent encampments will be established, until relevant
emigration destinations are determined.”</p>
<p>Feiglin, and his prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, among
many others in Israel’s political and military establishment,
are real life leaders of the Capitol, which is <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/dead-palestinian-babies-and-bombed-mosques-idf-fashion-2009-1.272500"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.haaretz.com']);">allowed
to operate with complete impunity</a> against the oppressed
districts of Palestine.</p>
<p>And like the Mockingjay which was resurrected against great
odds, Gaza will remain the rebellious district. The blood of
its “near-starved” children will someday unite all districts
against the Capitol. Then, all the voices that doubted the
wisdom of the resistance will be diminished by the loud, but
harmonious chanting of a united people. As the resistance
continues, Palestinians everywhere will express their victory
and defiance with by raising four fingers, Egypt’s “raba’a”,
just as the rebels of the 13 districts expressed by raising
three.</p>
<p>Till then, the Mockingjay of Palestine, the thousands of
living martyrs will continue to circulate the skies <a
href="http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Songs"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://thehungergames.wikia.com']);">singing
the song of a rebellious nation</a>.</p>
<p>“Are you, Are you</p>
<p>Coming to the tree</p>
<p>Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free</p>
<p>Strange things did happen here</p>
<p>No stranger would it be</p>
<p>If we met up at <span data-term="goog_1562721299">midnight</span>
in the hanging tree.”</p>
<p>If only the other districts would rise…</p>
<p><em><strong>Ramzy Baroud</strong> is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an
author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest
book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story
(Pluto Press, London).</em></p>
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