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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221028-the-roar-of-the-lions-den/">middleeastmonitor.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The roar of the Lions' Den</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Yvonne Ridley - October 28, 2022<br></div></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_l9t0xzsz0" alt="image.png" width="393" height="262"><br><p>One of these days the political and military leadership in Israel
will understand you can't kill an idea with bombs, bullets, brute force
or bribery. Just when the brutal occupation forces of the Zionist state
think that they have contained Palestinian resistance, others step up to
the mark with even more defiance and courage.</p>
<p>There are now three youth-led armed uprisings in the occupied West
Bank and their emergence has confounded Tel Aviv, which is failing
miserably to silence or contain them. Moreover, not only are they viewed
by the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/" target="_blank">apartheid</a>
state as a threat, but the aging, corrupt figureheads of the
Palestinian Authority in Ramallah also fear them and have proved
powerless, so far, to exert any control.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, the PA security services arrested 11 members of
Areen Al-Aswad — the Lions' Den — and have already detained members of
the Balata Battalion and Jenin Brigade. All are resistance fighters;
young, unmarried men who are exercising their legitimate right to resist
the military occupation of their land.</p>
<p>To his eternal shame, the Governor of Nablus, Ibrahim Ramadan, said during a recent <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkaaqe3mi" target="_blank">radio interview</a>
that the mothers of those who are killed in clashes with Israeli
security forces should not glorify them as martyrs. "Some deviant
mothers send their sons to commit suicide attacks," said Ramadan. "There
are those who think such a mother is a fighter but she is not. She is
just sending her son to his death."</p>
<p>The man is a disgrace. No mother wants to send her child off to die,
and I can't believe that he said that, especially when he has a portrait
of the late <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/palestinian-governor-sparks-outrage-after-calling-mothers-of-resistance-fighters-deviant/" target="_blank">Yasser Arafat</a>
looking down on him in his office. Admittedly, Arafat didn't encounter
such internal rebellion; it would have been as inconceivable as
arresting and locking up these young revolutionaries on behalf of the
Israelis. Arafat, I am sure, would have sat down and talked to them and
harnessed their revolutionary fighting spirit for the Palestinian cause.</p>
<p>Sadly, though, there are many weasels like Major-General Ramadan
within the corrupt PA, which has profited obscenely from the Israeli
occupation. It seems that the authority without authority is concerned
about Zionist forces raiding Palestinian communities across the occupied
West Bank, while also fearing the resistance in response to the Israeli
raids, in case it becomes a direct threat to the PA's ongoing feckless
rule.</p>
<p>What neither Tel Aviv nor Ramallah understands is that these young
men feel that they have nothing to lose by rising up against the corrupt
authorities within the PA and the brutality of the Israeli occupation.
That three disparate groups have emerged — the Lions' Den in the heart
of Nablus, the Balata Battalion in the largest refugee camp in the
occupied West Bank, and Jenin with its strong history of resistance —
should surprise no one. However, intelligence agencies in Israel and the
US are confounded and concerned by their uncoordinated emergence in
recent months. I am only surprised that it hasn't happened before now.</p>
<p>Israel and America should know from history that when injustice
happens on a daily basis against an occupied and oppressed people with
no hope of an end in sight, the oppressors can expect a backlash. It's
not even a question of winning a battle, it's simply a matter of
fighting back no matter how hopeless the odds. Resistance didn't spring
up out of nowhere; it is the legitimate response to the Israeli
occupation.</p>
<p>So these brave young Palestinians have simply had enough. They've had
enough of the occupation and the brutality which enforces it. They've
had enough of the corrupt, divisive rule of the PA which has failed to
deliver anything positive to the vast majority of the people of occupied
Palestine. They've had enough of watching the old men in charge in
Ramallah grow fat and rich on the proceeds of their lickspittle
obedience to Israel and the US.</p>
<p>Moreover, these young Palestinians have no fear. They don't fear the
collaborators in the PA security services and hierarchy. They don't even
fear the heavily armed, trigger-happy Israeli army. And that absence of
fear scares the Israelis and the PA.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is a sad indictment of the international order that
these young men are willing to pay the ultimate price because death
holds no fear. That's what happens when you rob young people of their
childhood and their future. As long as the Israeli occupation is in
place, resistance of every kind is inevitable.</p>
<p>In the most densely populated refugee camp of Balata its 30,000
residents barely survive. The spring of hope is as dry as the dust on
the ground. In Jenin, a town known for its heroic resistance and
martyrs, there is no promise of a future for the youth. The city of
Nablus, meanwhile, resembles a ghost town because of the Israeli-imposed
siege. According to Yasser Manna, a researcher in the Israeli Studies
Programme at Birzeit University, the uprisings came about because of the
"lack of political horizon, Israel's continued aggression, the growth
of illegal Israeli settlements, and a failure of negotiations."</p>
<p>Will this message get through? I doubt it. In the meantime, the three
groups are being hailed by Palestinians across the occupied territories
and beyond by those who see armed resistance as the only way to bring
about change.</p>
<p>"If this phenomenon continues to grow, it could threaten the very
existence of the PA, while placing Israel before its most difficult
choice since the invasion of major Palestinian West Bank cities in
2002," <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/difficult-months-ahead-why-israel-is-afraid-of-the-lions-den/" target="_blank">wrote</a> Ramzy Baroud, the editor of the <em>Palestine Chronicle</em>, recently.</p>
<p>Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz has dismissed the Lions' Den as a
just group of around thirty members. "We will lay our hands on the
terrorists," he declared. He has obviously never heard of the mythical
Hydra: cut one head off, and three replace it. So it is with these
courageous young Palestinians who see their peers being captured and
killed, but that only inspires others to step into their shoes.</p>
<p>The Lions' Den, the Balata Battalion and the Jenin Brigade are just
the start. The spirit of intifada is in the air and the old men of
Ramallah and the big guns of Israel have neither the imagination nor the
common sense to understand that this latest manifestation will evolve
and grow. Tel Aviv, Washington and Ramallah must share the
responsibility for this. They cannot ignore the fact that Israel
continues to kill Palestinians on an almost daily basis — one
Palestinian child has been killed every three days on average for the
past twenty years — and expect the people of occupied Palestine to
accept their oppression indefinitely. End the occupation, and there is
no need for resistance. It's as simple as that. In the meantime, the
roar of the Lions' Den is only going to get louder.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221027-israel-storms-jerusalem-schools-in-search-of-palestinian-curriculum/">Israel storms Jerusalem schools in search of Palestinian curriculum</a></strong></p>
<p>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.</p>
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