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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/we-must-fight-who-will-write-the-last-chapter-of-our-nakba-18156914">trtworld.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">'We must fight' - Who will write the last chapter of our Nakba?</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Ramzy Baroud</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">May 14, 2024<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-__nuxt"> <div><div> <p>A
Palestinian scholar reflects on the suffering of his people over the
last 76 years and the renewed push for freedom amid Israel's genocide in
Gaza.</p> </div> <div><div><div><div> <span> <img alt="A person waves a Palestinian flag as Pro-Palestinian student protestors and activists demonstrate outside of Columbia University in New York on April 30, 2024. / Photo: AFP" title="A person waves a Palestinian flag as Pro-Palestinian student protestors and activists demonstrate outside of Columbia University in New York on April 30, 2024. / Photo: AFP" src="https://cdn-i.pr.trt.com.tr/trtworld/w664/h374/q70/19731186_0-196-4095-2306.jpeg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="394" height="222" style="margin-right: 25px;"></span> </div> <div><div> <p>
<font size="1">AFP
</font></p></div> <p><font size="1">A person waves a Palestinian flag as Pro-Palestinian
student protestors and activists demonstrate outside of Columbia
University in New York on April 30, 2024. / Photo: AFP</font></p></div></div> <div><p>"Thank you, a thousand times over! Our sadness has now grown up and become a man. And now, we must fight.”</p></div> <div><p>That was the closing verse of a short but influential poem by iconic Palestinian poet, Samih Al-Qasim. It is <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31167">entitled</a>, "Rafah's Children."</p></div> <div><p>Al-Qasim’s
poem was published in 1971, over half a century before Israel began its
invasion of Rafah, the apex of its supposed military achievement – read
genocide – in Gaza, which started in October 2023. </p></div> <div><p>The
poem identified two major characters in Palestine's ongoing tragedy,
starting with the Nakba in 1948: The Israeli, as a representation of
war, and the Palestinian people, as a symbol of sumud - steadfastness. </p></div> <div><p>Al-Qasim
describes the Israeli as "the one who digs his path through the wounds
of millions," and "whose tanks crush all the roses in the garden," and
"who breaks the windows in the night" and "whose planes drop bombs on
childhood's dream." </p></div> <div><p>The second character, the
Palestinians, are depicted as the "children of the impossible roots,"
those "who have never woven braids into coverlets," or "never spat on
corpses or yanked their gold teeth."</p></div> <div><p>The
message of the Palestinians to their Israeli tormentors is, again,
"Thank you, a thousand times over! Our sadness has now grown up and
become a man. And now, we must fight."</p></div> <div><p>I
reflected on this poem during a turbulent flight to Amsterdam to speak
about the Nakba to audiences, whom I later found to be deeply saddened,
angry and at times, even confused by the degree of Israeli cruelty in
Gaza. </p></div> <div><div> <span> <img src="https://cdn-i.pr.trt.com.tr/trtworld/w664/h374/q70/19807697_0-0-5731-3793.jpeg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="394" height="222" style="margin-right: 25px;"></span> </div> <div><div> <p>
<font size="1">Reuters
</font></p></div> <p><font size="1">Students and employees of the University of Amsterdam
protest the war in Gaza in Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 7, 2024
(REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw).</font></p></div></div> <div><p>I
tried to organise my scattered thoughts. How do you speak about a pain
so deep and growing, as if it was a mere political issue, a "conflict"
between two sides, with purportedly "competing" narratives? </p></div> <div><p>Is genocide a narrative? Is the quest for freedom a conflict? </p></div> <div><p>"Did you know that more Palestinian journalists <a href="https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/article/ifjblog-gazas-journalists-are-far-more-likely-to-die-than-combat-soldiers">have been killed</a> in Gaza in the matter of seven months than those who have died in WWII and Vietnam combined?" </p></div> <div><p>I
wrote that sentence in my notebook to emphasise, for the umpteenth
time, the centrality of the Palestinian voice to the Palestinian story. I
underlined the word "combined."</p></div> <div><p>It seems that Palestinians must die in large numbers to make a case for themselves as to why they should be allowed to speak. </p></div> <div><p>"Take your share of our blood—and go," wrote Mahmoud Darwish in his seminal <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/those-who-pass-between-fleeting-words-by-mahmoud-darwish/">poem</a>, "Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words."</p></div> <div><p>Are
over 35,000 dead, nearly 80,000 wounded and 11,000 missing under the
rubble of Gaza enough for those seeking a "share of our blood" to
finally let us be? </p></div> <div><p>Another pressing question:
Is this precious blood enough for us, Palestinians, to be granted, in
the words of Edward Said, a "permission to narrate?"</p></div> <div><p>So
much of our efforts, as Palestinian intellectuals, journalists,
historians, artists and even ordinary people have been dedicated to mere
recognition of our very existence. </p></div> <div><p>Existence,
or the recognition of that existence, is the starting point to
everything. It is the prerequisite to a life of dignity. Without it, our
collective death and erasure often happens in total stillness. </p></div> <div><p>Many
oppressed nations perished this way, leaving nothing behind but the
suppressed echoes of untold pain. We, Palestinians, resist so that we
may preserve hope - for us, but also for all oppressed people
everywhere. </p></div> <div><p>Israel has done its utmost to deny
us such a seemingly basic right - the very acknowledgement that we
exist. This started even before the Nakba. </p></div> <div><div> <span> <img src="https://cdn-i.pr.trt.com.tr/trtworld/w664/h374/q70/16404002_0-0-4814-3210.jpeg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="394" height="222" style="margin-right: 25px;"></span> </div> <div><div> <p>
<font size="1">Reuters
</font></p></div> <p><font size="1">A Palestinian reacts during a rally as they mark the
75th anniversary of Nakba in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
May 15,2023 (REUTERS/ Mohammed Torokman).</font></p></div></div> <div><p>The
Nakba was not just a disruptive event that has altered the very
demographic identity of historic Palestine - replacing one nation with
another, through violence and ethnic cleansing. </p><p>That aspect of
the Nakba has been demonstrated countless times in books, maps,
documentaries and the testimonies of those who survived the
"catastrophe."</p></div> <div><p>But there is more to the Nakba
than the demolition of the hundreds of villages and the massacring or
exiling of their native inhabitants. </p></div> <div><p>The Nakba
was Zionism's way of controlling the flow of history. The Zionist
notion that "Palestine was a land with no people" was the first premise
in the erroneous logic that positioned world Jewry – a supposed "people
with no land" – as the rational inheritors of Palestine. Everything that
has taken place since then was the outcome of this anti-historical
scheme. </p></div> <div> <p>The erasure, however, is hardly
confined to physical, material spaces. The war on Palestinian culture,
religion, food, language are all part of that lingering zero-sum game
that Israel has perfected from the very start. </p></div> <div><p>The
Nakba was merely the start of that process of erasure which manifested
itself in a myriad of destructive and innovative ways. They included the
bulldozing of olive groves, the demolition of homes, the seizure of
land, the Hebrew-isation of street names and the conversion of ancient
graveyards into parking lots. These are but mere examples. </p></div> <div><p>The
erasure, however, is hardly confined to physical, material spaces. The
war on Palestinian culture, religion, food, language are all part of
that lingering zero-sum game that Israel has perfected from the very
start. </p></div> <div><p>The war on Gaza is meant to be the final chapter of an ongoing Nakba: </p></div> <div><p>"We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba," Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4313276-israel-is-threatening-a-second-nakba-but-its-already-happening/">said</a> last November. "Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it'll end."</p></div> <div><p>"Now
go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare
them not," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netanyahu-amalek-israel-palestine-gaza-saul-samuel-old-testament/">said</a> in October, infusing a biblical reference to justify Israel's devastating war in Gaza.</p></div> <div><p>The nuclear bomb "is a possibility," Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-minister-amichai-eliyahu-suspend-benjamin-netanyahu-nuclear-bomb-gaza-hamas-war/">during an interview</a> on November 5.</p></div> <div><p>The hateful, violent language continues.</p></div> <div><p>But
Israel will not write the last words of our own story, because Israel
is no longer the entity shaping our own history, controlling our
language and determining the fate of our people. The sons and daughters
of the <em>fellahin</em>, the peasants of the past, the refugees of today, are "grown up" and fighting back. </p></div> <div><p>The
Palestinian people are no longer on the margins of history, hapless
victims to be ethnically cleansed, massacred and relegated. Their
resistance is now the stuff of legends, reflecting a historic shift that
took over 75 years to be realised. </p></div> <div><p>The
reality is obvious for the world to see: Zionism, ugly, violent,
politically splintered and morally bankrupt, and the Palestinian nation,
youthful, empowered, unified around its resistance and principled to
the core. </p></div> <div><p>A day after I arrived in
Amsterdam, hundreds of university students began a solidarity
encampment. Their signs referenced the Nakba and the sumud, and
denounced Zionist racism and Israel's genocide. </p><p>Palestinian flags
waved everywhere. The students sang and chanted for Palestine and her
people, echoing the chants of students at numerous other encampments
across the western hemisphere, in fact the world. </p></div> <div><p>This historic restoration of Palestinian hope for freedom is owed largely to their collective <em>sumud </em>and resistance. Without them, the Nakba would have begun and ended according to the Zionist Israeli script. </p></div> <div><p>But
the Nakba is now ours. We own it, not only as an experience of shared,
collective pain, but as a reclamation of a long-denied justice. </p></div> <div><p>"Our sadness has now grown up and become a man. And now, we must fight," wrote al-Qasim. </p></div> <div><p>And, now, we must win. Our coveted freedom at last. </p></div> </div> <div><p><span>SOURCE:</span> <span>TRT World</span></p> <hr> <div><div><span> </span></div> <div><p>Ramzy Baroud</p> <p>Dr.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited
with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian
Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father
was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident
Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs
(CIGA). His website is <a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net">www.ramzybaroud.net</a> </p> </div></div> <hr> </div></div></div> <div><br></div> </div></div></div>
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