And since the Nakba and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestinian refugees are the common denominator behind all Palestinian suffering, the term and its underpinnings are back at center stage of any meaningful conversation on Palestine, as should have always been the case.
Israel is now facing the dilemma of either ignoring this new Palestinian factor, at its own peril, or accepting the inescapable fact that Israel can never enjoy stability while Palestinians remain occupied, confined and oppressed.
It is the unity of the Palestinian people themselves, around a set of values, new language and a collective frame of reference. Deep down, this is what truly terrifies Israel most, not the speeches of Sinwar or any other.
If Palestinian refugees are removed from the list of political priorities concerning the future of a just peace in Palestine, neither justice nor peace can possibly be attained.
As the ‘Sword of Jerusalem’ has taught us, Palestinians are now capable of responding in a unified fashion and, despite their limited means, even putting pressure on Israel to reverse its policies.
A serious conversation involving Palestinians, Arab countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and other parties must take place to discuss and resolve Palestine’s food insecurity.
If Israel continues to subjugate the Palestinian people under the current system of military occupation and deepening apartheid, Palestinians will surely continue to respond until their oppressive reality is changed.
When almost all of Gaza’s water is not fit for human consumption because of a deliberate Israeli strategy, one can understand why Palestinians continue to fight back as if their lives are dependent on it; because they are.
While profit generation is understandably the main goal of companies like Google and Amazon, this goal can be achieved without necessarily requiring the subjugation of a whole people, who are currently the victims of the world’s last remaining apartheid regime.
It will not take days, as is the case with Russia and Ukraine, but they will eventually succeed in isolating Israel, for, as it turned out, politics and sports do mix after all.
Israel is not the exception, and like other colonial, apartheid regimes, it will eventually collapse, paving the way for a possible future where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews can coexist as equals.
Most importantly, Palestinians must also reflect on the unavoidable truth – that those who have normalized and profited from the Israeli occupation and apartheid cannot possibly be the ones who will bring freedom and justice to Palestine.
The solid support that Palestine enjoys among an influential block at the AU, in addition to the popular support the Palestinian cause continues to receive throughout Africa, indicates that, despite the mistakes of the past, Palestine remains a central issue on the continent.
A succession of events in recent weeks all points to the inescapable fact that nearly 75 years of Israel’s painstaking efforts aimed at hiding the truth about its origins and its current racially-driven apartheid regime are miserably failing.
Maybe the discussion should also be expanded to include the freedom of all Palestinians who are experiencing their own forms of imprisonment by Israel.
It turns out that morality cannot be divided based on geography, class, religion or race. It might be time for ordinary Israelis to accept this unavoidable truism.
Neither Erdan nor his bosses in Tel Aviv can reverse this Palestinian-led momentum. His UN display merely reflects the degree of desperation and intellectual bankruptcy of Israel and its representatives.
While Israel is permitted, thanks to the deafening silence of the international community, to maintain its military occupation of Palestine, to cement its apartheid and to deepen its control of Palestinian life everywhere, it should not be permitted to expand this matrix of control to the digital realm as well.
Late South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu will never die, because his words continue to lead the way, in Palestine as in South Africa.
It is quite a powerful imagery to think that a dying man, tied to a hospital bed, would force Israel to concede on such a crucial issue as that of the freedom of a Palestinian.
All popular Palestinian uprisings of the past were initiated at times when Israel assumed that it had the upper hand, and that people’s resistance has been forever pacified.
2021 was also a year of unity, cultural achievements and hope, as a new generation is finally taking center stage, asserting its identity and its centrality to the future of its homeland
It is true that Israel operates outside the minimum standards of international and humanitarian laws, but it is the responsibility of the international community to protect Palestinians, whose lives remain precious even if Israel disagrees.
It is time that those who have paid far more attention to the Israeli narrative abandon such illusions and, for once, listen to Palestinian voices, because the truth of the victim is a wholly different story than that of the aggressor.
Whether right-wing, left-wing or center, Israel is committed to its military superiority, its racism and to the military occupation more than ever before. The sooner we accept this fact, and quit subscribing to the illusion that change in Israel will happen from within, the sooner the Palestinian people will finally achieve the justice they need and deserve.
Palestine Chronicle editor, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, delivered a speech at Casa Arabe on Thursday, as part of the Palestine Week, which was organized to commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
On the occasion of the Palestinian solidarity week in Madrid, Palestine Chronicle editor Ramzy Baroud delivered a lecture at the Universidad Complutense of the Spanish capital.
Without that genuine and engaged Palestinian intellectual, the world’s priorities will continue to gravitate towards Israeli priorities, towards US interests and their subsequent fraudulent language about ‘peace,’ security’ and such.
Though it is ultimately the people who liberate themselves, international solidarity is essential to the process of national liberation. This was the case in South Africa, and will surely be the case in Palestine, as well.
The truth is, for as long as Israel maintains its military occupation of Palestine, and as long as the Israeli military continues to see Palestinians as subjects in a mass ‘security experiment’, the Middle East—in fact, the entire world—will continue to pay the price.