Palestine In Memory of MLK: The
Destruction, The Cease Fire - What
Now?
January 23, 2009
In Memory of MLK: Today, as
the Palestinian people continue to search for
their dead in the Gaza Strip and bury their
scorched children, mothers, and fathers, the
United States as whole, the very custodian of
Zionist bigotry and colonial malice, is
recognizing a champion of civil rights, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a man that the
US imprisoned, beat, accused of treason, and
ridiculed before it celebrated, and only after
he was assassinated. He is a preacher of a
people whose churches were firebombed and
burned to the ground, just like Palestinian
mosques and churches; and against whom the US
segregated, on whom it set vicious dogs, beat
with batons, rifles and fire hoses. This is a
people whose leadership and everyday activists
in the struggle for equality were shot at,
assassinated, and indeed, lynched by mindless
mobs supported by public policy. They are a
people whose history is relegated to the
margins, whose art and cultural expressions
robbed by others, whose youth remain subject
to the combined brutalities of poverty, wretch
racism, and police powers.
In the context of the amplified suffering of
the past 23 days and in recognition of the
proud resilience of the Palestinian people,
sadly yet proudly, the likeness to the
Palestinian struggle is enormous. Be it
African American or Palestinian, geography is
perhaps the only difference.
Tomorrow, on Tuesday, January 20, and as
displaced Palestinians continue to return to
homes bombed by US Apaches and F-16 fighter
jets, these same United States will be
inaugurating the first African American
president. The US will do so as it hangs a
faulty façade to hide away the long and brutal
legacy of slavery, butchery, and institutional
bigotry – perhaps in an attempt to wish it all
away, if only for a day, lest it is remembered
by its recipients. But make no mistake about
it, this is a president who stands squarely
and totally on the immeasurable dignified
shoulders of all those who braved the
viciousness, cruelty, institutional racism and
overt bigotry of Jim Crow, Joseph McCarthy, J.
Edgar Hoover, George Wallace, and so many more
like them, including George W. Bush - just as
the Palestinians today brave the cruelty
imposed by the institutional racism and system
of Apartheid that constitute the very essence
of Zionism.
For President Obama to stand on these
dignified shoulders, he now has an obligation
to do what is right – to take even the
smallest steps in that direction, all while he
remembers that "yes, he can". This is not a
choice in any way. Obama has an obligation to
place equality in morality; and to place
morality in public policy, both foreign and
domestic. And when he finds out that the US
system of government and geopolitical
interests do not allow him so, he must make
the change he championed. To this day, he has
been a follower not a leader on these critical
issues.
Today, it is the much-sought- after equality,
freedom, and morality in policy that are
glaringly missing in the US political system,
particularly towards the Palestinians. It is a
policy driven by the same racism and greed
that enslaved Africans and segregated against
them, obliterated Native Americans, interned
Japanese Americans, nuked Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and conquered so many around the
world. For there to be "Hope", and for the
incoming president to assume the moral
position set forth by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., it is incumbent upon him to rise to the
challenge of those who swept him into office -
the millions of shoulders injured by colonial
bigotry and hate – who especially today
continue to challenge that same hate as it
destroys the lives of the Palestinians in the
most vicious manner.
Today and tomorrow, the Palestinians will be
burying their dead with endless tears and
anguish, but they too will also be celebrating
their journey - for they will continue to rise
from the ashes of a firebomb, hurled by
Zionists or the KKK – it is all the same - to
continue their march forward to liberation.
And the remains of the dead will undoubtedly
evolve into a monument of steadfast and a
memorial of emancipation for generations to
come.
The Destruction:
At the conclusion of 22 days of a murderous
campaign in the Gaza Strip by the Zionist army
paid for by US tax dollars, the Zionist polity
announced a "unilateral cease fire." Utilizing
a diplomatic cover by the US, Arab regimes,
and Western Europe, the defeated Zionists are
setting a trap and are spreading a dangerous
lie. Having achieved not even one of its
goals, the Israeli leadership is opting for a
change in tactic.
As of today, at least 1,300 Palestinians have
been murdered and more than 5,500 have been
injured, with a minimum of 500 in very
critical conditions, including severe
phosphorous burns. The number of killed
Palestinians is expected to continue to rise
as more decomposed and dismembered bodies of
family members are uncovered from under the
destruction, similar to the 100 bodies already
uncovered yesterday. Children comprise at
least 420 of the murdered and 2,000 of the
injured, many are infants and toddlers. Many
families were wiped in their entirety, as they
were huddled together to escape the
indiscriminate bombings.
More than 20,000 buildings have been damaged
with over 4,000 fully destroyed. Mosques,
churches, schools, hospitals, UN compounds,
most streets, sport clubs and stadiums, ports,
and the Gaza beach were shelled with high
impact conventional explosives and white
phosphorous bombs. At least 50 UN facilities
sustained damage. The UN alone is currently
operating 50 emergency shelters for more than
50,000 displaced people. The actual number of
displaced is unknown as many are with
families, or have refused to go to shelters
lest they are attacked. Gaza City's wastewater
treatment facility was shelled, causing the
lagoon that holds 2 million liters of sewage
to leak to surrounding agricultural and other
sensitive areas.
In 22 days, at least 2,500 air strikes were
carried out, not including the continuous sea
and land artillery shelling from gunboats and
tanks, with no less than 1,000 tons of
explosives dropped on a tiny area of land.
This estimate is certain to be revised upward
once an investigation is completed in the sort
of firepower used. It is estimated that no
less than $1.6 billion would be needed to
bring the Gaza Strip to an operating minimum.
The Cease Fire:
Astonishingly enough, the Israeli Zionist
leadership did exactly what was expected:
attack a civilian population for 3 solid
weeks, pull back when it can't go forward due
to a solid resistance, and race to declare
victory despite defeat. Never mind that not
only none of its goals were met, not one, but
also the reversal actually occurred.
Victory of what, we ask? The resistance forces
are that much stronger politically, and that
much more supported nationally and
internationally. The ability of the resistance
remains fully intact, albeit affected by the
assault. The Palestinian people embraced
rather than turn against the resistance, with
an unbelievable display of solidarity, dignity
and order even in the face of destruction. In
fact, while the Israelis and Abbas were hoping
for looting, robbery, and chaos following the
attacks, the exact opposite took place –
mutual solidarity and popular support on a
scale not seen before. The Arab regimes are
increasingly weak and embarrassed and are no
longer able to sustain the mandated obedient
functionary role. The US is at odds with its
Arab allies, particularly Egypt. Monarchs are
racing to pump financial support. Resistance
parties occupied center stage at a major
emergency Arab Summit while Abbas would not
dare to attend. Mahmud Abbas has been made
much weaker. His henchmen are nearly
disappearing. And his ability to speak of the
Oslo package is significantly challenged.
Nations have begun to cut relations with the
Israeli polity, and war crime charges are
about to fill courts on an unprecedented
scale.
Consider the Economic Summit held in Kuwait
yesterday which was supposed to include those
with allegiance to the US. The Israeli polity
had expected that the participants of that
summit would go to political and economic war
against the participants of the Qatar
emergency Gaza Summit, which featured the
resistance parties, Syria, and Iran. Nothing
of the sort took place. The two flanks of the
Arab political spectrum announced that they
are unified, and the Saudis even started
speaking of withdrawing the Arab Initiative.
Essentially, Zionist brutality is embarrassing
Arab despotic regimes to a point that they
could no longer go on with business as usual
without some movement to absorb the boiling
popular anger. At this point, one of the main
areas where the Israeli atrocities
precipitated a major loss for the Zionist is
the end of the normalization process on a
popular level. For many years, Arab regimes,
namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the
Palestinian Authority under Abbas, have
attempted to implement a long term Zionist
normalization process on all levels, including
economic, political, cultural, and security.
This process is now faced with major
challenges making it impossible to implement.
On a military level, the Israeli invading
forces could not once display areas and
instances where they have captured prisoners,
confiscated arms, or imprisoned leadership.
There was no surrender by anyone. There were
no scenes of defection. There were no scenes
of capture of command centers. The only scenes
were of massive destruction and murdered
children, elderly and families. While the
leadership of some of the resistance forces
sustained casualties in terms of injury and
death, such did not impact the level of
resistance to a point that until the day
Israel announced its cease fire, the
Palestinians were responding at the same
level. The resistance movement never accepted
any conditions, regardless of who delivered or
attempted to market these conditions, be it
Egyptian intelligence officers or otherwise.
It never accepted to cease responding to the
brutality and suffocation of the Israeli
Zionist polity.
Even the agreement between the US and Israel
on joint control of the Palestinian- Egyptian
border was rejected by the Egyptian regime,
which found itself fully humiliated and
marginalized. This was to a point that the
Egyptian regime had to hold its own summit
with European powers and the Jordanian monarch
to salvage whatever it had left of credibility
as the prime obedient functionary of the
region. Another sign of the defeated Zionist
forces, as these summits and meetings serve to
provide Arab regimes and the Israeli political
establishment with a means to unilaterally
quit the campaign using some forum of
political cover, never mind the fact that none
of the intended goals were achieved.
So we ask: What victory? It is a Zionist
defeat if there was ever one, similar to that
in Lebanon in 2006. Gone forever are the days
when the Israeli army was seen as unbeatable.
Gone are the days when those beating the drums
of surrender could be heard or even
entertained for a moment. Gone are the days
when it was thought that savagery of attacks
would ever bring the Palestinians and Arabs to
their knees. This is a time of dignity and
resilience, not of capitulation and surrender.
What Zionist victory, we ask? It is a defeat
if there was ever one!
Here, the FPA is clear that the so-called
cease fire is nothing but a charade to allow
future assaults to take place under the guise
that it is the Palestinians who are violating
the terms of the so-called cease fire. Let it
be clear to all that the blockade and siege
were not lifted. The starvation and
suffocation continue. The imprisonment of 1.5
millions has not changed, and the crossings
were not opened. Lest some are misguided by
the announcements by Israel - no, the
occupation was not ended. A political
discourse has not been set in place to allow
for a realization of liberation, return, and
independence. In that regards, the cease fire
amounts to an attempt by the Zionists to
regroup for a come-back at a later day. We are
under no illusion that this will not be the
last massacre, so long as Zionist armament
remains aimed at the Palestinian people. The
tanks pulled to the boundary of the tiny Gaza
Strip of 365 square kilometers, ready to
return for another failed attempt, just as
they have done in the past in South Lebanon.
Once again, we remind all that the same areas
that were bombed by the Zionist army were also
bombed and destroyed in the early seventies.
Yet, the Palestinians remained strong. In
fact, the people at the receiving end of this
latest assault are the same ones that were
expelled first in 1948 from their homes, then
again in 1967, and later attacked in the early
seventies and into the eighties and beyond.
This latest cease fire exposed the failure of
the US-Israeli-Arab regime axis in destroying
the Palestinian resistance, just as it failed
in 1948, then in 1970 in Jordan, in 1978 and
1982 in Lebanon, during the eighties and early
nineties during the 1987 Intifada, and
throughout the years of the most recent
Intifada into the Janine and Gaza massacres.
Hence, while colonial projects kept creeping
onto the Palestinians, the conscience of the
people and their ability to withstand massive
destruction has been monumental. It continues
on!
To this day, 60 years into conquest and the
Zionist polity is unable to extract the
national belonging of the Palestinian Arab
people, especially within 1948 borders. This
is true to a point that recently the Zionist
polity had to ban Arab parties from running in
Israeli parliamentary elections, hence once
and for all dropping even the feeble fig leaf
the Zionists once had. This occurred as a
testament to the sharpness of the dichotomy
between the Zionist movement and the
Palestinian liberation movement – A dichotomy
that has reached an apex and is headed to a
new beginning.
Of major concern is the price of the financial
support the Saudis and other Gulf countries
will attempt to extract from the resistance.
As has always been the case, despotic Arab
regimes never act in favor of freedom and
liberation, only in favor of sustaining their
ability to rule. It is critical at this stage
not to be fooled by promises and side deals
with dictators and functionaries. The
Palestinian resistance has the upper political
hand and must materialize that into real
political power. The Palestinian people cannot
barter their freedom for political expediency.
For instance, the need for humanitarian relief
should be recognized as an obligation on the
part of the Arab and international community.
It is not a substitute for the political
national demands that could dangerously
transform the Palestinian national liberation
movement into a humanitarian crisis campaign
needing pity and aid. This is very dangerous.
Many organizations are already falling in that
trap, and are being leveraged for the purpose
of marginalizing the recently achieved
political victory in favor of a campaign of
pity and humanitarian aid. This should be
rejected by all of us.
The Palestinian movement is not about a group
of dispossessed refugees seeking food and
shelter. It is about a movement for liberation
by a people robbed of their land and who are
determined to emerge victorious against their
colonists. The Palestinian people do not need
handouts. We reject them and return them to
the sender. We demand and expect solidarity
and reciprocate it in kind.
What Now?
This is the time to translate political
victory to organizational gains. The
Palestinian and Arab people must seize this
opportunity to reorganize and position the
movement on its proper track. For one thing,
this is not the time to sweep under the rug
the "political garbage" that has helped the
Zionists over the past several years. They
must be exposed and expelled from the Arab
collective. All those who have stood in favor
of surrender and normalization, those who have
not stopped denigrating Arab resistance, and
those who have become enablers for the
Zionists, must be exposed in every locality
and every area. They are the rot that is
destroying what our people build. They exist
in every realm. They are regimes and they are
organizations. They are writers and they are
activists. You know them from their slogans,
and from their opportunistic behavior and
political positions. Their discourse is a
danger to our youth and to our future.
This is also the time for the Palestinian left
to examine its ranks. It is time to
self-clean. Those who have given cover to the
PA and who enjoy the political comfort of
their relationship with the likes of Abbas and
his henchmen should not be setting policy for
the left. Clearly, they are a failure like
their sponsors. They have damaged the
Palestinian left enough. The egalitarian and
revolutionary perspective that is rooted in a
democratic pan-Arab alternative should remain
as the unifying slogan for the Palestinian
left. This is the time to strengthen our
movement by giving it a program of solidarity
that involves boycotts, divestment, and
sanctions.
This is the time for war crime tribunals to be
enacted everywhere, and for war criminals to
be apprehended and brought to justice. This is
a time to expose the sadistic nature of the
weaponry used by the Zionist, paid for by US
taxpayers. This is a time to end all support
to Israel, in every way, to properly position
it as the Apartheid regime of today, and to
isolate it economically, culturally, and
diplomatically. This is a time to once and for
all recognize that Zionism is nothing but a
colonial ideology rooted in racism and hate.
In essence, we can build on this victory and
the steadfast of the Palestinian people, by
building on our own small victories in our
workplace, towns, and universities.
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