01 October 2015

By Khalid Amayreh

Nothing could help the Palestinian cause more than enabling ordinary Palestinians to put up a resilient steadfastness in the face of a sinister Zionist strategy aimed at uprooting the national existence of the Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland.

Yes, steadfastness is the name of the game in Palestine, especially in light of the virtual liquidation by Israel of any remaining realistic prospects for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

Steadfastness is therefore the crux of the matter in Occupied Palestine because without it, Israel would be able in a matter of few years or decades to drive many or most Palestinians into a permanent exile.

Needless to say, the Jewish state has failed to achieve this criminal goal not because it refrained from employing the most nefarious means imaginable to "get the job done," but rather because Palestinians consistently showed an extraordinary level of endurance and steadfastness in the face of Zionist-Jewish oppression, which in many cases transcended reality.

Hence, the same level of steadfastness and resilience that enabled the Palestinian people to survive all these years, despite the enormity of Zionist repression, must be maintained and consolidated rather constantly.

Easier said than done

But withstanding Israeli oppression and maintaining the required level of steadfastness have certain requirements which must be met and maintained.

Otherwise steadfastness, and therefore national survival, would remain confined to the theoretical or even rhetorical sphere.

Yes, the unwavering will to remain steadfast in the face of Israeli brutality is an almost built-in character among most Palestinians. Indeed, many would say Palestinians are innately steadfast and inherently resilient, irrespective of Israeli brutality and terror.

None the less, even this legendary "innate steadfastness" cannot always be taken for granted. That is why effective measures ought to be taken to maintain, enhance, and even maximize the Palestinian ability to remain steadfast as well as shield this steadfastness from unrelenting Israeli measures intended to extinguish every Palestinian light and kill every glimmer of hope amongst a people that has survived in spite of history.

What are the Palestinians' needs?

We Palestinians don't expect miracles from the Arabs. We don't expect them to liberate Palestine from the River to the Sea. We don't even expect them to liberate al-Quds Ash-sharif and al-Masjidul Aqsa from the clutches of Zionism.

However, there are certain tasks the Arabs could easily do to enable our people to survive and be steadfast as we have done since the Nakba 67 years ago.

Rich Arab states, such as the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, can and should allow more Palestinians to seek employment opportunities in their respective countries. The Palestinians are skilled, educated and can be trusted to perform their duties without endangering the internal security of these states.

Palestinians are Sunni Muslims and wouldn't be duped or used by sectarian regional powers to undermine the security of the Gulf States.

On the contrary, Palestinians could be utilized to safeguard the security of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia and they would happily agree to contribute to the consolidation of that security.

At the end of the day, the Palestinian national cause would eventually benefit from the stability and security of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

And certainly the opposite is also true.

Besides helping Palestinian find employment opportunities, either inside Palestine or in the region, oil-rich Arab states should help subsidize college education in the occupied territories. We all know, for example, that college tuitions constitute a huge financial burden for many Palestinian families which are often forced to exhaust their savings and assets to send their children to college.

Indeed, there are many painful stories about Palestinian college-age students who have been forced to work at Jewish settlements because their poor families couldn't afford to send them to college.

We must not hide this embarrassing fact from our rich Arab and Muslim brothers because in the final analysis, the consequences of poverty often override national commitment.

Moreover, helping poor college students in the West Bank and Gaza Strip get undergraduate education doesn't mean a huge financial burden for oil-rich Arab states.

In fact, a modest sum of 20-30 million US dollars per year would resolve the entire problem of college education in occupied Palestine. More to the point, it would allow the young Palestinian generations to remain in their ancestral homeland, thus scoring a definitive historical victory over Zionism.

I realize that there are voices unenthusiastic about invoking anything Palestinian these days.

But such voices are likely to be plagued with ignorance, maliciousness, ill will or moral and religious bankruptcy.

I say this because the Palestinian issue remains and will always remain the core national and Islamic problem for Arabs and Muslims everywhere. It is the mother of all problems, par excellence.

In fact, the Palestinian issue is too paramount to be marginalized, or left to "others" who would exploit it for their own sectarian ends.

In the final analysis, Arab states (and peoples) would succeed in everything else if they succeeded in carrying out their duties and commitments toward the Palestinian cause but would fail in everything else if they failed in shouldering their duties toward the Palestinian cause.

Indeed, sixty-seven years of official Arab failure should be more than enough to indict the Arab regimes.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator living in Occupied Palestine. 

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