What is Being Ignored in the General Palestinian Scene

Author: ابراهيم ابراش

It would be a great mistake to reduce the Palestinian cause and the conflict in the region to the current historical moment and the calamities and genocide occurring on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The conflict and war should be viewed away from the propaganda of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and the Jewish right-wing leaders who promote the idea that the Palestinian issue has practically ended with the accelerated measures to annex the West Bank, the destruction of Gaza, and resettlement projects. They suggest that their project for a Greater Israel and an American-Israeli Middle East without Palestine and Palestinians is within reach of realization.

However, there is another aspect to the scene that is either absent or deliberately obscured, which is that Israel's real problem is not with Hamas and the armed resistance factions or even with President Abu Mazen and the Palestine Liberation Organization, but rather with the entire Palestinian people in the homeland and the diaspora. The conflict and the state of war between the Palestinian people and the Zionist movement has existed and continued for more than a hundred years, long before the existence of Hamas and the PLO, and it will continue after them.

In this context, it is essential to recall the entire historical struggle of the Palestinian people in defense of their land, even before the establishment of the State of Israel, faced with the British occupation army and Zionist gangs. This includes the Buraq Uprising in 1929 and the execution of the first martyrs of the Palestinian revolution against British colonialism: Muhammad Jamjoum, Atta al-Zir, and Fouad Hijazi in Acre prison, the Qassam Revolt in Ya’abad near Jenin in 1935, the Great Palestinian Revolution from 1936 to 1939, and the resistance led by Abdel Qader al-Husseini. Even after the Arabs lost 78% of Palestine due to their defeat in the 1948 war, and lost the rest in the setback of 1967, the struggle did not stop. The Palestinians regained their balance; Palestinian George Habash founded the Arab Nationalists Movement, alongside small armed groups like the Return Heroes and Youth for Revenge, leading to the political activity of the Fatah movement before it declared the start of the armed struggle in 1965.

As for the present, there are truths in the scene that we should not overlook, despite the tragic military field picture.

The first truth is that despite the tragic situation and the deaths, destruction, and hunger that have afflicted our people for 23 months, along with the threat of deportation posed by Netanyahu and Smotrich and what is occurring in the West Bank, the threat of its annexation, there are still 7 million Palestinians on the ground in Palestine, exceeding the number of Jews. While they suffer and die daily from bombardment or hunger, they remain on their land. I do not say this because they are resilient, especially our people in Gaza, but because they are steadfast on their land since no countries are willing to receive them and share in cooperating with Israel and Washington in the genocide and ethnic cleansing wars. Even the threat of annexing the entire West Bank is an exaggeration; how can they annex lands with 3 million Palestinians, while they are unable to establish a Jewish state with less than two million Palestinians within the 1948 borders, whom they cannot accommodate!

The second truth is the increase in international recognition of the justice of the Palestinian cause and the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own. When these recognitions come from significant European countries that were strategic allies of Israel, such as France, Spain, Belgium, Britain, Norway, etc., it is important even if these recognitions are conditional and ambiguous concerning the geographical borders of the desired state and recognize a state while it is under occupation. What gives these recognitions importance and value is the shifts in global popular opinion in favor of Palestine and the exposure of the falsehood of the Zionist narrative and the ugly face of occupation, even regarding Jews in general, which Israeli and American entities have warned about, stating that Israel is losing its moral image in the world.

I do not want to beautify the scene, and what is to come may be worse. However, for the first time, Israel and the United States find themselves facing almost all other countries in the world regarding the stance on the Palestinian cause.
We will see if Israel, even with Washington's support, can deport 7 million Palestinians or even half that number, facing a global will against deportation?! Or will it be forced to seek a way to separate from them, the only way being the establishment of a state for Palestinians on Palestinian land? Importantly, there needs to be an official national framework that can accommodate all Palestinians and manage and absorb all these positive global transformations.