Gaza.. disaster and heroism!

With a spontaneity that pulsates with a sense of humanity that overflows across the universe, the Gazans, both men and women, began congratulating each other on surviving a genocide that targeted their lives for 471 days with a brutality that contemporary history has not witnessed. Tears mingled between feelings of joy at surviving and tears of sadness over the tragedy of losing their loved ones, and perhaps their deep-seated feeling of betrayal, including by some of their own people.

Their tears streamed down on the rubble of all aspects of their lives that they built with their sweat throughout the history of their cities, towns and camps, which the invaders could never conquer. Gaza, which has tasted death and destruction, does not know defeat, as it is a term outside the dictionary of its origins since time immemorial. Its sons and daughters grew up among the golden sands and the striking blue undulating sea waters, filled with a love of honest life, even if it was characterized by the roughness of sailors as they struggle for a clean livelihood soaked in their sweat and the dignity of their ancestors. Mahmoud Darwish’s vision came true in his poem Silence for Gaza, as if he were living today in its destroyed alleys and lanes:

“Gaza is not the most beautiful city. Its beach is not bluer than the beaches of Arab cities, and its oranges are not the most beautiful oranges on the Mediterranean. Gaza is not the richest city.

It is not the most upscale city, nor is it the largest city.

But it is equivalent to the history of a nation.

Because it is more ugly in the eyes of the enemies, and more poor, miserable and fierce.

Because she is the most capable of spoiling the mood and comfort of the enemy, because she is his nightmare, because she is a mined orange, children without childhood and old men without old age, and women without desires, because she is like that, she is the most beautiful, purest, richest and most worthy of love.

... "We do Gaza an injustice when we turn it into a myth, because we will hate it when we discover that it is nothing more than a small, poor city resisting...

And when we ask: What made it a legend?

We will break all our mirrors and cry if we have any dignity, or curse it if we refuse to revolt against ourselves.

We would be doing Gaza an injustice if we glorified it, because our fascination with it would lead us to wait, and Gaza will not come to us, Gaza will not liberate us.

The fascists, while sinking their racist fangs into its belly, tried to hold its people responsible for the bitter taste of its flesh, and some slipped into the traps of their narrative. However, the pride of its people, the beauty of its children’s eyes, and the tears of its women have re-corrected the narrative of history, so that the peoples of the world are once again aligned with the right side of it. The tragedy of Gaza and all of Palestine did not begin 471 days ago of catastrophe and heroism.

It is true that Gaza has paid a heavy price beyond its capacity, due to the excess arrogance of power supported by killing tools in a retaliatory aggression to break its position as a historical lever of national dignity, but it knows how to make the blood and remains of its loved ones a thorn in the throat of its enemies.

Gaza, which paid the price of division and the heavy price of being left alone to face the annihilation of Zionist fascism, cannot bear to remain drowning in the rubble of its people’s homes. It also cannot bear to remain a victim of the absurdity of the conflicts over the future of its ability to transform its instinctive steadfastness and these heavy prices it paid to restore its position in renewing identity, narrative and national future on the path to freedom, return and the wresting of our people’s right to self-determination.

Gaza has once again placed the national movement and the remnants of the political system with all its components before a golden opportunity for a massive renaissance, albeit one filled with pain and thorns. The birth of hope from the womb of lean years of division and the fascism of racist occupation forces everyone to heed the voice of those who sacrificed their lives so that Gaza would not be broken. Its collapse would have brought nothing but loss and defeat in the face of the racism of the Zionist project and its expansionist ambitions, especially in what it plans to annex the West Bank, especially Jerusalem, which the occupation seeks to complete swallowing up and liquidating the Palestinian cause in its entirety.

Gaza calls on everyone that there is no time for bickering and the continuation of the struggle over representation and the legitimacy of restoring what Israel wanted from rubble that drowns us all in its mire, so that it can monopolize the fate of the land, identity and cause. The steadfastness of the people of Gaza in the face of the enemy’s fascism forced all parties to agree on a unified word. The Beijing Declaration was made to restore unity capable of returning Palestine to the geography of history. It, Gaza, cannot tolerate manipulation of what cost it precious blood and unbearable pain. If there is a victory that Gaza can achieve to restore its status, it lies only in starting the wheel of the train of comprehensive national institutions. There is no legitimacy outside of consensus until we reach together the station of the legitimacy of the ballot box, where we can knock on the doors of freedom and the end of the occupation. There is no place for continued hesitation and narrow factional calculations, and no place for exclusion, exclusivity and domination. This is the lesson of Gaza’s steadfastness and its great sacrifices.

Thank you to Gaza that has showered us with its love, and with it and this love filled with blood and tears. We have a responsibility to break the dullness of politicians and their narrow calculations. In this way, we will defeat the racism of the last occupation in this era of history. Palestine is greater than everyone, and the doors of its freedom are just around the corner.