Martyr Khairy Alqam and moral superiority

Written by: Ziad Barakat

Oftentimes, the political analysis of a phenomenon falls short of understanding its roots. It “rationalizes” it, looking into the causes of its formation, its context, and the dynamics of its development. However, it does not provide a healing approach that, let’s say, is creative, that rises to the level of the phenomenon itself. In the Palestinian case, you find hundreds of sober political analyzes and studies, some of which are insightful and insightful, but they cannot simplify for you, in a way that convinces and astonishes you, the phenomenon of the smiles of the Palestinian boys upon their arrest (did you see the laughter of Muhammad Aliwat, the perpetrator of the Silwan operation, as they led him away handcuffed?) Or That brilliant flight of the stone throwers as if they separated from the earthly and its conditions, and the political and its constraints, at the same time, to throw a stone at an Israeli soldier ready in the vicinity with his automatic rifle and sunglasses, and his indifference to his victim on the other side of the fight.

It is true that the extreme thrust of the body makes it physically lighter and so it rises off the ground, but this is an explanation for the apparent event, and the question is about the mighty force that made the boy fly while throwing stones at the Israeli soldier, and there is no convincing explanation for that unless it is poetic, or a search for the "Palestinian personality". I think that Khairi Alqam, the perpetrator of the Jerusalem operation at last, and before him Uday al-Tamimi, the perpetrator of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement operation, east of Jerusalem on the 19th of last October, are two examples of the complexity and intractability of the Palestinian situation, not because the Palestinian is not like the rest of the people, but rather because his condition itself is exceptional in terms of By all accounts, if we assume that Alqam, who was named after his grandfather who was killed by a Jewish settler three years before the birth of the grandson, carried out his operation in revenge for his grandfather, and this is possible, then what links the event to the storming of Jenin a day before the implementation of the operation, so is it revenge as well? And if that was the case, how did it come to a mere young man (21 years old) to avenge his personal past and the present of his people at the same time?! This parallel between what is personal and national among the Palestinians is not surprising, rather it is at the heart of their lives and against their will, but to combine the two motives in one act becomes brilliant, almost genius in its timing and connotations, and fails to dissect it any analyzes of the brutality of the Israeli right in exchange for despair. Which turns into a bomb that may explode at any moment, this is a kind of stereotypical analysis, and it is correct but not sufficient, unless it is accompanied by a semantic approach, poetic if you like, to this case only, and then linking it to similar cases whose accumulation almost turns into a pattern that makes understanding easier. in a broader context.

See what happened? The young man drives around in a car he drives near the Nabi Yacoub settlement, then gets off carrying a gun. He shoots repeatedly at those he encounters there. He changes the barrel of the pistol more than once, and the result is confirmed injuries that killed seven settlers and injured more than ten, which means that he is a professional or well trained (when did he do that?), Then he encounters a woman who begs him not to kill her, so he tells her that he does not kill women, and that is not It means not only moral superiority, but also an outstanding ability to self-control and high professionalism that is not preoccupied with sub-goals that may hinder the achievement of the main goal. He does all this, and he's only twenty-one, and I don't think he's ever read Franz Fanon or Gramsci. In this intersection between reflecting in your person a coherent, high-level moral system that distinguishes between the legitimate goal and that which conflicts with your collective values on the one hand, and avenging your grandfather who was killed before you were born, and for the martyrs of your people who were killed the day before your operation, there is an amazing genius that is almost invisible. She believes, especially since the entire process is individual, and no organization or party behind it planned, coordinated, supported, and was keen on moral harmony and struggle legitimacy at the same time.

It is necessary for Mahmoud Darwish or someone in his level and there is not yet, for writing to rise to the level of an event like this, so we understand him and we understand the instinctive impulse that another young man made, Uday al-Tamimi, the perpetrator of the Shuafat camp checkpoint operation, the handsome young man as if he was a movie star, with his shaved head , who was chased by the occupation forces for 11 days, and his comrades shaved the hair of their heads like him to mislead these forces, so he returned to the settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, attacking its guards. He shoots, and they respond, but he does not back down, rather he continues to shoot until he becomes martyred: he stares at death and dances with it, and that is a metaphor that makes that young man himself a short sentence, but it is very intense, and packed with connotations in a poem that only Palestinians write with their blood for a century and more.

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