OPINIONS
Wed 15 Mar 2023 10:07 pm - Jerusalem Time
Normalization of the occupation, normalization with the occupation, or ending the occupation!
Sunday... and every Sunday
Normalization of the occupation or normalization with the occupation
Or end the occupation!
Written by: Attorney Ziyad Abu Ziyad
On this day last week, the Israelis were celebrating what they call Al-Quds Day, and we called it the occupation and usurpation of Jerusalem.
Some were betting on an escalation coming from the nozzles of rocket launchers in Gaza, a victory for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and voices were warning against being drawn into Israeli provocations and entering into a destructive war that would be a disaster for both sides, and more so for our people in the Gaza Strip.
And I said in an article last Sunday that no one should be surprised if that day passed with restraint on the part of Gaza and the failure to ignite the fuse, and that wisdom necessitates that the resistance not dance to the rhythm of the Israelis’ drums and that it chooses the appropriate time that makes the Israelis dance to the rhythm of its own drums, and this What happened to the first apartment?
Today, a week later, we find ourselves in the same place. Today, the Israelis celebrate what they call Shavuot (a day that falls in the third month after the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and has several names, including the day of the wheat harvest and “the day of the revelation of the Torah,” although it is not mentioned in the Torah). Today, too, Jewish extremists are calling for intense mass storming of Al-Aqsa, provocative celebrations in its courtyards, and Jewish prayers in its vicinity. This is something that should not be allowed to happen and become a habit and tradition for them.
A week after the events of last Sunday, 29/5, one is still under the weight of the memories of the extreme brutal scenes that Jerusalem witnessed on that day, and the barbaric attacks that took place against Jerusalem’s girls, women, elders, young men, and children, provocations to citizens in general, and the desecration of the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque by people who exploit religion for purposes. Colonial settlement that has nothing to do with religion.
Despite the fact that the people of Jerusalem, with all their components, responded to this provocative aggression with their bare chests and were subjected to beatings with police batons, gas and pepper bombs, and arrests, both females and males, while they confronted the mob of settlers and thousands of soldiers from the occupation police and security men, they succeeded in turning the day of the Israeli flags march in Jerusalem into a day The Palestinian flag carried by hundreds, if not thousands, starting with Salah al-Din Street, passing through the Gate of the Column and the alleys and markets of Jerusalem. They released the flag so that it fluttered over the Old City of Jerusalem on its steadfast people who broke the wall of fear and thwarted the euphoria of the victory of the racist settlers and thwarted their hopes. But the question that arises strongly is: Can the national issue be reduced to a march against a march, a flag against a flag, and will the settlers' marches in Jerusalem turn into a regular, recurring event? Or is it necessary to prevent this from happening and to deal with all subsidiary issues as elements that fall under the concept that there is an occupation and that all these detachments are the results of the occupation and that putting an end to them can only be achieved through ending the occupation.?
The problem is not only in raising the flag or not raising it, and it is not in the permissibility of Al-Aqsa without reluctance, or in the permissibility accompanied by reluctance, which is more like a usurped screaming and crying without responding to its cry. The problem is not that the entry is through the column, the tribes, or the Mughrabi gate. Also, the problem is not whether the Qatari bags came from Lod airport or the Rafah crossing! How, when and under what conditions.
The problem can be summed up in one word "occupation" and ending it can only be done by ending the occupation. Ending the occupation cannot take place as long as the current situation continues as if it is a way of life, and there are people who continue the occupation and glorify its praise, and others who sat on the fence watching what is happening as if nothing concerned them.
What worries me is that the current situation is rooted in the Palestinian subconscious and that people get used to living under the occupation as if it were a written fate, and this should be called "normalization of the occupation" and I do not mean normalization with the occupation, because there is a huge difference between the two. Because "normalization of the occupation" is, in my opinion, submissiveness and submission to it and acceptance of living under it and in accordance with its laws, while "normalization with the occupation" is arrogance and claiming that you can be a partner of the occupation and expect it to deal with you in the concept of partnership and equality on the ground of the de facto facts that it controls. .
It is not permissible for the leadership to turn into a routine management of daily affairs within the ceiling and standards of the occupation and in accordance with its dictates. And that its compass be what Beit El or the Coordinator's office in Tel Aviv can accept or not accept. It is not permissible for some of us to devote ourselves to collecting money and fattening the personal economic affairs at the expense of starving the country's economy, as if the current situation is a Friday of Mischieh that is about to end.
The image, and not necessarily all its details, is a shocking image that tries to hide its hideous face under a thick mask of pigments and homemade makeup far from Chanel, Giorgio, Estee Lauder, and even Christian Dior.
Our feelings have not yet been liberated from the effects of the trauma of those extremist attacks against us, insults, provocations, and the scenes that we lived through last Sunday, May 29, and which could be repeated today, tomorrow, and perhaps throughout this week, month, and year.
Today, Sunday 5/6, is the day of the setback of June 1967, and our falling under the Israeli occupation, which continued to encroach and persevere against us day after day and year after year until the so-called “peace process” made us lose all our prestige and dignity and opened the door wide to the perpetuation of the occupation, the legitimization of annexation, settlement, and the appropriation of land Show and human. Fifty-five years of our lives were spent witnessing the injustice and injustice of the occupation, the collapse of the national system and its consistency with the occupation, and the transformation of large parts of it into tools in the hands of the occupation. Fifty-five years during which we witnessed how the national project could be transformed into people’s projects, how the PLO was emptied of its content and its structures dismantled, how the dream of the state shrunk into authority, and how the authority shrank after its three authorities collapsed and merged with each other into a subcontractor to manage daily affairs and the rope is on the horizon. There may come a day when she will be told thank you, your turn is over!
We need a high-voltage electric shock, so that we may wake up from the reality to which we are accustomed and slept with the sound of its windmills. What is happening today on the 5th of June 2022, whether the occupation persists in its oppression and oppression, or the failure of the defaulters and the normalizers, or the normalization of Judaization and incursions into the greatest symbol of national and religious dignity, must cause the high-voltage electric shock that we desperately need before clinical death.
A questioner may ask: How? You have the answer, I don't. What is important is that you reject the "normalization of the occupation" and refuse to turn it into a state of mind that occupies your minds and souls.
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Normalization of the occupation, normalization with the occupation, or ending the occupation!