op-ed: Children's courage, our hope to the future

The colonial settlers can practice ceremonial dancing, all kinds of music, because they are expanding and influential and partners with the decision-makers in the religious right-wing coalition government. However, they will not be able to take over the homeland of the people of Palestine, the Golan Heights of Syria, and the heights of southern Lebanon, because they are strangers to it, even if they possess power and the tools of oppression and killing. Weapons alone do not defeat people in front of their occupiers, and occupation, any occupation, will not be able to seize or continue to seize the capabilities of a homeland and the dignity of another people.

This is what happened in Algeria, Yemen, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and many countries and peoples of the world, and this also happened to the people of Palestine. Although Palestine is still in the midst of the turmoil, and inside the battle, and the results are not yet clear. However, it must be clear that the Israeli expansionist colonial project has succeeded in occupying Palestine, but it has failed strategically in expelling, displacing and alienating all the Palestinian Arab people from the entire land of their homeland. Today, they are more than seven million people in their homeland, that is, they are not a community, they are not a minority, they are not a submissive people who surrender before the colonial power and supremacy, but they are a people who rose from poverty and inferiority.

The settlement project also failed to domesticate the first Palestinian component in the regions of Carmel, Galilee, Triangle, Negev, and the five mixed Palestinian coastal cities with an Israeli majority and a Palestinian minority: Lod, Ramla, Jaffa, Haifa, and Acre.

Their project to Israelize  the Palestinians for 75 years since 1948 has failed. Attempts to push them to leave their patriotism and nationalism, and their principled adherence to their Islam, Christianity and Druze, have been made with strength and faith. Rather, they have proven more than once that they are an integral part of the Palestinian Arab people, and an extension of the second component, the people of the regions of the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and an extension of the third Palestinian component: the children of refugees and displaced persons, who hold the right of return in accordance with International Resolution 194, their right of return to the cities and villages from which they were expelled and displaced. .

So the settlers can dance and show off, but they will be no better off than the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, and the Europeans in Rhodesia and South Africa.

The Palestinians, with their three components, and their geographical distribution, cling to their three rights: 1- The right to equality in the 48 areas, 2- The right to independence in the 67 areas, 3- The right of return for the refugees, and therefore the three rights of the Palestinian people will not die, as long as there are those behind them who demand their restoration, in a gradual, multi-stage manner. . The open battles, with the toughness of young men and women, before men and the elderly, and their sacrifices are only an indication of the continuity of survival, steadfastness and the continuation of the struggle.

I was in Aqaba at the breakfast table and two children were sitting at a nearby table alone. I said hello guys, and they answered: Welcome, I said where are you from? They both answered from Palestine. I was happy with that, and I thought they were from the Palestinian West Bank. I was astonished when I asked where Fadi said: From Acre, and this is my friend Samir from Shefa Amr!!

Imagine that these two children, who are not more than eight years old, said that they are from Palestine, from Acre and Shefa Amr, and I asked who taught you that?? Fadi said: My father works as a lawyer. I got to know him and thanked him strongly for the right answer and the courage of Fadi and his friend Samir.