Palestine will continue to write despite Zionist incitement

Over the course of three days, from the 22nd to the 24th of this month, the “Palestine Writes” festival was held at the University of Pennsylvania in the American city of Philadelphia, organized by Palestinian intellectuals and academics, and foreign activists from many countries, with support, funding, and donations from Palestinian and American institutions, organizations, and unions, and representatives of the Palestinian community in America, individuals.

This national cultural event was an overwhelming success, as it enjoyed massive participation from dozens of Palestinian and foreign writers, writers, intellectuals, and artists, from Palestine, America, and the diaspora countries, who presented their interventions, and more than 1,400 attended the events, directly inside the halls, other than those attending via social networks, so that tickets were sold out. Exactly, the activities were not limited to literature in the fields of novels, poetry, and stories through seminars and lectures, but rather varied to include photography exhibitions, discussion panels, music workshops, programs for children and family, traditional Palestinian food, theatrical performances, and Dabkeh.

Attendance at the events exceeded expectations, according to the festival’s organizers, to the point that it required booking additional halls within the university. This was a blow to the Zionist incitement campaign against the festival, its activities, and its participants, which reached the point of hysteria, and escalated as they failed, despite pressure, to push the university administration to cancel the festival on campus. Of course, the Zionists only had the ready-made accusation, which was always ridiculous and trivial, and which now arouses ridicule. We mean the accusation of anti-Semitism, as a ready-made accusation against any activity that denounces the occupation practices and Zionist racism that is steeped in its fascism, propaganda based on lies that are the essence of the Zionist movement.

The festival can be considered an important national cultural event for many reasons, perhaps the most important of which is that it constitutes a contribution to strengthening the components of identity in the fields of culture in general, and literary and poetic production in particular, in addition to displaying and promoting basic symbols of those components such as dabke, music, types of food, folk stories, and photography.

The importance of demonstrating and strengthening these components of identity acquires exceptional importance because it is directed primarily to two groups that I believe are in dire need of this effort, the first of which is the Palestinian/American community, especially the youth age groups, and the need to strengthen their affiliation and role in the national struggle in their locations, and through mechanisms and means that they introduce that are compatible with The privacy of its location and the audience it targets. The second is the Americans, among whom the propaganda and media role must be escalated to gain their position against the Zionist entity, its fascist practices against our people, and against its extensions of lobbies organized into Zionist federations and blocs, which are hostile with increasing hysteria to any Palestinian activity inside America. The propaganda and media role must escalate in the face of propaganda. These lobbyists distort the struggle of our people.

It was not surprising the amount of hostility and hysterical incitement carried out by the Zionist lobbies, especially in light of the new reality that has indicated for years the increase in Jewish youth circles, especially in universities, which take a critical stance on Zionist racist practices, despite the different starting points and motives among the various youth blocs. This development has become disturbing to Zionists, whether in the Zionist entity, or activists in the Zionist lobbies in America and various European countries, especially with the successes that the BDS movement has achieved and continues to achieve. The holding of the festival and its success in this manner, despite the hysterical incitement from the Zionists, confirms the centrality and importance of this event, such that this event became a message and a lesson at the same time. A message to the Zionists on the one hand that you cannot silence the voice of truth, the voice of Palestine, and Palestine will continue to write and will not be intimidated by your racist incitement, and a lesson for Palestinian activists and foreign solidarity activists, that it is possible, with perseverance, determination and challenge, to succeed in organizing various solidarity activities with our people and against the racist practices of the Zionists, despite the incitement. The hysterical Zionist.

It was a festival called (Palestine Writes), and it actually wrote, and it will continue to write and nothing will stop it, until our people can write the last page in their history, the page of liberation and return.