Gaza restores the centrality of the Palestinian issue

By Dalal Al-Bizri

The entire planet was somewhere else before October 7 (last month), and the Palestinians are a forgotten people, except in the halls of bidding and pretexts, and the idea of the centrality of their Arab cause is fading away. But now, no. The event, from its beginning, triggered an earthquake, the epicenter of which was the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The earth's crust trembled, and a tremendous energy of violence, annihilation, and destruction emanated from within it. What disturbed the balances, beliefs and arrangements that were almost stable, but highly fluid.

Israel existentially. Let us remember: The utopian Zionist ambition, the basis of Israel's existential doctrine, calls for the establishment of a state that gives the Jews a "final, natural and secure" homeland. This doctrine is more shaken today than ever before. And with it, the idea that establishing a Jewish state would make the Jews happy and secure was disturbed. The condition for these two, happiness and security, was for Israel to have a strong state, a modern economy, and a great army. The three received a direct hit.

What happened was that these foundations were shaken on October 7th. There was no Israeli left who did not comment on his method, and from the angle in which he stood, from officials to ambassadors to novelists and intellectuals, who expressed an existential crisis in the literal sense of the word, that is, the crisis of the existence of the Jews on this part of the earth. They expressed their existential crisis in various twisted ways.

The Israeli historian, Yuval Harari, did not escape the conflict that gripped major Israeli heads. All he had to say was to blame the “global left” for a statement he issued that did not refer to “Hamas’ atrocities,” but rather expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. He affirms that “Israel has no intention of killing civilians without accountability,” and ends his speech by comparing Assad and Netanyahu, as the latter will not reach “what the Assad regime did (to the Syrian people) in Homs and Hama.” The few demonstrations in Tel Aviv, demanding an end to the massacre against the people of Gaza, did not raise in this “sensitive” historian the question about this existential dilemma of Israel. The protesting Israeli street, although small, seemed less dogmatic than it was.

The global left, meaning European and American, is witnessing at home the deepest debates, divisions, and historical references

This global left, meaning European and American, is witnessing at home the deepest debates, divisions, and historical references. In France, the two presidents, Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac, emerged from the archives of history, and Gaullists spoke of the honor of the two men defending Palestine, the first by speaking the truth, and the second by confronting the Israeli army in the heart of Jerusalem... the opposite of which the current president utters, “polluting the French conscience.” The French parties were divided between a (moderate) right that likened Hamas to ISIS and said that it was a war of civilizations between the democratic West, Islamists and terrorism, and a center party that reconciled one of its poles with a “balanced” formula: “If Hamas’s barbaric violence is without excuse, it is not with no reason". Among the left-wing parties, most of them in a coalition, they are divided among themselves, between absolute solidarity with the Palestinian people, and solidarity with “reservations” regarding the “Hamas” operation. While the extreme right laughs in its face; His theories about the "clash of civilizations"  are now evident in Gaza in the brightest ways. It proves what its theorists and novelists, who believe in the “Great Replacement” theory, reveal, that Muslims will rule Europe after two or three generations.

In Germany, where the largest European Palestinian community is (80,000), all expressions of support for the Palestinians were initially banned. History was exhumed, and German guilt towards the Jews came as justification for the ban. German Chancellor Olaf Schulz declared on behalf of the majority: “Our responsibility in the Holocaust requires us to defend Israel’s existence and security every minute.”

In Britain, which witnessed the largest supportive demonstrations, the British government said that it banned the raising of the Palestinian flag, “because some of them see it as an echo of the Balfour Declaration, which was accompanied by Arthur James Balfour, the conservative British Prime Minister, in the early last century, and it is known that this declaration included” A promise to the Jews to establish the State of Israel in Palestine.

The issue of Palestine has become more central. Not only in awareness or in individual or collective stories, but in the delicate intertwining that the Palestinians have created over the years, between different, far-flung worlds.

In Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Greece... Even “neutral” Switzerland, divisions over Palestine intensified, and there were demonstrations, platforms, and personalities who broke their calm, denouncing and clarifying. The pretext for all these governments is the escalating incidents of “anti-Semitism.” That label does not distinguish between hostility to Israel and hostility to the Jews. The American echo will be loud: thousands of American Jews are demonstrating in solidarity with Palestine. In the last demonstration, two hundred of them were arrested. In Canada, the same thing happens. In every demonstration in its cities, you find rabbis, wearing their traditional dress, along with those wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh, raising slogans of rejection of the establishment of Israel.

In Russia, Putin rubs his hands in joy and optimism. The gift came to him from heaven. The return of this war to the Middle East is good news for him, because it is diverting the world away from Ukraine, in favor of Russia. The position and the opinions loyal to it came to the fore: The West, which speaks about international rights and crimes, is measuring that Western “malice” by “double” standards. 

The war on Gaza is a blessing for Moscow, allowing it to break out of its isolation imposed on it by the "murderous West." Russia has eight hostages held by Hamas, who hold its nationality. It is trying to put on the guise of a strong connection with the Palestinians, so it receives figures from Hamas to search for those hostages. With no use. But it is enough for it to appear at the world without its tanks directed against Ukraine.

This is what is recorded at the “macro” level. Where history and the divisions around it are present: the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, the civilizational war, Islamophobia, the history of the founding of Israel, the history of the Palestinian diaspora, and a huge amount of retrospectives to aborted facts, agreements and peace projects, or to the experiments of other non-Islamic ideologies with this weapon of resistance. What is certain is that we did not capture all the indicators. 

History now moves quickly, as if it were running. Our limited minds cannot capture all the feats or failures of this run. But there is micro, there is also mini. They are Palestinian individuals, scattered throughout the world. In the most remote points of the world. Like the Canadian-Palestinian residing in Calgary, whose name is Tamer Jarada. He was told that 11 members of his family were killed, namely his mother, father, and daughters, while five others remained under the rubble, including his nephews and cousins. He talks about his tragedy in a tape shown on the Canadian News website, which received a huge number of views.

The Palestine issue has been dormant for a long time, and we have forgotten it. We have fled from those who have pretexts to carry it. Today, it has become more central.

The famous Bassem Youssef, who lives in the United States, announces in an interview about the war in Gaza, that he is married to a Palestinian from Gaza, her name is Hala Diab, a doctor, her family is there, and she is worried about them, living under the impact of Israel’s strikes on her. The less well-known Pakistani Hamza Yousef, although he is the Prime Minister of Scotland, announced to the press that he and his Palestinian wife, Nadia Al-Nakla, also from Gaza, were worried about her family who were besieged in Gaza, where they were visiting their relatives. He added that the Israeli authorities asked his wife's parents to leave, "but did not guarantee them safe passage." 

The Palestinian child, Wadih Al-Fayoumi, had a harsher fate than the war. In Illinois, Chicago, a six-year-old boy received 26 stab wounds from his seventy-year-old neighbor, who had been courting him on the eve of the war, and who kept repeating as he stabbed the child, “You Muslims must die!” The mother also received her share of stabbings, and here she is lying in the hospital.

Reactions to the crime were measured. But what is noteworthy is that psychological experts intervened in the matter and began providing advice to families, published by various American websites. Their first question was: “How should parents and teachers talk about the war between Israel and Hamas?” And answer it with a list of tips: address the topic first, listen to what these children are saying, use normal language appropriate for their age, avoid binaries, correct incorrect information, and focus on the children. Finally, review your information and analyzes and take some distance from them.

The Palestine issue has been dormant for a long time, and we have forgotten it. We have fled from those who have pretexts to carry it. Today, it has become more central. Not only in awareness or in individual or collective stories, but in that delicate intertwining that the Palestinians have created over the years, between different, far-flung worlds. We have only described a little of this entanglement that has come to us. 

What is more than this little: either it has not reached our awareness, or it is late because it is still embryonic, or there are secrets that protect it from the light. All this and we did not talk about what entered the minds of the Arab peoples, or left them, after the “Al-Aqsa Flood.”

Source: Al-Araby Al-Jadeed