On Heroes and Preachers: Gaza's New Resistance Paradigm
14 September 2014
By Ramzy Baroud
"Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison,
of course!," was the title of an article by Jo Ehrlich
published in Modoweiss.net on Dec 21, 2009. That was
almost exactly one year after Israel's concluded a
major war against Gaza. The so-called Operation Cast
Lead (December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009) was, till
then, the deadliest Israeli attack against the
impoverished strip for many years.
Ehrlich was not in the least being belittling by
raising the question about the ‘Palestinian Gandhi'
but responding to the patronization of others. Right
from the onset, he remarked: "Not that I'm in any way
playing into the Palestinian Gandhi dialogue, I think
it's actually pretty diversionary/racist. But
sometimes you have to laugh in order not to cry.."
Indeed, the question was and remains condescending,
ignorant, patronizing and utterly racist. But the
question was also pervasive, including among people
who classify themselves as ‘pro-Palestinian
activists'.
Now that Israel's latest war – so-called Operation
Protective Edge – has surpassed Cast Lead, in terms of
duration, causalities, level of destruction, but also
the sheer horrendousness of its targeting of
civilians, as dozens of families were entirely wiped
out – the Gandhi question seems more muted than usual.
To understand why, one needs to first examine the
reason of why Palestinians were demanded to produce a
non-violent Gandhi alternative in their struggle for
freedom in the first place.
The Second Palestinian Intifada or uprising
(2000-2005) was inaugurated with an extremely violent
Israeli response. Israeli leaders at the time meant to
send a message to late Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat that they had no patience for any act of
collective defiance, as they were convinced that
Arafat engineered the Intifada to strengthen his
political possession in the ‘peace talks', which,
ultimately proved a farce.
Caught in an impossible situation – massive US-fed
Israeli war machine that harvested hundreds of lives
every month– and having no faith in their leadership,
Palestinians resorted to arms, using suicide bombings
as well as other violent methods. The tactic raised
much controversy – due to the death toll among Israeli
civilians – and was quickly used in Israel-western
propaganda to, retrospectively explain Israel's
military occupation, and justify its harsh military
tactics.
Those who dared explain Palestinian violence within
its proper and larger context, or underscore that many
more Palestinian civilians were still being killed by
the Israeli army were shunned by the media, and, at
times, were seen as a liability by those who insisted
to classify Palestinians within a narrative of
victimization.
Many westerners (from presidents, to philosophers, to
journalists, to social media activists..) deliberated
the matter with much enthusiasm. The fact that few
western countries have truly experienced anti-colonial
national liberation struggle in its modern history,
thus lack real understanding of the humiliation and
anger experienced by colonized nations, seemed to
matter little. Some were simply concerned about
Israel, and no one else; others, wanted to preserve
the image of the Palestinian as an occupied, hapless,
eternal victim.
The most obscene presentation of this language was
made by then-newly elected US President Barack Obama,
who stood at a Cairo university podium on June 4,
2009, to convey to Palestinians a most denigrating,
insensitive and highly inaccurate message:
"Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance
through violence and killing is wrong and it does not
succeed. For centuries, black people in America
suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the
humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence
that won full and equal rights.. This same story can
be told by people from South Africa to South Asia;
from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a
simple truth: that violence is a dead end."
Obama's message painted the Palestinian struggle as an
abnormality in an otherwise a perfectly peaceful
national liberation struggles around the world. The
message is of course untrue. More, he either didn't
know or wished to ignore Palestinian history where
popular, nonviolent resistance that goes back to the
1920's and 30's, and arguably, earlier than that.
Obama, like many others, failed to appreciate the
level of extreme Israeli violence, which employ
weapons that Obama had himself supplied Tel Aviv, to
subdue Palestinian resistance and maintain a
relatively easy military occupation and thriving
Jewish settlements built illegally on stolen
Palestinian land.
But the decisive point in the discussion was the
Second Intifada, which wrought much Israeli violence
resulting in the death of thousands. The political
implications of the uprising were also quite
significant as it divided Palestinians between those
who were intimidating by the Israeli tactics into
submissions (the so-called moderates), and others who
seemed unrepentant (the so-called radicals).
For nearly ten years now, the debate raged. Some out
rightly condemned Palestinian armed resistance, others
offered mutual criticism of Israeli and Hamas
violence, while another group simply preached about
the futility of armed struggle in the face of a
country with nuclear weapons capable of blowing up
much of the globe at the push of a button.
That debate, although made for an exquisite discussion
on online newspapers and social media, hardly
registered amongst ordinary Palestinians, especially
those in Gaza. While Gaza intellectuals did contend
with new ideas of how to build international
solidarity to end the Israeli siege, get their message
out to the world, and even question the timing of
firing rockets into Israel, few probed the principle
of armed resistance.
Of course, Palestinians know best, much better than
Obama and other preachers elsewhere. They know that
collective resistance is not always a tactic
determined through social media discussions; that when
one's children are pulverised by US-supplied killing
technology, there is no time to lay flat and sing ‘we
shall overcome,' but to prevent the rest of the tanks
from entering into the neighbourhood – be it Shujaiya,
Jabalya or Maghazi. They also know that Israeli
violence is a result of a decided political agenda,
and is not tailored around the nature of Palestinian
resistance. But more importantly, history has taught
them, that when Israelis come to Gaza as invaders, few
will stand in Gaza's defence before the
western-financed death machine, but Gaza's own sons
and daughters. If Gazans don't defend their cities, no
one else will.
Although the disparity of the fight between Israel and
Palestinian resistance is as highlighted today as ever
before, Palestinian resistance has matured. The fact
that they killed dozens of soldiers and only three
civilians should be noted, as is Israel's disgraceful
targeting of hospitals, schools, UN shelters and even
graveyards. Maintaining that level of discipline in
the most unequalled fight one can imagine is as close
to the very battlefield ethics that the US and Israel
often breach, but never, ever respect.
As great as Gandhi was in the context of his country's
struggle against colonialism, which remains a source
of inspiration for many Palestinians, Palestine has
its own heroes, resisters, women and men who are
engraving a legend of their own in Gaza and the rest
of Palestine.
As for those who have busily asked the question of
where is the Palestinian Gandhi, it is much more
affective for them to use their energies to block
their governments' shipments of weapons to Israel,
which, as of August 1, killed nearly 1,500 and wounded
over 8,000, vast majority of them are civilians.
- Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People's History
at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor
of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a media
consultant, an author and the founder of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father
Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto
Press, London).
©
EsinIslam.Com
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