03-01-06,9:00am
Day after day, unabated since the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections that took place last January, the usual anti-Arab and pro-Zionist elements, disguised as journalists and analysts, forecast a black future for the Palestinians under the rule of Hamas. At the same time, the usual mafiosi, disguised as political leaders in favour of the ‘peace process’, threaten and blackmail the Palestinians for choosing a political project that does not fit Israel, United States (US) and European Union (EU) agendas in the Middle East.
We only hear that the ‘terrorists’ got the power, that the ‘Muslim fundamentalists’ are going to increase their links with other extremist groups and governments in the area, and that they are a danger for Israel.
If you are satisfied with what TV and radio stations and newspapers in the West say about political developments in Palestine, there is no need for you to keep on reading this. However, if you suspect that there is something wrong in US and EU insistence that Hamas has to give up violence, recognize Israel, and hand over its arms, when Israel is occupying Palestinian land, stealing and destroying Palestinian resources, killing, maiming and imprisoning thousands of Palestinians and making life unbearable for all of them, without international opposition, rather the contrary, with the economic, military and political support of the major Western powers, you may find here information concealed by those who benefit from the status quo.
Let us turn the clock back those years. At the beginning of the twentieth century Palestine was a British mandate. Colonialism was still widespread. The Queen presented the Zionist movement with the opportunity to settle in that land although it was not hers. Zionists took advantage of the offer and eventually established there the state of Israel only for Jews from all over the world in 1948. At the same time around 750.000 Palestinians who lived there generation after generation were made refugees. Zionists took by force a land that was inhabited by native Palestinians. They had to pay with their land and their exile in order to foot other peoples’ bills.
Since then things have only deteriorated for Palestinians as Israel has kept on acquiring more Arab land, preventing them and their descendants from coming back to their homes and impeding the exercise of their rights. Since 1948 Israel is permanently in breach of international law, particularly violating United Nations (UN) resolutions and Geneva Conventions, which mean the international community is also responsible for the Palestinians fate today as it was at the beginning of the conflict.
The Palestinian problem is usually presented as a complex political issue, with religious, historic and cultural ramifications. In fact, what has being taking place in Palestine can be easily explained without technicalities: land robbery together with native population expulsion in 1947 and 1948, more land occupation in 1967 and never ending brutal repression of its population in order to make the Palestinians abandon the occupied land for good or, failing this, any hope of ever recovering it and enjoying their national and human rights.
In spite of this, for many people in the West -obviously not for people in the Middle East and other subjugated areas- it is the Palestinians who are responsible for the violence and the lack of peace in the zone and beyond. So, the victims are blamed for not acquiescing to the robbery, the ethnic cleansing and the wild repression. Simply forget about what standard media say and take a pause to reflect about what you would do if you were in Palestinians shoes.
Few people seem to pay attention to the fact that neither land occupation nor the exploitation of its resources can take place without the violence by the occupier against the occupied. The history of colonialism is the history of the violence by powerful and aggressive nations against defenceless ones. Israel is neither the first not the only country taking advantage of its overwhelming power: remember the tanks and the fighter planes against stones and home made rockets? This unparalleled imbalance shows which side is terrorising the other.
Palestinians are neither the only people subjugated nor the only ones who try and resist the occupier. It should be clear that there is quite a difference between the oppressor and the oppressed, between the aggressor’s violence and the victim’s. It is one thing to attack others and another thing to defend oneself, especially when the forces are so disparate in all respects. Palestinians, as it happens with any other population under occupation, have a right to resist, which is recognised by international law and this is superior to ‘peace processes’, ‘Oslo agreements’, ‘road maps’ and any other political tricks detrimental to the weakest party.
The preferred story in Western media is that Palestinians want to destroy Israel, obviating that they hardly survive under its military boot, as every human rights organization -even Israeli- declare. It is not mentioned either that Israel is one of the few nuclear powers in the world and the only one in the area, let alone the support it enjoys from the US. Did you ever think how Palestinians could destroy Israel with stones and explosive belts? Is it not highly suspicious that the same people who spread that story are Israel’s supporters? Were not for the tragic situation, it could be simply a kids joke to ask Palestinian fighters to give up their home made arms and subsidize Israel’s nuclear army instead. Were not for the grave breach of international law, it would be just a soap opera scene to ask the Palestinians to recognise its oppressor and bless this for violating Palestinians rights.
Palestinians have no place in their own land because Israel wants it for the exclusive settlement of Jews. That is why it is necessary to make life unbearable for them: assassinations, imprisonment, concentration camp-like living conditions, lack of justice and hope, continuous humiliation... so they finally give up and leave for good. It is a slow motion genocide or more precisely a Palestinian Holocaust, a fitting and underused word today for what is going on in Palestine and the Middle East. This pass unnoticed in Western media. Only when the victims react out of desperation, they appear in front pages under the ‘terror’ headlines.
Lately, the ‘Islam factor’ has been added by Western propagandists, so this religion has become part and parcel of the war against terror. Oddly enough, Jewish and Christian two thousand pound missiles launched in a Gaza crowded neighbourhood are not the products of religious fundamentalism. The victims are either collateral damage or wanted terrorists, never the target of cruel and pitiless Jewish and Christian extremists against innocent Muslim people.
The problem has nothing to do with religion. There is a Palestinian liberation struggle well before political Islam became a wild card, before communism was the West beast, before pan-Arab movements emerged. Simply put: no people want to be deprived of their land and become a slave or refugee population. Resistance is impeccably logical, morally correct and an internationally recognised right. The rest is just propaganda, useful for the oppressors but not for the victims.
Curiously enough, some left wing people in the West are unhappy with Hamas victory. Some are shy to show support, let alone joy for the elections results. It is easier to be leftist under the protection of the law and the monthly check than under the bullets and the shortage of food, but it also a disgrace. No left, no green, no social-democrat or liberal party in Europe and in America has been able to prevent the massacres in Jenin, Rafah, Hebron, Jabalia... none of them has been able to take those responsible to court. Should Palestinians wait for another 50 years to get protection from Western left wing parties?
Do leftist parties miss the times of Fateh running the Palestinian Authority? Then, you should ask those: where was the liberation struggle going to? And answer: towards more and more Palestinians being killed, imprisoned and living under the poverty line, while more and more Palestinian land going under Israel control and this with the blessing of the international community for the sake of the ‘peace process’.
The left asks for dialogue between the parties, but it does not say about what exactly Abu Mazen could be talking to Sharon. It simply asks Sharon to show restrain and Abu Mazen to give up Palestinian rights. This is hardly a dialogue, this is the imposition of the powerful over the weak. The left should ask Israel to comply with international law: end the occupation, return the land, free the prisoners, allow the return of the refugees, apologise and pay compensations for all the damage caused since 1947. Later on, the left could ask both Israelis and Palestinians to give up their arms, for mutual recognition and even start folk music exchanges.
Fed up with the robbery of land and the violation of their rights by Israel, together with the ensuing corruption of their own leaders -who instead of confronting the overwhelming task of changing the situation, cowardly preferred to obtain benefits for themselves and their cronies from it- the Palestinian people voted them out of power, a clearly democratic, peaceful and leftist option. Rather late, after 40 years of occupation, a true leftist would say, but it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel (the lies of the peace process), it is quite difficult to fight two enemies at the same time: the Zionist and the internal (the collaborators in the government).
Fortunately, things have turned around last january. The internal enemy has been defeated¡ Now it is time to wholeheartedly support Hamas. The majority of the Palestinians voted for Hamas. The mockery of the peace process is finished. To hell with the donors money, a money mainly devoted to pay the acquiescence of the rulers and the salaries of the security forces, in fact fictitious but harmful jobs.
A time of hope has arrived for prisoners, widows, orphans, poor and oppressed people. It is the time of renewing the martyrs resistance. It is the time of joy for supporters of “justice, then peace” (Isaiah) around the world.
It is also a time of uncertainty, the fight could turn even harder and deadly. Threats already launched by Israel and some powerful countries leave room to foresee the price Palestinians will have to pay to achieve their national aims. Everything is against them, but as Khaled Mashal says “your efforts to make us abandon our principles and our struggle are useless”. For these words Palestinians have voted Hamas, for these words Hamas deserve our support, these are Palestinian people words.
Agustín Velloso de Santisteban received his Ph.D. in Education from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain, where he is a lecturer in Comparative Education. He specialises in education in Palestine and education for refugees. He has been Visiting Fellow at London University, Reading University and Stanford University.
