The bitter reality for us Palestinians in Gaza is that we are alone, besieged, besieged and considered unwanted, even by some of those who are supposed to be our brothers. Forty-five days of barbaric massacres cost the lives of more than 14,000 people, including more than 6,000 children and 3,500 women.
Among the thousands of men who were killed were university students, doctors, nurses, traders and young people sent by their families in search of food or water.
More than 7,000 people are still missing, including 4,000 children – most of them dead, buried under the rubble of their homes.
Others die in hospitals that were bombed and rendered inoperable, and in the few that still function but cannot cope with the tens of thousands of wounded due to lack of staff and medical supplies. Soon, more people will die from disease, hunger and the winter cold.
Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilian homes has completely removed hundreds of families from the population register. Some 1.7 million people have been displaced.
For 45 days, the Palestinians were left alone to face the assaults of the fourth most powerful army in the world, which possesses 200 nuclear weapons, hundreds of F-16 planes, attack helicopters, gunboats, tanks, combat and armored vehicles, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers. and reservists.
As the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza reaches unimaginable levels, some Arab regimes have been content to issue timid statements of denunciation and condemnation. Nothing more.
In fact, Arab regimes have failed the Palestinians since 1948, and to this day, official Arab positions are a mixture of cowardice and hypocrisy. It has now been 17 years since they failed to end the Israeli siege of Gaza and they have failed to end the Israeli genocide either.
We in Gaza now wonder how timid expressions of support coming from the streets and capitals of Arab nations can be transformed into concrete actions in the absence of democracy. We wonder if Arabs living under authoritarian and oligarchic regimes can change them nonviolently.
We exhaust ourselves trying to determine the possible means available to achieve democratic political change, because with the genocide in Gaza and the apartheid regime in the rest of Palestine, we have seen no practical translation of the solidarity shown by certain Arab peoples with Palestine. .
Desmond Tutu, the late South African anti-apartheid activist and Anglican bishop, once said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. »
As I argued during Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza in 2009, 2012, and 2014, the United Nations, European Union, and Arab states have not been neutral; they have remained largely silent about the atrocities committed by Israeli forces. When thousands of corpses of women and children failed to convince them of the need for action, they took Israel’s side.
This state of affairs presents Palestinians in Gaza with two choices: die dishonorably while thanking our killers for a trickle of food and water; or fight for our dignity, for ourselves and for generations to come. It is now clear that after years of self-deception which presented slavery to the occupier as a fait accompli, we chose the second option.
But instead of recognizing our resistance as such and viewing it in the context of the decades-long Palestinian struggle for freedom from occupation and apartheid, the international community instead reduces it to a “conflict » between two “equal” camps.
The current truce and the longer-term ceasefire initiative reflect this attitude. They completely ignore the fact that Israel has two clear objectives in its war against Gaza: to massacre as many Palestinians as possible by targeting Palestinian civilians; and the elimination of any possibility of resistance in order to maintain stability in this open-air concentration camp.
It seems that what the international community demands of Palestinians is that they behave like “domestic slaves” and be grateful for the crumbs their white masters leave them. They must appreciate the trickle of food and water that allows them to barely survive and accept their slow death. They have to admit that if they die, it’s their fault.
But Palestinians in Gaza and beyond will not accept.
Accordingly, any agreement that does not lead to the immediate lifting of the blockade, the reopening of the Rafah crossing and all other crossings in a manner that allows the introduction of food, fuel, medicine and all other needs – in conjunction with an agreement An agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and apartheid and upholds the Palestinian right of return – will not be acceptable to the people of Gaza.
The greatest source of concern for the Israeli “masters”, their Western allies and their Arab lackeys, would be if we raised the ceiling of our demands to this level; demand that the conflict be placed in the context of the multifaceted colonial enterprise, occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
October 7 is a pivotal moment in Palestinian history. Gaza and the rest of Palestine aspire to leadership that lives up to this historic moment, leadership that would take the following steps without further delay:
Adopt a total cessation of security coordination with Israel;
Apply to the International Criminal Court and prosecute Israeli political and military leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity;
Review all agreements signed with Israel, in particular the Oslo Accords and related agreements;
Declare a clear position on any initiative that does not take into account the need for an immediate end to the siege, the reopening of all crossing points and the restoration of full freedom of movement.
Any discussion of improving conditions of oppression in light of Gaza’s great sacrifices is a betrayal of Palestinian martyrs. It is time to start discussing radical solutions, away from the “interim agenda” and the Bantustan-style state, and to adopt a clear slogan: end the occupation, end apartheid and end to settler colonialism. This is the only way the loss of thousands of lives in Gaza was not in vain.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
