Lie and then lie until people believe you. This is how the modern media propaganda machine has worked since the development of communication and media.
The lie was really big in the last century: “A land without a people, for a people without a land.” This was the first lie that was followed by many other lies, such as “The Promised Land” and many others. However, no matter how many such lies were repeated, and no matter how many people believed them, or tried to believe them, The truth remains firmly established, which is that Palestine has been the country of the Palestinians for thousands of years.
Here, documentation is important, and even becomes extremely important, as it is the basic foundation on which the truth is based, and the main tool for refuting lies and attempts to obscure facts.
The book “Martyr Palestine… a pictorial record of some of the atrocities of the British and the Jews 1921-1938” documents with rare pictures the crimes of the English occupation of Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews according to the Balfour Declaration. The book begins by documenting the revolution of 1921 in the city of Jaffa and its environs, which reached the Tulkarm region, The British and Jews committed heinous crimes against the Palestinian people.
Then the book documents the “Buraq Revolution of 1929.” This revolution included all of Palestine, and was caused by the Jewish assault on the Buraq Wall and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and its victims were in the hundreds, and as a result the British hung the stakes on the gallows of the first convoy of martyrs, which included: Fouad Hijazi, Atta Al-Zeer, and Muhammad. Jamjoom: The book documents with pictures the events of this revolution and the crimes committed by the British and Zionist gangs against the Palestinian people, their cities and villages.
The book also documents the “Demonstration Revolution of 1933” leading to the Great Palestinian Revolution that began on April 19, 1936, and its events continued until 1939. The book documents its events and the crimes of the English occupation and the Zionist gangs until November 1938, which is the month in which this book was published. The rare book whose author was afraid to put his name on it for fear of the brutality of the English occupation, which was arresting and killing on suspicion at that critical stage in Palestinian history.
Exposing the Zionist-English lies
What is striking about this record is that the author of this book used a scientific methodology to document human rights violations that international human rights reports use these days early in the last century, during which the nature of the human rights organizations known to us today nor their documentation methodology had not yet crystallized.
Regarding the importance of this book and its methodology, which relies on photographic documentation and specifying the exact history of events that refutes the Zionist lies that Palestine is a land without a people, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Philadelphia, Jordan, Professor Dr. Muhammad Ubaidullah, says, “The resistance depicted in this important documentary book represents… An authentic and historical image from the heritage of confrontation and defense of the right to life and existence, and the Palestinian person’s preference to die with dignity over a humiliating life under the tyranny of the coloniser.”
Obaidullah added, “The Palestinian people have endured countless forms of attempts to destroy, exterminate, and erase, but they are still alive and resisting, and today’s images that come from Gaza, and from other Palestinian regions, are nothing but evidence that the spirit of resistance cannot be eradicated, but rather the colonizer is the one who will eradicate itself.” “A day not far away.”
Obaidullah asserts that “documenting crimes in pictures and audio and by every possible means is necessary, and it is the least that can be done for the victims whom humanity was unable to protect, at least so that the perpetrator does not get away with his crime, and that we date and record for the present and the future these documents that indicate these crimes.” And work to make it part of broader files to prosecute new war criminals, and even British colonialism itself, and to rely on these important documents due to their antiquity and the nature of the events and facts they document, and to hold the successor state accountable and prosecute it retroactively,” as he put it.
Obaidullah explained that Britain “was the one who, with its crimes and its support, paved the way for Zionism, whether by issuing the Balfour Declaration, which represents a lie that is not based on any right to issue such a promise, and therefore the book of Martyr Palestine is an important document that reminds us of this bloody history, and that these crimes are not events.” Individual, but rather stems from an occupation-colonial ideology.”
For his part, Professor of Contemporary History at Al-Balqa Applied University, Dr. Ahmed Khalif Al-Afif, says, “Although the author of the book is unknown, as is the publisher, it contains in general material that is extremely important about the period it dealt with, and which may not be available in other journalistic and documentary sources.” It is represented by a large group of images that highlight the reality of the criminal Zionist plan aimed at emptying Palestine of its people, and carrying out the most heinous crimes in order to achieve the Zionist plan seeking to establish a Jewish state in Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. This plan, the features of which emerged clearly through the massacres committed by Israel and Britain since The beginnings of World War I, as the pictures published in this book show.
The Palestinian poet Jamil Abu Sobeih asserts that “The book of Martyr Palestine contains pictures documenting daily life in Palestine before the Nakba, which gives it a counter-refutation of the Zionist statement published by the Zionist agency at the end of the 19th century that Palestine is “a land without a people for a people without a land,” and hence The importance of this book came from a definition that was controlled and broadcast by Zionist propaganda and its globally spread media, in contrast to the shallowness of the Arab media and the dominance of European colonialism over the Arabs.
Abu Sobeih explains that the nation has lived “with its weakness and the absence of its ability to support the Palestinians and support them in their resistance since the first revolutions in 1921 and 1928, and the great revolution in 1936, which was thwarted by British deception, with most Arabs agreeing with this deception for reasons that included a lot of submission and submission to the British position that issued the book.” “White” included stopping Jewish immigration, due to the fierce resistance shown by the Palestinian people during the Great Revolt.
Abu Sobeih adds, “Even if the revolution calmed down and Britain ended World War II, it returned to its aggression and treachery, issuing the ‘Black Book’ in support of Jewish settlement so that the Palestinians would realize the extent of the deception and conspiracy to which they were subjected, and its chapters are still continuing until now,” according to Abu Sobeih.
Does history really repeat itself?
What raises astonishment in this rare record is the repetition of the act, as if history repeats itself in different forms of the same act. The crimes of killing children and defenseless civilians, the bombing of homes, and even the blowing up of entire villages, neighborhoods and residential squares, the forcible displacement of the Palestinian people from their homes and cities, and the Palestinians’ search for the remains of… Furniture and belongings among the rubble of their destroyed homes are now being repeated in Gaza, as happened previously throughout the length and breadth of Palestine, at the hands of British occupation soldiers and Zionist gangs.
Obaidullah says in response to this question, “History may not repeat itself, but colonialism in its various forms and with its growing arms is what repeats itself, reproducing the same crimes, while developing the necessary ones according to the latest technologies and means of war.”
Ubaidullah asserts that “Zionism is the heir to Western colonialism and is its essence and the collector of its evils and ambitions. Therefore, it surpasses it in its performance, and in the approach of sabotage and destruction that it follows. It is not just an occupation or a brutal military force displaying its power. Rather, it is further than this, as it stems from a desire It is suppressed in erasing the existence of the Palestinian and Arab human being in order to be reassured that it will find its place in his place, because it realizes that it is an existential war, and not an accidental dispute over specific details.
Obaidullah continues, “Hence, the failure of the ‘peace attempts’ is due to this Zionist ideology with its colonial consciousness, which is not content with occupying land and property, but wants to kill people and abolish their existence, in order to come to believe the lie in which they fell, that the land of Palestine ‘without people’ is empty.” It only needs a “civilized” population to populate it. This is the old colonial argument, which stems from the centrality of the Western self, based on the principle of superiority and preference over others. Therefore, it does not see the other as a human being, but rather an animal or less.
For his part, Professor Dr. Ahmed Al-Afif says, “Despite the barbaric, criminal, and hideous practices practiced by the Zionists, with the support of the major powers allied with them, against the Palestinian people over the course of a century in a way that contradicts all heavenly and human values, it cannot be said that history repeats itself completely if it We compared what happened in the past, and what is happening now in Gaza and Palestine in terms of heinous genocidal crimes at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces in a way that history has never witnessed in the world.
Dr. Afif explains, “Despite the great similarity between the massacres committed by the Jews and their British allies against the Palestinian people on their land during the first half of the 20th century, the historical scene now is completely different, especially with regard to the Palestinian side in terms of the ability to resist, organize, and combat professionalism in confronting them.” Zionist intransigence and crime, as the Palestinian resistance now appears with all power and might in confronting the occupation forces, inflicting heavy losses on them, and continuing to confront them for long periods, unlike the previous stages in which reliance was placed on Arab armies coming from outside Palestine, so the act of resistance now is a purely Palestinian act. “.
A historical document and not just a picture book
Regarding the importance of printing this book, translating it, and disseminating it on a large scale, as it is a rare book that is not available, despite the fact that there is a manuscript copy of it available for download via the Internet, and yet no governmental or private publishing house or entity has reprinted and distributed it, despite the importance of the information contained in it, he says. Dr. Muhammad Obaidullah: “This is a resistance book in pictures and information, and it truly belongs to the legacy and history of the resistance. It chronicles the facts of the crimes and proves them accurately. In this sense, it is a document and not just an illustrated historical book. Therefore, renewing it and working to publish it supports the idea of resistance, reminds of its history, and places the current crimes in a context.” It is broader than colonialism has ever been in its bloody history.”
Obaidullah explains, “This illustrated book includes painful scenes documenting some of what the Mandate authorities and their soldiers did, and some of what the first groups of Zionist gangs were trained on by those authorities and with their direct support. It deserves attention and care with all modern artistic methods, to revive memory towards the history of resistance and the history of The occupation, because the conflict did not begin today, but rather extends for more than 100 years, and our people continue to face all kinds of displacement, destruction, killing, and abuse with patience, confrontation, and refusal to surrender. For all of this, there must be national projects related to archiving, and encouraging the principle of resistance with the archive, including the documents and photos it contains. The record of the crime is kept open so that the perpetrator and the criminal are held accountable for his actions, even in front of generations and history.”
Dr. Obaidullah concludes by saying, “Reviving the archive of resistance and the archive of crime contributes cognitively to justice for the victim, and the Palestinian people as a whole are apparently a victim of the barbarism of modern European civilization. The pictures of the book “Palestine the Martyr” show you part of what the “Empire” committed, and it is time to respond to it with the word. And the photo and the document.”
