That “the Palestinian experience is the core experience of the entire Middle East” – attributed to Edward Said by some – has rung true time and again – as a people forced to move out of their homes, their lands, their whole existence have been gaslighted and ghettoised by a coloniser that has the world’s biggest powers on its side. The Palestinian people have resisted the brutal occupation by Israel for over 70 years, only to be even more brutally crushed. Yesterday, the famed Palestinian resistance may just have sprung one of the biggest surprises on the Israeli state, with Hamas launching a sudden multi-front attack into Israel early morning Saturday, leading to the deaths of nearly 100 Israelis with another 800 injured. That Israel was taken by surprise would be an understatement, given the kind of surveillance the occupying force has used over the years in the ghettos that Palestinians are shoved into. But, quick to react and in keeping with its historical violence, Israel’s response was to say that this means ‘war’, with air raids into Gaza killing at least 200 Palestinians and injuring nearly 2000. The numbers will likely go up as Israel’s response is feared to be apocalyptic – which is saying something for a state that has consistently chosen to unleash the most horrific war crimes over a people it has declared war on for the last seven decades.
The response from the Arab countries has been some unequivocal and some lukewarm condemnation of Israeli aggression in the occupied territories with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar backing Palestine and Hamas. Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs ministry has called for an “immediate halt to the escalation” while the Qatari foreign ministry has said it holds Israel alone responsible for the current escalation due to the ongoing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. There was some wonder on how the Saudis would react given their recent indications at normalizing ties with Israel but perhaps the Palestine issue is embedded much deeper into the psyche of the Middle East and the Saudis standing by their original stance on Palestine reflects that. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Foreign Office in a middle-ground approach has said that world powers should “come together for cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians and for a lasting peace in the Middle East”. Pakistan’s historical stance is more clearly reflected in a statement by former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif who highlighted Israeli occupation, the transgressions and oppression by the Zionist state, and asked the world to recognize that “durable peace requires ending occupation of Palestinian land”.
As cries of ‘from the river to the sea’ resonate across Middle-East and progressive social media accounts, the West has much to reckon with. For now, the hypocrisy is for all to see: countries like the US that have waged wars on a whole spectrum of nations across the globe are asking for ‘terrorists’ in Palestine to not ‘attack’ the Israeli state. What they conveniently forget is how Israel has behaved in the past seven decades – ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, occupation, cutting off water supplies to Palestinians and even harvesting organs of dead Palestinians. The West will wax eloquent on Russia being an aggressor in the Ukraine war while at the same time siding with an obvious oppressor and aggressor. On the top of the list of concerns now for Palestine is; what comes next? Netanyahu’s Israel has already been criminal when it comes to treating Palestinians; their counter-offensive promises to be even worse – especially since this is probably one of the biggest intel failures Israel has had to date, something Netanyahu would like to brush under an earth-shatteringly brutal response. He will no doubt be supported by much of the West.
The question is: who will come to the aid of the Palestinians? The two million Palestinians living in Gaza have been denied the right to clean water, healthcare and jobs. They are prisoners in their own land and the response from the rest of the world to Israel’s butchery has always been tepid. What Israel has been doing in Gaza is collective punishment for a crime no one committed. Having been unable to sap the thirst for freedom, it has made the people of Gaza pay for demanding their essential rights. No one wants a war – and death of civilians anywhere is not an ideal solution – but the miserable state the Palestinians have been placed in has left them with no option but to fight. What is ‘peace’ if its under a brutal occupation? All the Palestinians have ever asked for is for dignity and the right to live. How does that equal a state that has waged war on their bodies for decades on end?