An interview by Italian activist Lorenzo Galbiati
In your opinion, when does the identity of the Palestinian people emerge—a people that is a nation: a people with its own history and its own land? What does it mean to be Palestinian today?
In my experience, I don’t feel that the identity of the Palestinian people has ever faded to need to emerge anew. The Palestinian identity has been a continuum; an almost mysterious attachment to the land that even after 80 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing and five generations of exile, torture, and multiple genocidal attempts to sever this invisible bond, the bond is only getting stronger and deeper. Such phenomenon exemplifies the amazing wonder of human endurance.
The Palestinian identity thrives teeming with flavour in our cuisine, our embroidery and in our celebrations and wedding songs that infuses joy with sadness, life with death, hope with grief. You can witness such magical mix in the poetic interchange between the land with the bride and the martyr with the groom.
This identity is evident in the names of our children and their children, no matter where we live: Falasteen, Bissan, Haifa, Karmel, Yaffa, and Hajez (when a baby is born on checkpoint), and more so in the games like “soldiers and heroes” and the “funeral of a martyr”
Just a little anecdote:
My nine years old grandchild asked me one day to tell him about the history of Palestine, which I did. During the talk, and when I mentioned some of the bad times he would cover his face with a pillow and scream out loud in pain and frustration. When I finished he looked at me in an extreme disappointment and said, “Taita, Britain betrayed us twice, in 1917 with Balfour and in 1947 with handing Palestine to the terrorists and approving the partition plan”, I agreed. He disappeared for a little while, came back and said: “I don’t want to live here (UK) anymore.
In 1947, the Assembly of the newly formed UN voted to divide British Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Supporters of Israel today reproach the Palestinians for not having accepted that partition plan. What do you think about it?
If you have a baby of your own, and someone claims that your baby is his, would you agree to cutting your baby in half, and sharing it?
Why would you expect us to go along with accepting the occupation of our land by Britain (British Mandate) and go along with the division of our land giving 54% to foreigners who just landed on us, and who have already been terrorising us and stealing our land by force?
Would you accept gracefully the occupation or partition of your land by foreign armies?
Why do you apply different standards to you than others?
As a matter of principle, no foreign government, international institution or individual, has any form of legitimacy or jurisdiction to dispossess any other Nation by distributing their land and property.
The Palestinian Nation, the sole indigenous people of historic Palestine, had neither been consulted with, nor did we agree to or undersign any partition of our homeland, Palestine, when the UN put partition to the vote in the General Assembly in 1948. The UN has never done so again.
Furthermore, the admission of “Israel” to the UN was conditional on its implementation of Resolutions 194, i.e., ceasing aggression and allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as well as implementing Resolution 181 of the partition plan, (which Israel did not commit itself to any specific action or time-frame, and later rejected the resolutions all together).
The UN General Assembly adopted resolution (181) recommending the adoption and implementation of the Partition Plan, allocating to foreign Jews a defined area larger than what was allocated to Palestinians, yet significantly smaller than the areas was overtaken by Zionist Terror groups such as Irgun and Haganah, using ethnic cleansing, genocidal massacres, and massive destruction of over 530 Biblical villages and cities in the spring of 1948.
Furthermore, the decision to partition Palestine was never passed through the UN Security Council, which renders it non-binding, (serving only as advisory).
The founding myth of the Jewish state coincides with the Palestinian Nakba, which began before the Independence proclamation of Israel. In 1947–48, was there really ethnic cleansing in Palestine? What does the Nakba mean to you?
By now, I don’t think that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine can be disputed, the evidence of it happening is overwhelming, and any serious researcher will stumble upon mountains of evidence without the need for digging.
As what it means to me, it has marked the beginning of a bizarre story for a chain of events creating a multi generational of perpetual Nakba. I was born into occupation, in an occupied land, then became a refugee age seven, which resulted in politicising a little girl, forcing her to become a news addict, reading daily newspapers in the hope that one of them might one day report that Palestinian refugees may go back home. The forced expulsion leaves you bare with your roots exposed, it leaves you in a state of permanent suspension, with your life on hold, awaiting perpetually your return.
Between 1948 and 1967, Palestinians lived mainly in Jordan (the West Bank) and in Egypt (Gaza). Supporters of Israel have often asked me: why didn’t Palestinians wage a resistance struggle against Jordan and Egypt?
What people the West seen not to understand about the Arab world is that the people in the region feel that they are part of one group, an organic cohesive entity, formed from a large group of people that share much in common; same language, same faith-imbued life-view, same God-centered culture and same history. We are a people who, up until the last century of European colonisation, had no borders in between our regions. We view each other as one people, despite the zealous attempts by the occupiers and their abetters among our compromised leaders. We are one ummah (nation), we live in different newly divided regions and we still aspire to be reunited again.
In 1967, with the Six-Day War, Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza. The occupation and Jewish-Zionist settlement of the West Bank and Gaza began, and it continues till today. Meanwhile, three years earlier, the PLO had been founded. Why have Palestinians never reached an agreement with Israel to have their own state?
Why do you expect them to “reach an agreement”, instead of expecting them to stand in defiance as every occupied nation would?
Palestinians, the masses, not the political class, still refuse to recognise “Israel” as a state, they view it as an illegitimate entity created on their land by terror, wars of conquest and illegitimate UN partition, without any moral or legal justification. Thus to the Palestinian masses the entire land of historic Palestine is under occupation, not just Gaza and the West Bank. Even when PLO was created in 1964, the aim was to liberate historic Palestine not Gaza and the West Bank (both were occupied after the creation of PLO).
The end of a secular Palestinian political class represented by Arafat has made European support for Palestine more difficult. Hamas is an Islamist, fundamentalist organization with which the Western Marxist left can hardly identify. How do you consider Hamas? How do you assess Hamas’s policy? Do you think that before October 7 it had many supporters in Gaza? And above all, does Hamas allow the formation of political opponents?
This question about the end of “secular Palestinian class” making the “European support for Palestine more difficult” is outdated. We have moved on since then. That might be the case prior to this 1000 days, live-streamed genocide, but the scales have tipped as the world opened its eyes to the nature of the Jewish state. The world has witnesses and still witnessing each day, an unprecedented unspeakable barbarity that goes beyond the most criminal human behaviour. Collective, sadistic, narcissistic, psychopathy on steroid. The world knows now what Palestinians have been dealing with, and its ugly. The support of Palestine, Palestine liberation and the Palestinian people has exponentially expanded out of all proportion. The Palestinian flag has flown over practically every city in the world, often more the flags of their respective countries. Activists and supporters have shown and exemplary solidarity that exceeds expectation of analysts, and have proven to the world their willingness to sacrifice their own freedom, their livelihood and even their very own lives for the just cause of Palestine.
Your question about Hamas is framed within the narrow paradigm of Western mind, manipulated and managed by hasbara operatives, which also include their influence on the “Marxist Left”.
Your referral to Hamas as “Islamists, fundamentalists” is loaded with hasbara manipulation (whether you realise it or no), which doesn’t reflect any independent research.
To Palestinians, and those who understand the Palestinian society, Hamas is a grass root Islamic Resistance Movement. Meaning it is a movement guided and animated by the faith of Islam, It has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, it is part and parcel of the Palestinian society. It was a civil, charitable, non governmental grassroots organisation whose work was revolving around charity work, education, and social support. The continuous oppression of Palestinians forced the group to form an armed resistance (legitimate to any group that falls under belligerent occupation) as well as a political wing, thus evolving to become an Islamic Resistance Movement during the first Intifada in 1987.
The utter failure of Oslo, after over a decade of “negotiations”, while on the ground the Jewish state was grabbing more and more land for violent settlers, the number of which multiplied many folds during the “peace talks” creating irreversible facts on the ground, making creating a Palestinian state quasi impossible (less than 9% of Historic Palestine, divided with Jewish only settlements, road blocks and checkpoint) paved the grounds for Hamas to win in a fair well observed general election in 2006. Thus Palestinians affirming that their choice is to go back to Resistance rather than phantom peace promises.
The shortcoming of the Western Marxists left is its default position of animosity and condescending attitude towards religion and people of faith in general. It takes the position that non-faith based political ideologies like Marxism and Secularism are morally and intellectually superior to faith based ideologies whose paradigm and life perception is formed by belief in a Creator.
The Marxist Left assumes the position that they are the very representation of progress, freedom and civility, they are the yard stick with which progressiveness and enlightenment of societies are measured. They view people of faith as “less equal”, intellectually- challenged, controlling of freedoms, opposing to “democracy” and morally reactionary.
Hence your question about whether Hamas allows political opponents. Why do you think Hamas entered the election (and won) in 2006?
Why do you think there are Islamic parties wherever there is a majority Muslims in a country?
Do they participate to win only? and if they lose they “kill” members of other parties?and if they win they forbid others from participating?
Are you aware how absurd your question sounds to others?
I don’t really blame you, for I know where you get your information from, but I would seriously recommend that some research is done about Islam from authentic Islamic sources, not hasbarised sources.
According to the historian Rashid Khalidi, interviewed after October 7, 2023, Palestinians no longer have a leadership with a clear political line. Do you think that today there is a Palestinian political class capable of achieving significant results? Or do you think that there is a lack of a true Palestinian leader, an emblematic figure who could play the role of a Mandela? Many call for the release of Marwan Barghouti, which unfortunately I don’t think will ever happen. But do you think that if he were released, the conditions would exist today to achieve positive outcomes for Palestinians? Do you think that armed resistance, against a militarily advanced state like Israel supported by the U.S., can have any positive effect?
I personally don’t think that any Palestinian political class is capable of delivering the bare minimum of Palestinian rights, let alone redressing the century old injustice. Remember that we are dealing with a people with genocidal supremacist ideologies, that has paved its way to conquering Palestine with terror, blood, false flags, deception and lies. You cannot with good faith negotiate with someone whose whole agenda is to deceive and “outsmart” you. A people who brag about their ability “outsmart their g-d” and about their cunningness in finding loopholes in laws that they themselves created.
With their own hands, they write profanities, then they attribute to their “g-d”, then they execute them Netanyahu Epstein style, then they call it fulfilling of prophecies. Palestinians don’t lack leaders, it’s just that the Jewish state targets and eliminates any potential leaders as soon as they bud.
Whether Marwan Barghouti or anyone else, no political negotiation is able to produce any positive outcome for Palestinians, I say this as a person who spent a quarter of my life examining and researching the ideology of the occupiers of my land, in an attempt to understand their mindset. I can say that what I have found is disturbing beyond words is an understatement.
Palestinian Sumoud, resilience, resistance and determination not to consent to the usurpation of their land is what will deliver liberation to Palestine, despite the extreme imbalance in military power. It’s the history of Palestine itself, that gives me this assurance.
Palestine has been occupied by many, including the Crusaders for 200 years, look where are the occupiers now?
Algeria which was also occupied by France, was able to shake off the invaders and gain its freedom after 132 years of occupation and settler colonialism.
Along with world support, Palestine steadfastness, which withstood almost a 100 years of aggression, will show the world that it will be able to shake the invaders off and outlast their supremacy and genocide.
The equation is simple; they surpass us in military power, bombs, bullets, barbarity, lies and deception, but we surpass them in our resilience, perseverance, love of our land, willing to sacrifice, faith in a Just Creator, hope of emancipation and in retaining of morality and humanity. Our mere existence on our land despite their efforts to uproot us is victory in itself.
According to Rashid Khalidi, the struggle for liberation from the settler colonialism represented by Israel must take place not only in Palestine but also in the “home-country,” (Metropole) meaning by winning over Western public opinion. This made me reflect on the extent to which the West has been “Zionized” today: formerly, Jewish diaspora communities were often critical of Israel; today they seem to function as diplomatic-political branches (lobbies) of Israel, and their role has become increasingly dominant in shaping public discourse (for example, the constant focus on the Shoah and antisemitism). Even Holocaust Remembrance Day, approved by the UN, seems to me to have become an indispensable tool that simultaneously enables and denies the genocide in Gaza. As Edward Said used to say, Palestinians are the victims of the victims. What do you think about this?
I am unable to see them as victims after this genocide. They are anything but victims.
Whatever has happened in WW2 must be revisited at some point, and the world needs to get to the bottom of what happened, not just swallow the narrative of perpetrators of genocide, those whom we, Palestinians have seen nothing but lies. If there is nothing to hide, why forbid asking questions and why make it a crime to ask? Truth never fears scrutiny.
As for the concept of “settler colonialism” I have opposed using that terminology with regards to Palestine as I explained here.
Personally, I believe that Palestinians, on their own, without the support of the West and without the direct action of Palestinian Israelis, will never be able to achieve effective results. The liberation of Palestine, is also the non-violent liberation of Europe from Global Zionism, that is , from the American-Zionist political-cultural colonization (“Zionization”), and the nonviolent uprising of Palestinian Israelis against a state without a secular constitution that declares itself Jewish. To achieve this, I consider strong support for the BDS campaign promoted by Palestinian civil society, led by Omar Barghouti, to be essential. What do you think about this?
BDS is only one small form of support, Palestine needs much more. Any support must begin with deep understanding of the problem, without witch no effective solution can be found. The problem is actually a global problem. As soon as the majority of world population realise that, we can start seeing change. I used to cry, Palestine, Palestine, but then I realised, and I said I wish it was only Palestine. Palestine without a doubt needs the support of the world, which begins with understanding the depth of chronic injustice inflected upon Palestine. And I also believe that the world needs Palestine, for Palestine has the experience, the resilience and the courage to spearhead the global resistance in fighting injustice, in-equality, oppression and the dominance of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the vast majority.
How important is the religious question, given that Jerusalem is a holy city for Judaism (with the Western Wall considered the Wall of the Temple) and for Islam? Sometimes I have the impression that the deep objective of Zionist colonization has always been to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple.
This is such an important question, almost 80 years of oppression has been culminating in waging a genocidal war of extermination of Biblical proportions on Palestinians. I have been writing and warning about this since over 15 years. Tragically, and with deep sorrow, I say that I saw it coming. If you spend a couple of months studying Jewish ideology, you will understand why. Most people are still unaware that the preparation of the building of the temple are all in place, even to finest detail of the costume of the temple cohanim and the vessels used for the “purification by blood” ritual as well as the red heifer which ashes would be used to “purify” the cohanim. Not to mention the sanhidren court beneath Al-Aqsa mosque, which has been prepared to judge the nations from Jerusalem.
What hopes do you have for the future, for yourself and for your people? What would you like us in the West to do to contribute to the liberation of the Palestinian people?
Despite the extreme darkness we now live, and the extreme pain we experience, I don’t only hope for a wonderful future for Palestine and the world, I can almost see it happening. I hope that I live to see the day of liberation of Palestine.
We are living the darkest hour before the dawn.
After the Genocide, two parallel systems are emerging, two pathways one is characterised by high principles; justice, truth, kindness, love, compassion, humanity, inclusion, equality and the other revolves around oppression, deception, cruelty, hatred, sadism, inhumanity, exclusion, and supremacy. Humanity is forced to make a choice, no more sitting on the wall.
Titanic shift in world’s attitude and support towards Palestine, due to the live exposure of the genocide.
In the past, people never questioned israel’s rotten unethical, illegal foundation and existence. Now they do.
People never questioned Jewish ideology of supremacy and genocide, now they do.
Experiencing the suppression of their own freedom of speech and freedom of thought in their countries by their own political class exposed the real manipulators and the degree
they have managed to dominate the political, intellectual, financial, and even military spheres.
Palestinian sumoud, their resilience, their sacrifice, their faith, their hopes, their bravery is not going to go unnoticed. The world is paying attention as the Palestinians have been redefining the meaning of victory.
The suffering of the Palestinians will be the spark that will ignite world resistance against injustice, inhumanity and cruelty. Their pain will be the crack that open the minds of people in the world to start asking existential questions and open their hearts to receive amazing answers.
Serious existential questions about the meaning of life and whether it has any purpose at all, are being asked after witnessing the extraordinary strength of character, bravery, resilience, patience and grace in the face of unprecedented forms of aggression, violence and savagery.
This shift in awareness will form the foundation for the emergence of a better world for all, a world in which universal human values are sought after, discovered, and anchored. Justice will be cherished as the foundation for peace, freedom, compassion, patience, kindness and resilience will be seen as source of harmony and spiritual growth.
As for what I like people in the West to contribute; I would like them to take enough time to examine this whole episode of human history, condensed in Palestine, and to try to achieve a profound understanding of the enormity and importance of the Palestinian suffering in uplifting the global awareness and moral evolution. To see in the Palestinian cause as an inspiration to propel them to fulfil their own aspiration, that goes beyond the narrowness of materialism into the the expansiveness of spiritualism. I believe that the Palestinian suffering and the savagery of the Jewish state combined have given lessons in humanity for humanity, acting as a catalyst, leading to a major shift in our collective awareness, creating a spectacular paradigm shift in our moral advancement and spiritual awakening.
Then,
God will fill you with awe,
Making your dreams which you thought were impossible,
Come true
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Poetry for Palestine 