We must surpass our enemy in morals
I would like to begin by apologizing to the late Professor Edward Said for borrowing the article's title. This title was the beginning of an article he published during the Second Intifada after the public debate, both domestically and internationally, about the effectiveness of martyrdom operations and the benefit of this 'strategy' for the Palestinian struggle. Now, after a few weeks since the outbreak of the Third Intifada – the Intifada of independence and dignity – we find ourselves facing a similar discussion, albeit in a different context and agenda. It is important and similar to that previous case, and we must ask ourselves the clear and frank question about our current strategy and the goals we seek from this strategy and this great movement.
The scenes we see daily of executions of Palestinian youth and children, the mutilation of their bodies by occupation soldiers and the frenzied settlers, and the racist and hostile statements of their political leaders stir the blood in the veins and anger every person with a conscience. Personally, I understand, even if I disagree with them, the demand of the rebellious youth for arms to protect our children and respond to the arrogance and brutality of the occupation. I also understand the calls from many groups of our people directed at resistance factions and security apparatuses to also engage with their weapons in confronting the crimes of the Zionist state against our people. In such cases and positions, the human heart is led astray and the path to wisdom and reason is blocked. This is very natural, but we are in a national liberation battle that determines our future and is etched in our history. This stage requires more reason, wisdom, and prudence than a blood frenzy and emotional dominance over wisdom. Now clarity of vision and stance towards the supreme goal is required: the elimination of the occupation. In short, what is needed now is a political program for the entire Palestinian situation that supports and strengthens the popular uprising and closes the door on political adventures by those who do not believe in the power of the people and their determination to achieve their national rights. Now is the time to rule with reason and sagacity and adopt a real national liberation policy as an alternative to submission to the dictates of donor countries that have plunged the Palestinian situation into a difficult impasse. It is time to emerge from the reactionary bottleneck that drowned us in a sea of illusory hopes. In this context, I would like to commend the initiative of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine launched by its Secretary-General, comrade Nayef Hawatmeh, which calls on all resistance factions, national and Islamic, to sit at a round table for a frank and sincere national dialogue to advance the Palestinian situation and bring it out of the impasse it has been stuck in for many years and respond to the new reality in occupied Palestine.
The rebellious Palestinian youth took the initiative to confront the occupation and injustice, putting an end to what was falsely called peace negotiations, and cried out loudly against the Palestinian leadership's inability to face the reality in occupied Palestine and its profound failure to find appropriate answers to the political, social, and economic concerns and problems of the people and their aspirations for independence and liberation from the Zionist occupation.
The political and military leaderships of the Zionist occupation do not act spontaneously nor do they propose impromptu political programs as the Palestinian leaderships have accustomed us to across all sectors of the Palestinian people. Zionist policy towards the Palestinian people and land follows a studied, well-crafted, and long-term political program that includes flexibility in tactics and persistence in following the strategy. This program was developed, refined, and updated by specialized advisory committees after extensive studies of the regional situation generally and Palestine specifically, and it is periodically developed and adjusted. It is not my place here to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs and plans against my people and nation, but rather to draw lessons from this reality that the Palestinian leadership deliberately and consciously ignored for years, replacing the national liberation strategy with the 'building of state institutions under occupation' strategy, which resulted in a catastrophic failure and led to the political, geographical, economic, and social division of the homeland. In our Palestinian situation, we must now, before it is too late, draw lessons from past experiences over the last twenty years, especially the experiences of the First and Second Intifadas and the political oscillations between donors and their demands and the stirring of national emotions among the steadfast people.
Global history does not know of a national liberation movement that adopted a single strategy to achieve liberation from occupation and the violation of the national rights of its peoples. Successful liberation movements that freed their land and people from colonialism and exploitation, such as Vietnam, South Africa, and the peoples of Latin America, adopted different resistance strategies that corresponded to the stage of struggle and matched the people's capacity to endure hardship, give, and support revolutionary forces. In our Palestinian case, in the 1960s, the slogan of armed struggle was raised to expel the occupation, and all revolutionary forces adopted this strategy, competing among themselves in its application. Later, anyone who called for modifying or developing the strategy was labeled a traitor and branded as a surrenderer.
The strategy remained unchanged and was not developed despite changes in the occupation reality and changes in subjective and regional factors, and the armed struggle turned into mere posturing, muscle flexing, and factional competition to stir the people's feelings, nothing more.
The rebellious Palestinian youth imposed a new effective struggle agenda to confront the occupation and win global opinion and sympathy for the sincere national demands of the youth. The ball is now in the court of the Palestinian political forces, both national and Islamic: either they respond to the new reality, listen to the street's calls, and present a new political struggle program based on unity of ranks, front, and political discourse, ending the Oslo farce institutionally and rhetorically, or these forces without exception will be responsible for the deterioration and disappearance of the Palestinian situation and leaving it to be manipulated by adventurers and opportunists with the fate of the entire Palestinian people's cause.
