The Future of Palestine

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” – Atticus Finch

Excerpt from “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee

The David vs Goliath conflict in Palestine continues raging on as the guns fall silent, for now. In this article, I will attempt to project the future of Palestine by utilizing the lens of its past and present.

The Past

“When a nation is subjected to a violent jolt at some point in its life, either it wakes up from its sleep to look at its history and to reexamine the conditions for its very existence, or it wakes up from its sleep to look askew at history, accusing it before the nation returns to its deep sleep again.“

Dr. Fathi al-Shiqaqi, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad

More than a century ago, the slumbering Palestinian nation was jolted by the dual tyranny of British occupation and Zionist settler colonialism. This double blow could well have proven fatal for Palestine. Much larger empires and nations than Palestine have been destroyed by this deadly double-edged sword forged in the furnaces of Europe. However, the Palestinians resolved to resist fiercely, and that resistance became the sole reason for their continued existence to the present day.

The resistance wasn’t very efficient to begin with. A confused public suffering from elite capture (with the elites’ only concern being their personal/familial fortunes as they bent over backward to ingratiate themselves with the colonial oppressors) could hardly do better. The first phase of resistance was marked by unnecessary hubris (somewhat expected from a proud nation that hadn’t internalized the concept that it was facing enemies much more formidable than itself) and confused strategies as the elite and the common people pulled in different directions with different aims. This phase ended with the Nakba of 1947-48 as 80% of Palestine was lost to a genocide perpetrated by the Zionists and supported by both the West and the Soviet Union.

The second phase of resistance was marked by Arab nationalism. The new ideology brought forth a new elite and for a while the Palestinian people were united behind this ideology and the elite espousing it. Unfortunately, this was to prove the falsest of dawns as well. Arab nationalism had both theoretical and practical faults. Theoretically, it was no more than a borrowed philosophy that reflected the intellectual slavery of the Arab middle class to the West.

It was just an Arab version of racial and cultural chauvinism that had become the hallmark of the West as it colonized, tyrannized, and exploited most of the rest of the world. But unlike the Western version, Arab Nationalism wasn’t backed by the scientific, industrial, and economic muscle that the West had created through its efforts.

Practically, being a cheap copy of an imported ideology, Arab nationalism never gained the organic deep roots in the society essential to creating a resistance movement that could retain its capacity in the face of the daunting US-Israeli military machine. The military disaster of 1967 destroyed the Arab nationalist capacity to resist Israel at the level of the Arab States while the disaster of 1982 in Lebanon ensured the destruction of the armed resistance potential of Palestinian Arab nationalists.

After two successive failures, Palestine entered the third (and present) phase of its resistance that has endured. Professor Shahid Alam wrote in his excellent book, “Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism”: “The quick collapse of the Arab nationalist resistance in the face of Israeli victories ensured that the deeper Islamicate response would emerge sooner rather than later.” This phase has been characterized by Islamic ideology uniting the Palestinians and fueling the resistance.

The Present

“It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.”

Dr. Victor Frankl, Austrian psychologist, the founder of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor

Looking at the videos of Gaza, one can easily lose one’s balance. An unimaginable storm of death and destruction has torn apart everything from buildings to families. One begins to doubt the relevance of morality and ethics and can succumb to cynicism about the human race as a whole. If this destruction can have such a strong effect on one who is just watching the videos and pictures in one’s comfortable home with a full stomach, how would the sufferers feel?

How can those who lost their homes, loved ones, and even limbs to a monstrous and seemingly invincible enemy find the will and courage to simply go on living, not to mention the will to resist fiercely? I confess that I am at a loss here. I can’t even understand such willpower and courage. However, I am going to take a guess.

The key to understanding the fortitude of Palestinians lies perhaps through the work of another who suffered immensely and then lived long enough to analyze the dynamics at play. Victor Frankl suffered at the hands of a genocidal enemy like the Palestinians. Frankl discovered in the Nazi concentration camps that man can turn his suffering into a source of strength but only if he can attach some meaning to his suffering. It is easier said than done though, and most of the unfortunate souls just gave up in those wretched camps.

When they did give up, they made the gruesome task of their oppressors much easier. Some, like Frankl, attached meaning to their lives and fiercely clung to life because they didn’t want to just live to experience pleasure or avoid pain; they wanted to live for a higher purpose defined freely by themselves. It’s no wonder that most of the survivors belonged to this category.

What has happened in Gaza has taken Frankl’s vision to a higher level. In the Nazi camps, all the inmates didn’t share a common concept of “meaning.” Each had his/her own way of coming to grips with the challenge. The search and struggle for meaning and life were carried out mostly individually. In Gaza, on the other hand, it seems that the phenomenon of logotherapy has occurred on a mass level. Most of the population shares the same dream, the same “higher purpose of life.”

An insurmountable collective will has been created by the shared purpose of life and the individual will is being strengthened by this collective will. The “meaning of life”, that has created this will, is based on the Islamic faith and ideology. Even the Christians of Gaza share this collective sense of meaning because in Gaza, the concept of “Islam” is apparently the opposite of what it is in most of the rest of the so-called “Muslim World.”

Where the “Muslim World” generally sees Islam as just a mixture of rituals and customs that is usually limited to clothing and polemics, in Gaza these matters are considered secondary by most, if not all. There, the cardinal aspects of the “Islamic concept” revolve around social justice and humanity. In a community battered by the relentless atrocities of the Zionists, Islam provides a code of morals, ethics, justice, and compassion.

This is the way Islam was always supposed to be, with Huquq-ul-Ibad (human rights) and the struggle for freedom taking precedence over all other matters. No wonder the society in Gaza is so different from the rest of the Muslim World. The former is ruled by men of the people renowned for moral and financial integrity who are confident in their philosophy of life, completely free of intellectual servility, and are only concerned with service delivery in the interest of their common cause. The latter is ruled by shameless kleptocrats who are physically and mentally servile to the dominant powers of the World, and are only concerned with personal/familial wealth and the power to use and abuse their own people!

It is only due to the collective will guided by the Islamic faith that the combined might of the USA and Israel has proved unable to defeat the outnumbered, outgunned, besieged, and isolated units of the Izzaduddin Al-Qassam Brigades. As a student of military history, I confess that the war on Gaza was one the most unusual wars ever. Every theorist of guerilla warfare has insisted that safe havens and favorable terrain are absolutely essential for successful guerilla warfare.

It is one of the topmost priorities for any force confronting guerilla warfare to isolate the guerillas from their safe havens and hem them in a small (and if possible flat terrain) area so that they can be destroyed in detail by superior firepower. Israel got both these factors from day one as the Gaza Strip is a small and flat strip of land and the Palestinians have no safe haven (thanks to the “Muslim World,,” especially “Sisi-fied” Egypt) outside Palestine.

Contrast this with Vietnam, which is aptly considered the most spectacular example of successful guerilla warfare against impossible odds in the 20^th century. The “Viet Cong” insurgents had the complete backing of North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union. They were operating in a terrain with lots of mountains and thick jungles. Hundreds of safe havens were available in North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Even then, their task was considered impossible not only by their enemies but even by their friends. Mao Zedong himself told Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh to abandon the goal of complete liberation of South Vietnam in the 1960s. How then did a handful of isolated Palestinian fighters manage to hold off the US-fueled Zionist juggernaut for 15 months? As a Pakistani, it is supremely astonishing for me as our own army surrendered against a superior enemy after 15 days in East Pakistan in 1971 when it had been forced into a state of isolation!

The Future

“At critical moments in their history, it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not vice versa.”

Allama Muhammad Iqbal

For the first time in the history of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, Palestine has fought Israel to a standstill on the field of battle. For the first time, a massive Israeli offensive hasn’t resulted in a mass exodus of Palestinians from the area of Israeli military operations. Is the tide finally turning then? Well, the answer is both yes and no.

No, I don’t think the Israeli occupation will end anytime in the near future. The atrocities on Palestinians will most probably only increase further. With the complete and unconditional backing of the USA, the Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the rest of occupied Palestine (where they live as second-class “Israeli citizens” under apartheid) will face more discrimination, death, and destruction.

However, I believe that the tide has finally turned in the way that the era of spectacular Israeli victories is over. Just like the Nazis at the end of 1941, the Zionists have reached the point of their highest strength. Ominously for them, the USA also seems to be nearing the end of its unquestioned global dominance. More Zionist atrocities will only serve to strengthen the will to resist among the Palestinians. This will cause the Zionists to turn ever more genocidal (like the Nazis in their last years) and as a result, they will only be digging their own grave deeper as they continue to attempt to crush the Palestinians and fail.

The Islamic element of the Palestinian resistance has made it indestructible. Whereas the nationalists and the leftists are drawn toward tangible results as a consequence of their materialist ideologies, Islamists consider struggle and martyrdom as ends in themselves. This is the primary reason why the Al-Qassam Brigades have been able to increase recruitment in the face of active Israeli military operations.

The Islamic ideology, if used in a wholesome manner (as has been the case in Gaza), demotes the material/physical aspects of the conflict to secondary status and prioritizes the spiritual/metaphysical aspects resulting in a mass of people whose morale remains ever increasing even in the face of the direst of circumstances. The philosopher Iqbal wrote about these strengths of Islam more than a hundred years ago. He also prophesied victory for any nation that would be able to harness these strengths. Hence, the ultimate victory for Palestine over the Zionists is only a matter of time now.

Lastly, I will just briefly assess the role of the so-called “Muslim World” in the Palestine odyssey. In 1099, soon after the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, a famous cleric Qazi Abu Saad al Harawi appealed to the Abbasid Caliph to undertake practical steps to help the hapless people of Palestine. However, the caliphate (and other Muslim powers like the Seljuks and Fatimid Egypt) were interested in doing little more than merely lamenting the tragedy in Palestine.

Disgusted, al Harawi declared in the Abbasid Court: “Man’s meanest weapon is to shed tears when rapiers stir the coals of war.” The situation is quite similar today when almost all of the “Muslim World” is only prepared to do lip service for Palestine as it hides behind numerous excuses to not do anything substantial. Just like the “Islam” prevalent in the Muslim World, the Palestine policy of Muslim countries is solely focused on words, not deeds.

Hypocrisy has spawned weakness and various countries have cloaked it in myriad ways but its essence can’t be hidden from even casual observers. This weakness has ensured that “haqiqi azadi” remains a far-flung dream for the Muslim World. For some countries located in critical geographical zones (like ours), this weakness can prove fatal in the not-so-far future. Ironically, instead of us doing anything to save Palestine, it is Palestine that is shining as a beacon of hope for us in these dark times.

Weakness is a highway robber which destroys life,

Her real form has not been recognized.

People have placed different veils on her face,

Mildness and compassion are sometimes the veils across her face,

She dons the garb of humanity at other times,

She is occasionally hidden under the plea of compulsion.

When analysed it is nothing but a love of ease;

It takes the heart out of an individual who could have been strong!

Iqbal (translated from Persian)

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