From Bethlehem, Palestine

All souls wondering
find peace in the place of birthing

I, a lost soul, find it here in Bethlehem
A holy place cursed now by mayhem
Palestine where the first humans out of Africa ventured

Settling a land of beauty and bounty, Canaan they called
Our fore fathers and mothers first domesticated animals and plants
and prospered in peace and harmony respecting the Gods and even the ants
Where the Shepherds heard angels sing
And in a manger was born a savior king
Where a prophet told us this is the last vanguard
one who ascended to heaven and told us to be on guard
Where ancestors invented laws and the alphabet
and a fertile crescent they created with their sweat
Where they managed to transcend adversity
and respected biological and human diversity
Cultural and natural heritage were well guarded
they dwelled under one God (Al-Ela) regarded

But a dark storm came with strangers
whose quest for “manifest destiny” endangers
who said the land belonged not to first nation
but to a chosen people from Europe by dictation
Crusaderism
Zionism
Millions do suffer
while the rich get richer

We can’t sleep thinking of Khalid Nabhan, a most gentle kindred
one year after Reem & Tareq (grandchildren) were martyred
Soul of my soul he repeatedly stated
Now they are eternally united

We get paralyzed thinking of friends sacrificed
Zionists aided by blackmailed politicians make people de-huanized
villified
terrified

Might is right they declare
Of a higher power they are not aware

Living under apartheid we wonder
When our turn to be killed or injured and ponder
Whether we lived with enough grace and dignity?
Whether we made the right choices & fostered unity?

Did we spend enough time with good people, family, friends, activists?
Did we waste some time trying to convince racists or hanging with pessimists?
Mistakes made (we all do)- but have from our lessons, learned?
egos subdued, sometimes, and only then is respect earned!

How do we learn not to look away from suffering?
to offer a kind word, food, shelter to those enduring….
a genocide, ecocide, educide, medicide, and omnicide
and massacres of the truth – a veriticide.

We reread the beginning…ethnic cleansing
and today’s millions of candles shining
For human rights we strive
and we keep hope alive
In every street, in every corner, and in every heart
People united for a freedom, a road they chart
In our thousands in our millions
we are all Palestinians

They will never break the spirits
of 15 million Palestinians
let alone billions who stand together tall
For a better future for ALL

May 2025 be the year of peace

Genocide and coloniality

In my talks about the importance of the genocide and its connectivity around the globe (yes it is an existential issue for all humanity) now averaging three talks a day, I am very frequently asked about the future. To answer pragmatically and logically requires a sober assessment of our current situation and the variables that could help or hinder a positive change towards a sustainable future. You do not have to be a researcher to realize that our species is in deep trouble. Even casual observers of our human condition can see and feel global climate change, raging wars, accelerating genocides, the destruction of our environment, invasive species, and much more. Further, even common people realize that the way we have been going (rampant capitalism, autocracies, racism, coloniality and colonialism) is not sustainable and it is critical to change direction. Even an isolated and uneducated person living in one of the thousands of metropolitan areas can intuitively understand what they are up against. They see prices of everything rising including housing, can see and feel changing climates, can see catastrophe of neighbors (e.g. genocide in Gaza, hurricanes, climate change, fires etc). 

Tens of millions of people are “climate refugees” fleeing areas no longer habitable while tens of millions of others are “political refugees” fleeing wars. Inequality is at an all-time high. The richest 1% now manage 50% of global wealth. The meetings of conference of parties (COP) for 29 years for climate change produces more blah blah blah while our planet is in critical condition. Bandaids do not help a patient with arterial bleeding. The COP meeting at capitals of states like the UAE and Azerbaijan and chaired by oil industry chiefs is like holding conventions to stop rape led by rapists or to stop piracy chaired by pirates. Western hypocrisy gone viral as makers of war and genocide appoint themselves as brokers of “peace” (read pacification of indigenous people) and guardians of a world order that clearly is functioning only to push us like lemmings off a cliff. You are excused if you get depressed about this bleak picture of our world. 29 COP meetings on climate change failed to achieve even their own inadequate targets and 17 COP meetings on biodiversity failed to put even a slow down on the loss of global biodiversity. Half the world coral reef systems are already gone and there is now more plastics in our oceans than there are fish. We all should be alarmed at what we scientists have been warning about for decades and now is coming at an accelerated pace; see for example this though this does not cover colonial and military impact, see for example our study on Israel’s war people of Palestine and its impact. The reasons for this bleak state of the world are obvious and revolve around the short-term interests of some members (99%) of people and of all the other millions of species that inhabit our planet. In short it is unfettered greed! Of course, this greed existed throughout our human history (as is opposition to it). Yet, the scale of damage and the stakes have never been so much higher than they are now as everyone now realizes. Collective action by common people is working to address some of this including more reliance on clean energy, reducing waste etc. Yet, the elites empowered by coloniality (consumerism and unfettered capitalism and militarism that benefit few) march on largely unhindered. In fact, they seem to get their way as evidenced by Trump and Netanyahu and their like-minded global genocidal companions. 

As Farhana Sultana noted that for us to decolonize global systems is a large undertaking because “coloniality maintains the matrix of power established during active colonization through contemporary institutional, financial, and geopolitical world orders, and also through knowledge systems” (her chapter in the book “Not too late: Changing the climate story from despair to possibility”). I would add to that is that coloniality also ensures support of active colonization as is being done in Palestine and Western Sahara as well as support for subjugation of the masses and of racism evident o the global north as pertaining to people of the global south. But this decade is critical and people living now must rise-up. Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his letter from Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in the inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This has never been truer than today. The urgency of action and our woven destiny beckons us all to work together. At stake is nothing less than our humanity and civilization and the only home we know: planet earth.

The collapse of empire

I spent over a quarter century, or some 40% of my life, living in the “Western world”. I have the privilege of US Citizenship and the luck of having a great deal of travel around US (traveled in 48 states), Canada, Europe (most countries), Australia, and New Zealand. As I embarked on a tour of dozens of invited talks, it is good to be brutally honest with people of these Western lands. What we most loved about these countries despite their bloody colonial history is a character that is now being destroyed: freedom of thought and action that allowed for expansion of human knowledge, logic, and development unencumbered by dogma and narrow interests.  The checks and balances of “democracy” have been damaged for decades. Trump takeover of the United States just simply crowned the end.  This was so easy to foresee as the rigged system ensures money and extortions determine elections. Fr example in the US, the Democratic party received more than half its funding from Zionists whose allegiance was to a foreign entity. The same for the labour party iin the UK. So it was that principled leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn asre demonized successfully (I recommend Ilan Pappe’s book “Lobbying for Zionism on both sides of the Atlantic”). Over the past 150 years, billionaires became Zionists starting with the 19th century Rothschild family. The die was cast for the western partnership by its full partnership in the Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine but also the die was cast for the end of a 500 + years of western enlightenment. Trum was the orange straw that could be the final breaking point. This was so foreseen long ago by students of history who understand how empires implode.

Thomas Cole, the Collapse of the Roman Empire 1836

What most attracted many of us to “western ideals” has been eroding for a long time. That is liberal ideas and laws with checks and balances that ensures the common person not only has a say in the system but can actually influence the system. This is how common people were able to get their way in areas like women right to vote, civil rights, social security, unionization, medical care access, ending western support for oppression (e.g. in Vietnam and South Arica), among many others. This liberalism also allowed unfettered pursuit of knowledge even when it challenged dogma (e.g. Darwin’s “Theory of Natural Selection” and Franz Fannon’s work)  

In the US much of the knowledge was also generated by immigrants (most PhD students from other parts of the world). I was a beneficiary of this culling of minds from other countries though I chose not to stay in the West. I reached pinnacles of knowledge becoming an (associate) professor at universities like Duke and Yale, publishing books and over 200 peer reviewed research articles that advanced knowledge (from medicine to biology to human rights), and befriending tens of thousands of people would not have been possible without that freedom of thought afforded in a liberal west. But I also witnessed a relentless war on knowledge and truth in this western world in my 44-year academic career. Ironically, the same people who declared this war are those who benefitted from Western openness and ability to lobby to get their way. The erosion of freedoms is accelerating. It reached a point were the Congress of the most powerful country on earth passes laws that a) equate anti-racism/anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, b) gives the Secretary o Treasury (whose allegiance is to Zionism not to the US) the authority to strip NGOs of non-profit status if they call for basic human rights like Palestinian refugee right of return and ending apartheid.  Advocating for an end to genocide becomes a crime. This is of course not only in the US (and not even worst in the US) but in other western “democracies.” Flying a Palestinian flag became a crime.  Questioning Zionist (mis)use of the Jewish holocaust also becomes a crime. This even before the incoming fascist government of Donald Trump takes office and declares war on climate change and health sciences. But also we noted collective amnesia in eh west so while there was a proliferation of Jewish holocaust museums funded by western governments, there was to bew few if any museums to the hundreds of holocausts and genocides perpetrated by those same Western governments (Slavery, natives/indigenous people in what became USA and Australia and Latin America, African genocides from Congo to Namibia, Syria, Yemen, Iraq etc.).

The decline of this openness and knowledge-based systems concomitant with mass media managed by billionaires drumming up non-sense led to situations where voters think their only choices are “lesser of two evils”. One evil advocates genocide and the other genocide and mass hysteria about immigrants.  Both led by a deep state mechanism resentful, fearful, and suppressive of any mass people movement.  Thus, the US (and other western countries) become more and more insular and anti-immigrant and anti-knowledge and superficial and continue the slide towards self-implosion. Any casual observer or student of growth and decline of empires will tell you that the western/European powers are now in decline and this is due to their own “implosion”. The vacuum is being filled by rising powers now organized under the BRICS+ umbrella (Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, now being joined by many other countries. It saddens us to see how the proud European powers became subservient to special interests. US foreign policy is no longer driven by US national interests but are driven by supra-national entities like the world Zionist organization. This indeed turned out to be the final nail in the coffin of western scientific and rational “progress”. Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi was right to answer a question about what he thought of Western Civilization by saying “I think it would be a good idea”.  Is it still possible to save the western world? Perhaps it will take the massive global uprising against the tyrrany and genocide we ar already seeing. Perhaps it is inevitable to have new world powers  like China or the rise o the Islamic world (already Western Zionist-led Islamophobia is leading to strengthening Islam) (I save this for another article) or perhaps an awakening of the 2.3 billion Christians to the destruction happening in the Holy Land including to us Christians. Perhaps a combination of those. Time will tell.

Tackling corruption

I give talks and interviews on Palestine daily. I also travel the world giving talks; in one recent trip to Australia and New Zealand I gave 212 talks in 17 cities (average four per day). The most embarrassing question I get asked frequently is along the lines of “with the most just cause in the world and the most ruthless colonizers, why do you Palestinians have such incompetent corrupt leaders?”  My late friend Edward Said wrote about the Palestinian authority extensively and prophetically write a scathing article about the Oslo Accords in October 1993 (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n20/edward-said/the-morning-after).  His books and writings were thus banned in the Palestinian areas for a while by the late Yassir Arafat. I was not as strong a critic as he was. But after returning to Palestine in 2008 I learned so much more about the inner workings of the hooligans who signed this “surrender document” and were placed by Israel and the US to run the civil affairs of our people under occupation so I became more critical and less forgiving. 

My life’s work over the past 40 years of activism was focused against the Zionist onslaught on our people and our environment. I wrote hundreds of research and other articles, over 30 chapters in books, and several books. I discussed in these and some interviewed shortcomings including corruption, collusion with occupiers via security coordination, incompetence and removal or marginalization of Fatah people of good will and importance (people like Afif Safieh, Ihab Bseiso, Marwan Barghouthi, Nabil Saath). I started to compile data. I befriended critics like Nizar Banat (who was killed by the Authority) and Basil Al-Araj (jailed and mistreated by the authority and killed by Israel). The data and material I accumulated corruption is voluminous and I may end up putting it in a book later. 98% of my time remained focused on fighting colonial racist Zionists. But I also was harassed by governments (including Israel, Jordan, USA, and indeed the Palestinian authority). The older I get, the more experience tells me I need to speak out more.

When I researched my book on popular resistance in Palestine, I understood how much damage the authority caused and still causes to all forms of resistance including popular resistance (unarmed). But I also learned increasingly that their biggest sin is “ego”, not being willing to admit their mistakes (be it in Jordan, Lebanon, or the biggest mistake of all: Oslo agreements).  Oslo as Edward Said labeled it was our second Nakba. If the Zionists do succeed in liquidating the Palestinian cause, you can squarely put the blame largely on the signing of Oslo and its ramifications. The second mistake was not leaving Oslo after the interim 5 years “transition period” of Oslo ended in 1999. But an equally important mistake (sin) was not using the opportunity of governance to develop a system of governance based on law which respects all segments of our society rather than promote those who kiss ass to the leader regardless of their corruption or incompetence.

Thus, year after year the corruption and incompetence grew worse especially in the areas most critical for our Palestinian cause. For example, the foreign service appointments: “ambassadors” who are appointed for political purposes and who know very little and harm the cause rather than help it. This is a generalization that applies to 99% of our representatives. Exceptions like the brilliant (and friend) Husam Zumlot our representative in the United Kingdom actually prove the failure and incompetence of others. But other areas clearly saw corruption and nepotism become systematic and malignant. Even in areas like the environmental protection where good people were removed and subservient individuals promoted regardless of competence. Government contracts are handed out not on meritocracy on cleptocracy.

I, like Edward Said and millions of Palestinians, disagreed strongly with the choices made by this Oslo group to build the Palestinian administration that relieved Israel from cost of occupation and from International isolation based on not even promises of freedom or return of rights.  But I also can't help but feel sorry for those who took that path. It must be very painful for a human being to go down a tunnel where there is no possibility of a light at the end and during this trip into the depths of darkness feel the leaches crawling up his back sucking his blood and voices from behind calling him back (some of them his political enemies, others ex-comrades in Fatah). Palestinian negotiators are fearful of going back because they think it might give political opponents a PR tool. They are just fearful of losing face; I am always grateful to a wise advisor who 30 years ago convinced me to drop this fear of admitting mistakes. They may also be fearful of losing a job, or fear that the alternative to Fatah maybe just as bad, fear of Israel, or fear of the US or just simply fear of their own power. But ultimately fear is a lack of self-confidence to take another course. And their fear should be balanced by the fact that people are literally dying for justice and wanting leaders to care about them and not about themselves

The leaders had many chances to admit mistakes and reset the course: 1) the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and elections of the right wing Netanyahu government in the 1990s; 2) the murder of Yasser Arafat in 20004; 3) the Palestinian elections in 2006, 4) the opportunity created by the Gaza Ghetto uprising and the ongoing genocide.  The latter is particularly important since it may be the last chance to reset the course. How do you reset the course: get rid of corruption, reform the judiciary to be truly independent, end the unilateral decisions, bring the masses of Palestinians with intellectual abilities to replace all the corrupt people, leverage our only golden asset: our people. Yes, this is not going to be easy, but you can start. Palestinians do not have to line-up with governments. We do have to 1) speak truth to power, 2) build something positive despite incredible odds, 3) try to find and encourage the goodness in ALL humans. Briefly, we must challenge corruption and greed that leads to war and conflict. We see both large scale greed and corruptions: Trump, Biden/Harris, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and General Sisi of Egypt, and our own corrupt Palestinian “leaders”. How do we make sure that people we know do not continue down that path (addictive/destructive)? Fatah and other factions can redeem themselves if we get strong intellectual leadership. But this must emerge from the bottom and go up. People can make a difference. With courage and conviction, Palestine can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes. You/we owe it to over a quarter million martyrs, a million injured, we ow it to the millions of refugees. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We owe it to the dismembered bodies of Palestinian children. We owe it to the fidayyeens who paid the ultimate price of resistance. We owe it to the hundreds of millions around the world who declared in the streets of every city in the world “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.” We owe it to Palestine and to the world. Let us work hard NOW to start a dialogue and start organizing…

معالجة الفساد

ألقي محاضرات ومقابلات عن فلسطين يوميًا. كما أسافر حول العالم لإلقاء المحاضرات. في إحدى رحلاتي الأخيرة إلى أستراليا ونيوزيلندا ألقيت 212 محاضرة في 17 مدينة (بمعدل أربع محاضرات يوميًا). السؤال الأكثر إحراجًا الذي يُطرح عليّ كثيرًا هو على غرار "مع القضية الأكثر عدالة في العالم والمستعمرين الأكثر قسوة، لماذا لديكم أيها الفلسطينيون مثل هؤلاء القادة الفاسدين غير الأكفاء؟". كتب صديقي الراحل إدوارد سعيد عن السلطة الفلسطينية على نطاق واسع وكتب مقالاً لاذعًا عن اتفاقيات أوسلو في أكتوبر 1993. https://www.rommanmag.com/view/posts/postDetails?id=6256 بالتالي تم حظر كتبه وكتاباته في المناطق الفلسطينية لفترة من الوقت من قبل الراحل ياسر عرفات. لم أكن ناقدًا قويًا مثله. ولكن بعد عودتي إلى فلسطين في عام 2008، تعلمت الكثير عن الذين وقعوا على "وثيقة الاستسلام" هذه بحسب سعيد، والذين وضعتهم إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة لإدارة الشؤون المدنية لشعبنا تحت الاحتلال، لذلك أصبحت أكثر نقدا ولكن قليا ما كتبت بهذه المواضيع لأنني ركزت على مدى السنوات الأربعين الماضية نشاطاتي ضد الصهيونية المدمرة لشعبنا وبيئتنا. كتبت مئات الأبحاث والمقالات الأخرى، وأكثر من 30 فصلاً في كتب، وعدة كتب. ناقشت في هذه الكتابات وبعض المقابلات بشكل مقتضب أوجه القصور بما في ذلك الفساد والتواطؤ مع المحتلين من خلال التنسيق الأمني ​​وعدم الكفاءة وإزالة أو تهميش أفراد فتح الشرفاء (مثل عفيف صافية، إيهاب بسيسو، مروان البرغوثي، نبيل شعث). بدأت في تجميع البيانات. صادقت منتقدين آخرين مثل نزار بنات (الذي قتلته السلطة) وباسل الأعرج (سجنته السلطة وأساءت معاملته وقتلته إسرائيل). البيانات والمواد التي جمعتها عن الفساد كثيرة وربما أنتهي إلى وضعها في كتاب في وقت لاحق. ظل 98% من وقتي مركزاً على محاربة الصهاينة العنصريين الاستعماريين. ولكنني تعرضت أيضاً لمضايقات من الحكومات (بما في ذلك إسرائيل والأردن والولايات المتحدة والسلطة الفلسطينية). وكلما تقدمت في السن، كلما أدركت أنني بحاجة إلى التحدث بأكثر قوة عن الفساد المدمر لقضيتنا.

في كتابي عن المقاومة الشعبية في فلسطين شرحت مدى الضرر الذي ألحقته السلطة وما زالت تلحقه بكل أشكال المقاومة بما في ذلك المقاومة الشعبية (غير المسلحة). ولكنني تعلمت أيضاً بشكل متزايد أن خطيئة ارتكبها عرفات وثم أبو مازن هي الأنانية واستفراد القرار، وتبعها عدم استعدادهما للاعتراف بأخطائهما (سواء كان ذلك في الأردن أو لبنان أو أكبر خطأ على الإطلاق: اتفاقيات أوسلو). أوسلو كما وصفها إدوارد سعيد كانت نكبتنا الثانية. إذا نجح الصهاينة في تقويض القضية الفلسطينية، فيمكنك أن تلقي باللوم بشكل كبير على توقيع أوسلو وتداعياته. الخطأ الثاني هو عدم مغادرة أوسلو بعد انتهاء "فترة الانتقال" المؤقتة التي استمرت خمس سنوات في عام 1999. ولكن الخطأ (الخطيئة) الأكثر أهمية هي عدم استغلال فرصة الحكم لتطوير نظام حكم قائم على القانون يحترم جميع شرائح مجتمعنا بدلاً من تشجيع أولئك الذين يتملقون الزعيم بغض النظر عن فسادهم أو عدم كفاءتهم.

وهكذا، سنة بعد سنة، تفاقم الفساد وعدم الكفاءة وخاصة في المجالات الأكثر أهمية لقضيتنا الفلسطينية. على سبيل المثال، التعيينات في الخدمة الخارجية: "السفراء" الذين يتم تعيينهم لأغراض سياسية والذين يضرون بالقضية بدلاً من مساعدتها. هذا تعميم ينطبق على 99٪ من ممثلينا. استثناءات مثل الصديق الرائع  حسام زملط ممثلنا في المملكة المتحدة تثبت في الواقع فشل وعدم كفاءة الآخرين. لكن مناطق أخرى شهدت الفساد والمحسوبية وهي منهجية وخبيثة حتى في مجالات مثل حماية البيئة حيث تم عزل الأشخاص الطيبين وترقية الأفراد الخاضعين بغض النظر عن الكفاءة. في مجالات كثيرة يتم توزيع العقود الحكومية ليس على أساس الجدارة ولكن على أساس المحسوبية.

إنني، مثل إدوارد سعيد وملايين الفلسطينيين، كنت أختلف بشدة مع الخيارات التي اتخذتها مجموعة أوسلو لبناء الإدارة الفلسطينية التي أراحت إسرائيل من أعباء إدارتها لنا ومن العزلة الدولية. لم تستند حتى إلى وعود بالحرية أو إعادة الحقوق. ولكنني لا أستطيع أيضاً إلا أن أشعر بالأسف على أولئك الذين سلكوا هذا الطريق. فلا بد وأن يكون من المؤلم للغاية بالنسبة للإنسان أن ينزل إلى نفق لا توجد فيه أي إمكانية لظهور ضوء في نهايته، وخلال هذه الرحلة إلى أعماق الظلام يشعر بالعلقات تزحف على ظهره وتمتص دمه، والأصوات من خلفه تدعوه إلى العودة (بعضهم من أعدائه السياسيين، وبعضهم من رفاقه السابقين). المفاوضين الفلسطينيين يخشون العودة لأنهم يعتقدون أن ذلك قد يمنح المعارضين السياسيين أداة اعلامية. إنهم يخشون فقدان ماء الوجه. ولكن ماذا يكسب الإنسان اذا خسر نفسه؟  أنا ممتن دائماً لجدي المربي الفاضل عيسى عطالله الذي أقنعني قبل أربعين عاماً بالتخلي عن هذا الخوف من الاعتراف بالأخطاء. إن الشعب الفلسطيني غاضب للغاية، رغم أن العديد منهم يخشون التعبير عن آرائهم خوفاً من خسارة مصادر دخلهم، أو خوفاً من أن يكون البديل لفتح أكثر سوءا ولكن لماذا لا تصلح فتح نفسها وإلا تندثر كما اندثرت كل الفصائل الفلسطينية التي كانت فاعلة في عشرينيات وثلاثينيات القرن الماضي.  أو خوفاً من إسرائيل، أو خوفاً من الولايات المتحدة، أو خوفاً من قوتهم. ولكن الخوف في نهاية المطاف هو افتقار إلى الثقة بالنفس لاتخاذ مسار آخر. وينبغي أن يتوازن خوفهم مع حقيقة مفادها أن هنالك ابادة جماعية والكل مٌستهدف. لقد أتيحت للقادة العديد من الفرص للاعتراف بالأخطاء وإعادة ضبط المسار: 1) اغتيال إسحاق رابين وانتخابات حكومة نتنياهو اليمينية في التسعينيات؛ 2) اغتيال ياسر عرفات في عام 2004؛ 3) الانتخابات الفلسطينية عام 2006؛ 4) الفرصة التي خلقها طوفان الأقصى والإبادة الجماعية المستمرة. والأمر الأخير مهم بشكل خاص لأنه قد يكون الفرصة الأخيرة لإعادة ضبط المسار والكيان لا يرحم أحدا وترون كيف يدمر الأخضر واليابس بما فيه الضراب المسروقة بالمليارات. كيف يمكننا إعادة ضبط المسار: التخلص من الفساد، وإصلاح القضاء ليكون مستقلاً حقًا، وإنهاء القرارات الأحادية الجانب، وجلب الجماهير الفلسطينية ذات القدرات الفكرية لتحل محل الفاسدين -- الاستفادة من أصولنا الذهبية الوحيدة: شعبنا. نعم، لن يكون هذا سهلاً، ولكن يمكن البدء. لا يتعين على الفلسطينيين الاصطفاف مع الحكومات. يتعين علينا 1) قراءة الواقع بدقة (مثلا أمريكا وعملائها في انهيار) والتحدث بالحقيقة للسلطة الحاكمة، 2) بناء شيء إيجابي على الرغم من الصعوبات المذهلة، 3) محاولة العثور على الخير وتشجيعه في جميع البشر. باختصار يجب أن نتحدى الفساد والجشع والهبل المتفشي. نرى الجشع والفساد على نطاق واسع: ترامب، وبايدن/هاريس، وملوك المملكة العربية السعودية والإمارات العربية المتحدة والجنرال السيسي في مصر، و"قادتنا" الفاسدين. كيف نتأكد من أن الأشخاص الذين نعرفهم لا يستمرون في هذا المسار الإدماني والمدمر؟ يمكن لفتح والفصائل الأخرى أن تنقذ نفسها إذا جندت قيادة فكرية قوية والتزمت بمشروع التغيير الثوري. وأقول أيضا مهم أن يسمعوا النقد ويغيروا (ما فائدت أن تغلقوا دماغكم كما أتوقع أن يفعل البعض بإهمال هذا المقال ومهاجمتني ككاتب ؟).  يمكن لك (نعم أنت) أن تحدث فرقًا!!! فلسطين، بالشجاعة والإصرار، قادرة على النهوض مثل طائر الفينيق من الرماد. إننا مدينون بهذا لأكثر من ربع مليون شهيد، ومليون جريح، ومدينون لملايين اللاجئين والأسرى ومدينون لأبنائنا وأحفادنا والأجيال القادمة. ومدينون لجثث الأطفال الفلسطينيين المقطعة الأوصال. ومدينون للفدائيين الذين دفعوا الثمن الأغلى للمقاومة. ومدينون لمئات الملايين في مختلف أنحاء العالم الذين أعلنوا في شوارع كل مدينة في العالم: "بآلاف، وبالملايين، نحن جميعاً فلسطينيين". مدينون لفلسطين وللعالم بأن نعمل. يللا نبدأالحوار للتغيير !!

Olives, hope, and more

 Today is the last day we work on our olive trees at the museum gardens in Bethlehem (80 trees). Earlier last week we picked olives in our own home garden in Beit Sahour. This is a form of resistance but it is also physically and mentally healthy exercise that gets us to understand both the blessings and the challenges of life. As a communal event, we receive help from volunteers (local and international) and we get to feel camaraderie and friendship while we also discuss the horrors of starving people of Gaza, of children body parts blown by US bombs, of what motivates genocide, geopolitics, and of our role and purpose in life. T see pictures/reports on activities at our institute, check out our facebook page. 

The olive picking season and the olive tree have been a sacred part of our lives for thousands of years. Here is an article I wrote many years ago about this. Hope is also rekindled in our hearts from our people. Those who volunteered with us like the employees of the red crescent society who helped us pick olives. I am inspired by a Palestinian Tamer who holds two jobs (one as a guard here at our institute but also helped with olives and one as a mechanic), thus working 16 hours a day and yet walks his daughter to school every day. I am inspired by Mosab Abo Taha (see this and this) and Ramzy Baroud a brilliant writer who lost his MD sister in Gaza (see this) and Lebanese women Ghadi Francis. I am inspired by this missionary who walks where Jesus walked, even in time of war. I could list thousands of people like that that I personally know; someone should compile a webpage; I am sure we can list hundreds of thousands of candles in the darkness

Thus, we have hope and faith despite the genocidal onslaught against our people of Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and also Syria and Yemen goes (76 years of colonialism, supremacy, hegemony, and control).  

The Cactus and the cucumber: A reflection on hope (I wrote this almost 20 years ago)

THINGS NOT SEEN IN THE COMPLICIT WESTERN MEDIA:

Naomi Klein sums things well https://x.com/democracynow/status/1848726603112612275

Col. Larry Wilkerson & Scott Ritter on how Iran destroyed Israeli attack while IDF crushed by a recovered Hezbollah  https://youtu.be/9JoIAfK07uM

Zionist plan: Nile to Euphrates https://youtu.be/KMxooA7CQ8g
This is what it looks like when masses of people are transported to concentration and torture camps in the 21st century. Will the people behind the wheel one day claim that they were 'just drivers'? https://x.com/pawelwargan/status/1849084175829078189
Israeli Soldiers SICKENING War Crimes EXPOSED https://youtu.be/gEo813rYm8g
Nakba happening again in front of the entire world:
https://x.com/Timesofgaza/status/1849378844089647136
and one more massacre (now over 3000 massacres) from Khan Younis
https://x.com/warfareanalysis/status/1849684329582166413
reminiscent of another massacre at same place in 1956:
https://x.com/user104021010/status/1720394748169539715
(yes this is not new)
Kill Them All: The Extermination of Palestinians
https://thecradle.co/articles/kill-them-all-israels-extermination-of-palestinians-in-gaza
UN report confirms MASS RAPE of Palestinian hostages in Israeli torture camps
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-10-18-un-report-confirms-mass-abuse-palestinian-hostages.html
Chris Hedges: Extermination works - at first
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/extermination-works-at-first
CIA and a private company to run concentration camp in Gaza
https://youtu.be/RRzkIIw2_us
People of Gaza are starving while Arabs hold lavish feasts
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1171559400958009
Australian-Israeli dual citizen Mark Regev under trial for genocide advocacy
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2024-10-22/ty-article/.premium/australian-israeli-former-diplomat-mark-regev-under-trial-for-genocide-advocacy/00000192-b4e6-d006-a5b3-feee3fa30000
The "President of the European Commission" Ursula von der Leyden not only has excused every crime committed by Israel (war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, genocide) but even advocates suppression of free speech in Europe ala what they have in Germany (no Palestinians flags, no speech against Zionism or colonialism, no "Free Palestine" slogans). She is truly a "daughter of nationalist Germany" which committed the genocide in Namibia and of Nazis and neo-Nazis. And here is a bit about her father and his role in WWII Germany Who was the father of Ursula von der Leyden in WW2? . We do not know if her affinity to Israel is a (deluded) way of making up (she should not because Nazis collaborated with the Zionists who do not represent Jews and even broke the boycotts of Nazi Germany). She should know better. The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized her biased stance which, he said, undermined Europe's geopolitical position and was at variance with reality of a catastrophic Israel induced humanitarian catastrophe.
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-father-of-Ursula-von-der-Leyen-in-WW2

Resistance and colonization

Palestinians, like others, reflect on resistance and fate of other nations subjected to colonization. Zionist leaders wish for us a fate similar to that of the Lakota Nation in what became the United States of America. As the Polish new tough-man who received the torch from Hitler said: you have to keep beating them and killing them so hard they never rise. Most Palestinians think of decolonization ala Algeria or (mostly) like South Africa. In Algeria, after a protracted 132 year conflict, the colonizers left (many of them six or seven generations so were not really “returning to Europe”). But this was a costly conflict with some one or two million Algerians killed (a genocide). The South African model is cited more by Palestinians who are recruiting international support with boycott, divestments and sanctions and locally engaged in resistance. Like Algerian or Apache or Lakota or South African or Aztec people, resistance took both armed and non-armed forms. There were those who believed in armed resistance (Crazy horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Nelson Mandela, Omar Mukhtar, Che Guevara) and others who believed in popular resistance (Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi). Individual way of death varied for each. There were movements like the African National Congress in South Africa and the National Liberation Front in Algeria or the PLO labeled as terrorist organizations by both the colonizers and the West. Most of the resistance whether it was in South Africa or Algeria or Palestine was popular resistance (see my book). That did not matter to the colonizers who wanted the land without the troublesome indigenous people. All resistance was in the cross-hairs of the colonizers past, present, and future.  Genocides, pogroms, massacres continued anyway. 

In all such situations, both the colonizers and the colonized understand it is a fateful and existential struggle for their narratives. Shiny city on a hill, manifest destiny, heroic resistance, terrorism, promised land, defending ourselves (circling the wagons), barbarians, white or red devils, forces of darkness and forces of light, are the language terms used over and over again depending on where you stand on colonization (see books by Franz Fanon and Edward Said). The outcomes are limited with only three possible scenarios: Australia/USA, Algeria/Vietnam, and South Africa/rest of world models. I know that I and millions push for that third model and it is the most common outcome found in 160+ countries/territories (see my other book). But for indigenous people under the boot in times of hopelessness or times of hope, survival itself is a form of victory. We Palestinians survived 76 years of horror that no one saw before and survived even in the midst of horrors of an ongoing extermination campaign in the Gaza Strip.

A message from Omar in the Gaza strip (sent to my friend Heather): "We were informed that we had to head to southern Gaza as it was declared a 'safe humanitarian zone.' On our way south, the road felt like hell itself. A bus carrying a family was bombed, and it was the first time I saw body parts flying through the air. Every kilometer or so, you would see a car, completely charred with the people inside, people who had lives and dreams. These cars were left as they were, and perhaps even run over by tanks. We reached Khan Younis, where I stayed at the Red Crescent for 90 days. I lived through experiences you cannot even imagine. The Red Crescent was bombed more than 10 times. Death was closer to me than my jugular vein. I could almost taste it, yet it refused to take me, until Israeli tanks surrounded us. The Israeli forces then stormed the Red Crescent. A soldier stood at the door, cursing and spewing vile, despicable words. He started yelling, "Come out, you animals!" The path between their tanks was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced in my life. They humiliated us, and they humiliated our women and elderly in the most brutal ways. They took one young man from among us and ordered him to take off his clothes and dance. When he refused, they put a bullet between his eyes. The road was filled with corpses and tears. We eventually reached Rafah.... the Israeli army entered Rafah and closed the crossing, forcing us to flee to Deir al-Balah. I now live in a tent at a UNRWA school in Deir al-Balah. We are surrounded by the Zionists from all sides. They starve us, kill us, and bomb the schools every day. I’ve been displaced more than five times while in Deir al-Balah, from one tent to another, from one form of death to the next. Each time, I begged death to take me, but it refused, as if it found pleasure in my suffering. This Zionist enemy has inflicted upon us every kind of torture imaginable..."

MSNBC highlights Shaaban (one of many tens of thousands burned or buried alive) in his own words 

Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023

The Destructive Legacy of Mass Starvation

Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: U.S. Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse testify

and this was videotaped just this week in the west bank: https://youtu.be/_Z6VByIrDw0

And what is happening here in the wild West Bank is harrowing 

Palestinian content is censored on social platforms owned by META 

Can Israel survive Netanyahu? and Is Israel plotting its own defeat? 

Who supplies Israel with weapons (to commit genocide)

The Guardian: Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
Biden administration helping genocide putting US troops at risk [will the Hannibal directive also apply to US troops like Israeli troops?] and Dr. Jill Stein on US election

On sisters and personal reflection

 This message now reaches over 60,000 individuals directly and many more by forwards. They are mostly activists (perhaps 75-80%), 15-20% spectators and “neutral” people (journalists etc), and perhaps 400 Zionists (which is OK with me as in some cases they may see the light). I usually try to relay situations on the ground that are missing from the manipulated/controlled western “mainstream” media. I also sometimes quote articles for example today I could put links to articles about the extermination in Jabalia and Beit Hannoun.  Craig Murray wrote from Scotland: "A deliberate and complete extermination of the population of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun is happening this very second, so that Israel can annex this piece of Northern Gaza. The world does nothing. Sorry, that is not true. The western world supplies the weapons." And Francesca Albanese wrote: "You can be a celebrity or an ordinary person. If you stay SILENT, PASSIVE, INACTIVE while Palestinians trapped in Gaza - human beings who breathe, feel and dream exactly like you - get slaughtered by an unchecked army, you are no different from those who continued to go by their lives during past genocides who erased millions from the earth." And John Gutterman Tranen wrote: "The IOF observed Yom Kippur by turning Jabalia into an extermination zone. May they never be forgiven and may their names be removed from the book of life." and John Lyons, ABC Sydney correspondent, wrote from Beirut: "Israel has bombed one of the main water channels from Litani River. Thousands of hectares now without irrigation. This will cause huge food shortages. On top of heavy shelling and “widespread” (HRW) use of chemical weapons by Israel (white phosphorus) on south Lebanon. This is devastating."

On some (rather rare) occasions I state my own fears, hopes, and thoughts. This message is one to do so more poignantly. What prompted me to do this is a message from Hiam in Gaza (displaced now a fourth time and living with her surviving family in a tent). Hiam lost an eye to an Israeli bullet in 2001 (she was 7 years old then) and we had hosted her then in our home in the US as we got her a prosthetic eye (which she has since outgrown and now merely puts a batch on her eye. Hiam, now 30 years old, has a 10-year-old son Mohannad whose school was bombed. She still calls me Baba (dad) and calls Jessie Mama (Mom) and our son Akhoya (my brother). Her daily description of the horrors she is witnessing around her and her feelings keeps me awake at night. Islam whose son Mohammad on a whee chair was partly burned with his sister from the Israeli shelling of their tent. But the two families of Hiam and Islam are two of many I am in touch with in Gaza and they are ones still alive (awaiting the machine of extermination to reach them). I dread the coming winter for them all (1.9 million people). Sometimes they tell me they envy the dead (>200,000 dead in Gaza in the last 12 months) as they are starving and since most of them are highly religious they believe in an afterlife which has no suffering and pain.

Hiam  and her son Muhannad in 2023 (before the horrors) 

Mohammad Abulkhair in early 2023 (before that home was demolished and he was burned with his sister) and his sister Layan being treated

Here in Bethlehem, I talk daily to people who were beaten by Israeli soldiers and settlers or who were denied access to tend to their lands. Just last week we lost Ziad Abuhleil (a person I knew who, in his 60s was my age) beaten to death by Israeli soldiers. And yesterday were were informed of the death in Israeli prison of a Bethlehemite 37 year old (he would be 58th tortured to death this past year). This past week, our friend Dr. Ramzy Baroud lost his sister. Ramzi, a renouned author co-edited with Dr. Ilan Pappe the book "Our Vision For Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out"  (available in Arabic and English) in which I had a chapter. Ramzy wrote Friday 1 AM about his sister:

"Early this evening, Israel has killed, or more accurately assassinated, my sister Dr Soma Baroud, by bombing her taxi in the Khan Yunis area, killing her and six other innocent people. She was the kindest soul, a great mother and a most loving sister. She was a member of a generation of female doctors that revolutionized medicine in the Strip. She healed many people, never charged the poor and until the last day of her life remained principled, loving, kind and patient, even when Israel blew up her house a few weeks ago. I don’t know what else to say, aside from the fact that I suddenly feel as if a child who became orphaned all over again. She was a leader of our family, and fulfilled the role of our mother who died at a young age. I am sorry, sister, that I could do nothing to protect you. I feel deep shame that I live in the very country that paid for and made the bombs that killed you. When the numbness is gone, I will try to stay strong only driven by the hope that we will meet again in Paradise."

Dr. Soma

Dr. Soma is gone as a sister. Hiam and Layan are disfigured as sisters but still alive for now. Each death and each injury and each difficulty produces a scar and Palestine has millions of scars.  For each of us who care, these scars are personal and they do not heal. They shape our minds and hearts. We do not forget. The only thing we try to do is channel these traumas towards actions for justice and for peace. I investigated hundreds of forms of resistance and wrote a book and many papers on popular resistance. This allowed me to experiment and work with various forms of resistance also as therapeutic to our traumas. It is not merely civil disobedience or being in the wrong place at the wrong time that results in our detention or arrest (this of course happened to me as to over 1 million Palestinians). There are hundreds of other forms of resistance which I explained in my book and that I personally practice. I must say in retrospect that the most important form of resistance is resistance to mental colonization (see this paper). That also means not losing our mind over all the atrocities we see but to stay focused on the work that needs to be done. I wrote lessons I learned in a reflection in  2018 still valid.

Keep Palestine alive by staying humane and active

Need for action

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Maybe we need reminder of other facts showing why this matters globally and ask how we collectively can act to stop being pushed into a cataclysmic future:

-Zionism worked to forcefully transform a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual country called Palestine (part of the land of Canaan) to a “Jewish state of Israel” 

-(Zionism partially successful): Today there are 15 million of us Palestinians, 8 million are refugees and millions live in shrinking reservations/ghettos/bantustans/concentration camps subject to the most brutal daily attacks and torture for 76 years.

-A genocide started in 1948 with 33 massacres and ethnic cleansing (Nakba) and accelerated in the past year after the Gaza ghetto uprising 7 October 2023. Over 250,000 Palestinians have been killed since 1948, over a million injured.

-Zionism started and promoted from Western Powers using a distorted image of Judaism in the same way that crusaderism used a distorted image of Christianity.

-These western powers (themselves colonial and build on the destruction of hundreds of millions of indigenous people) are supporting now one of the most dangerous colonial power in history (dangerous for all humanity, see below).

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-All colonial powers dubbed any form of local/native resistance as terrorism, barbarism, savagery etc.

-To be honest with ourselves we must admit that hundreds of millions of people of the global south were (lethally) mistaken in assuming there was relevance to a western (read colonial) created global system that talked about International law and order while committing the most heinous crimes against humanity. Exhibit A: check US behavior at the UNSC.

-Any moral laws in Christianity, Islam, Judaism or other religions are totally meaningless to saving us when their subjects engage in committing horrors like what we saw in the past 200 years (massacres, pogroms, over 50 genocides, etc) and their co-religionists stay silent.

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-This genocide is different than say the genocide of native Americans or aborigines or others: 1) broadcast live (no one can claim they did not know, see ongaza.org for links), 2) accompanied by the largest body of lies perpetuated on (controlled) mass media and pop culture in the West/Global North, 3) originates not from one regime but from several (many under strong Zionist lobbies), 4) Perpetrated by Zionists with an superiority-inferiority complex (claim of perpetual victimhood while claiming superiority over “goyim”), 5) it accelerated in the 21st century in the era of weapons of mass destruction (hyperbaric bombs, nuclear, chemical, mass planting of explosives in common house-hold devises) and mass control (Zionist Pegasus software, control of mass media and technology etc)

-Zionism being in the active phase of colonization does not set its borders. They tell us they are expanding and they expand. Their next occupation/colonization areas being talked about is all the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates. But it goes beond that since Zionists now control education and many business is countries like the USA and the UAE (Exhibit A: watch suppression of free speech on university campuses).

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-Jewish Zionists represent at best 8 million people and Christian Zionists at best 50 million (there are 16 million Jews and 2.38 billion Christians in the world). Zionists thus represent 0.72% of the total world population. Any rational analysis shows how they drive apocalyptic fate of the world against the wishes of 99.28% of the world population (minus those who profit from militarism and the rampant capitalism system, people like Trump and Musk).

-Military spending keeps increasing especially in Western colonial powers (including “Israel”) and in their puppet regimes like “Saudi Arabia” and UAE. 

-The military is the largest single contributor to pollution and climate change. Geopolitcal tension and wars also divert people attention away from sustainability issues.

-Colonial oppressive regime used and still use “divide and conquer” strategies to get poor people hating other poor people while the rich get richer (see populist right-wing rhetoric in Western countries for good examples).

-Global joint struggle can work as it did against colonial apartheid South Africa

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

Whole families are daily being wiped out in the Gaza strip (and now in Lebanon) while the trends above portend a catastrophic and cataclysmic end of human civilization. People around the world are waking up (hundreds of millions were on the streets). Yet, we must organize better, get our activists better educated, and understand the nature of the evil forces that will make this planet uninhabitable if we do not stop them. The burden is on this generation to stop the rush to our extinction. In particular oppressed people around the world must unite. We are the majority as noted above. Search your city for organizers and events in this week on the anniversary of the acceleration of Genocide or organize your own activity. Let us also all redouble our efforts for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. We are lucky to live in an era of transformation where we can make a difference and it is an existential struggle for humanity. And yes, there is a path forward 

End of Empire?

I wrote this after watching this shocking [must see] video that explain things to you about what humanity is up against https://youtu.be/yDWaRO88ezA  and illustrate the urgency of the situation [And if you want to know about the linked ongoing genocide and ecocide, just visit http://ongaza.org]

Unless Kamala Harris reverses course and suspends arms shipments to Israel  used in genocide, Trump will win the election because critical Muslim, Arab and progressive voters in key swing states will not vote for genocide party A. They will not vote for genocidal party B (Republicans) now run by the megalomaniac Trump who is willing to burn the world for his ego and to prevent the Mossad from releasing damaging tapes they have on him (Epstein/Maxwell produced). In either case, the US is likely finished as an empire unless its public wakes up as they did during the 1960s. Many of us had predicted this a while back but the speed of the decay is stunning which gives a risk of a global war to save the Empire (a losing proposition in areas of high tech WMDs). It is not just related to over 1.2 million COVID19 US deaths or to a $35 TRILLION in government/national debt (much of it to countries like China and Japan and much of it for wars done for the lobbies) or the corporate and personal debts. It is not just that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world with two million citizens behind bars. It is also due to NATO taken over by irresponsible leadership that is getting us closer to a global war (see this analysis https://youtu.be/yDWaRO88ezA). It is also that the political system had the illusion of democracy (democrats and republicans exchanging seats and positions) while key actors (Federal reserve system of rich bankers and lobbies like the Zionist-Israeli lobby) actually manage the system.

More and more people also now increasingly realize that the so-called “justice system” is really dysfunctional and serves the rich and powerful. Lower level courts sentence black individuals to harsh sentences while exonerating white racist killers and mid level system that allows corruption to go on (e.g. by rich people like Trump, Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, Roger Stone, Les Wexner) to the supreme court. The Republican controlled Supreme Court ruled that actions by the president while in office are not subject to law/prosecution. Even free speech and attempts to boycott rogue states like Israel (an apartheid genocidal state) is now forbidden by law in many states and in some federal regulations.  That war on truth and justice in the west is carried in parallel with the actual genocidal war on our people (Palestinians and Lebanese and others) to cleanse the land and resources coveted for the Empire sans its indigenous people).

The Orwellian theatres of the absurd notwithstanding, the new world order is not turning out the way it was planned. The neocon Zionists of the 1990s plans included "securing the realm" and strategies that predicted an event like 11 Sept 2001 would help them to secure a “new American Century”, the pre planned invasion of Iraq etc. They have all backfired. While the senile king of Saudi Arabia incoherently tried to read a text prepared for him attacking Iran and his murderous son was enjoying booze and women on his $100 million yacht, Iran, China and Russia where defying Israeli occupied Washington (e.g. on the illegal economic war on Iran and Syria), interlinking their economies, military cooperation and more.

Times are indeed changing. Trump may win the elections but this will only accelerate the demise of the US power. Here is why he may win (in order of importance): 1) the Zionist lobby wants him to win elections to complete successes in bolstering Israel (and ensure the lobby is above the law and beyond scrutiny), 2) Harris courting of the lobby and supporting genocide undermines any remnant of illusion progressives, 3) Trump and his circle will do anything to win, 4) the American public is not allowed to hear all facts and the public can be manipulated by mainstream media and social media to vote for lesser of two evils based on fear propaganda (hundreds of millions spent on advertisements), 5) the Democrat party is corrupt and worked hand in glove with republicans against allowing other parties.

While I do not mourn the impending demise of the empire, I do feel sad for the economic deprivations that will come in the next few years in a land that I lived in for over two decades (before I returned to Palestine) and that I love (people, nature, etc). I would wish for the pain to be minimal and for better and quicker rebuilding in a far more sustainable and equitable way. The main danger after the election, is of a global war launched to defend Zionism and allow it to build an empire in Western Asia. The Israeli/Zionist Apartheid and ongoing genocide (in Palestine) remains the Achilles heel that exposes Western Hypocrisy just like Western support for South African Apartheid provided in the 1980s.

 
Let us (re)imagine and plan a world of multilateral cooperation, sustainability and equality and work extra hard to achieve it before it is too late and cockroaches inherit our planet. It is more urgent now than ever and it is an existential struggle for all humanity.

Existential struggle

Now the numbers killed in the indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza exceeded 40,000 registered deaths (72% of them women and children). But the number of deaths could be many folds more (at least ten thousand under the rubble, many thousands died for lack of food or medical care etc). But globally the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How do they do it and how do we stop it. First simple facts:

-The reasons we have high incidence of hurricanes, floods, and other catastrophe is man made climate change-The reason we are not doing much about climate change is that there are greedy individuals who profit from the trends
-There are no just wars. There are understandable and justified resistance of native people to colonialism
-The uncontrollable fascist Western-created “Jewish state” is beginning to be an irritant to Western Powers who invested hundreds of billions in this pet project of imperialism. Hence, they try to save it from itself and from furthering the genocide that is embarrassing them and exposing western hypocrisy. Hence they are meeting in Qatar. Such efforts are driven more by failures: failure of the 5th strongest army in the world (supported by the US and the UK and France) to defeat a guerrilla force in the besieged and occupied Gaza strip; failure to create a deep Shia-Sunni divide; failure to mobilize the word against Islam; failure to contain the truth of what is happening on the ground; failure to bully their way.. etc.
-Western creations like ISIS/Daesh are now exposed for their agendas and are in retreat in the face of pushback by people of all faiths (Sunni Kurdish, Shia, Christian etc).
- Countries like North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela and Iran watched what the US did in places like Libya, Syria and Iraq. They watched as western powers did economic sabotage and caused havoc around the world (from blowing up Nord Stream Pipeline to economic strangulation). Instead of successfully bankrupting Russia and China, the US/Israel policies are bankrupting their own states. -Israel is not an asset to the US or to any other country but a liability to the whole world. Zionism is not nationalism, it is a worldwide movement in which Israel is only one of its bases. A world Zionist network created Israel and supports it at the cost of millions of native Arab rights. It is a movement based on manipulation, wars, destruction and genocide GLOBALLY.
-We have wars to distract us from the inequalities and injustices and to make money for a few already very rich people. Zionist Jews dominate these elites (Mirriam Adelson just donated $100 million to the trump campaign and >50% of donations to the Democratic party come from Zionists).
-An axis of resistance against US and Zionist imperialism does exist and does have the support of most of the people globally (e.g. see growth of BDS movement and public surveys and see what countries like Yemen and Lebanon are doing to stem aggression and genocide)
-An axis of collaboration, lies, deceit, and murder does exist and has the support of most of the regimes in the Arab world (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Egypt, Morocco) as well as regimes in Western countries (US, Britain, Australia, France)
-Demography has shifted around the world and thus most regimes move to assert more government controls and less democracy. Laws are enacted to silence any critics. The best tool for governments is to use perceived threats (previously communism, now immigrants, Islam and terrorism). False flag operations have thus gone dramatically up.
-For people to act is no longer a luxury but an existential need to protect our species. The last two decades showed that the schemes of the rich and powerful can delay freedom and damage sustainability. Yet, we the people can and do succeed. People do make a difference. If you think on all positive things in human history, they all happened by people acting positively and challenging status quo or rising up to help those in need. The most important development is that citizens in the West now know the truths including the truth that their systems are managed by moneyed interests and distractions and thus they have no democratic say in government (selecting "lesser of two evils" to give the delusion of "democracy" and "voting").

Apathy is an enemy of progress, action works. We are hopeful because as Howard Zinn once wrote (and I quoted it in my book “
Sharing the Land of Canaan” in 2004):

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

الحل

على مدى السنوات الخمس والأربعين الماضية، كنت ناشطاً في الشوارع وعلى شبكة الإنترنت مع نضال شعبنا من أجل العودة وتقرير المصير في مواجهة نظام استعماري وحشي لا يرحم. قرأت آلاف الكتب وكتبت بعضها بنفسي. قرأت عشرات الآلاف من الأبحاث والأوراق التحليلية (وكتبت مئات منها بنفسي). في الواقع، يمكن وصف مشكلة بلدنا بإيجاز شديد. ويمكن وصف حلها (العلاجات) بإيجاز أيضاً. إن تنفيذ الحل سيكون ممكناً وهو السبيل الوحيد لتجنب حرب عالمية كارثية.

باختصار، لدينا 15 مليون فلسطيني أصلي، وأكثر من 8 ملايين منا أصبحوا لاجئين أو نازحين قسرا (وهذا العدد يتزايد يومياً). حتى الآن قُتل أو هلك أكثر من 250 ألف فلسطيني بسبب سياسات الإبادة الجماعية منذ عام 1948. وأصيب مليون فلسطيني وسجن مليون آخر منذ عام 1948. وقع اليهود الجناة تحت تأثير فكرة تسمى الصهيونية التي تحاول إقناع الناس بأن اليهودية هي جنسية (اليهودية القسطنطينية كما أطلق عليها مارك إليس) وبالتالي فإن اليهود كجماعة ليس لديهم الحق في هذه الأرض القديمة فحسب، بل لديهم حق حصري فيها. تم جمع أكبر عدد ممكن من اليهود من جميع أنحاء العالم للاستيلاء على الأراضي الأصلية بقوة السلاح وقوات جماعات الضغط في جميع أنحاء العالم التي تذهب إلى الحكومات الغربية لتبني هذا المشروع المتمثل في التطهير العرقي والإبادة الجماعية (وتدمير البيئة وكل شيئ!).

إن المشاكل الرئيسية التي واجهت هذا المشروع الاستعماري هي 1) أنه وصل إلى الاستعمار متأخراً بعض الشيء بعد أن فقد الاستعمار جاذبيته (المدينة اللامعة على التل، والأرض الموعودة، والأعراق الأدنى وكل ذلك)، 2) المقاومة العنيدة من قبل السكان المحليين (المسيحيين، المسلمين، البهائيين، الدروز، إلخ) الذين لم يرحلوا ببساطة (انظر كتابي حول هذا الموضوع http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/، و3) صعوبة السيطرة على المعلومات في القرن الحادي والعشرين (على سبيل المثال البث المباشر لأعمال الإبادة الجماعية تنشر على منصات التواصل).

إن الدعم للمشروع الصهيوني وسبب استمراره لفترة طويلة كان عدة أسباب (ليس بترتيب معين): 1) الدعاية الجيدة التي تم نشرها على نطاق واسع من خلال وسائل الإعلام الغربية الخاضعة لسيطرة جيدة وهوليوود والتي خلقت وهمًا (ثقافة شعبية) بأن إسرائيل ديمقراطية وأنها مخلصة ومفيدة لليهود وأنها تدافع عن نفسها ، 2) شبكة صهيونية عالمية قوية التنظيم على استعداد لفعل أي شيء من أجل تعزيز القضية بما في ذلك الرشوة والابتزاز ولي الذراع بطرق أخرى، 3) سياسة إنشاء ودعم "زعماء" مستبدين عرب ومسلمين على استعداد لدعم المشروع للاحتفاظ بمقاعدهم. لقد تلقت هذه الركائز الثلاث ضربات قوية بسبب المقاومة والإبادة الجماعية المتعمدة والمستمرة الواضحة والصحوة العالمية (بما في ذلك العربية والإسلامية). لكن يبدو أن الركائز صامدة حتى الآن رغم اهتزازها. وفكرتي هي أن الضربات الموجهة إلى هذه الركائز يجب أن تتزايد بشكل كبير لإنهاء هذا الكابوس للبشرية وتجنب حرب عالمية كارثية (حيث سيكون الجميع خاسرين). ما هي المطارق التي تحتاج إلى تعزيز؟

1) المقاومة: بطبيعة الحال، في النضالات الاستعمارية المناهضة للاستعمار، تكون أغلب أشكال المقاومة غير مسلحة وبعضها مسلح. ويعترف القانون الدولي ليس فقط بحق المقاومة بل والالتزام بالمقاومة. وهذا يشمل ضرورة بناء مؤسسات الصمود (المرونة/المقاومة) على الأرض مثل مؤسستنا (palestinenature.org) ومئات المؤسسات الأخرى. وعلى مدى السنوات المائة والخمسين الماضية، ثبت أن قتل المزيد من الفلسطينيين يخلق مقاومة أكثر (وحتى أكثر ذكاءً/إبداعًا) (انظر مرة أخرى كتابي حول هذا الموضوع http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/).

2) الدعم من قبل جميع أصحاب الضمير في جميع أنحاء العالم. وهذا يشمل أشياء مثل المقاطعة وسحب الاستثمارات وفرض العقوبات (انظر bdsmovement.net)، والعمل الإعلامي، والعصيان المدني وغير ذلك.

3) قول الحقيقة: نشر الرواية الحقيقية لما يحدث وتبديد الأساطير والأكاذيب بما في ذلك حول "حق المستعمرين في الدفاع عن أنفسهم"، وطبيعة أنظمة الفصل العنصري، وأساطير "حل الدولتين". وللتعرف على هذه الأساطير، راجع كتابي الصادر عام 2004 http://qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan/

4) تفكيك شبكة دعم الاستعمار. ويشمل هذا فضح كل الأفراد والكيانات التي تدعم الصهيونية بما في ذلك "السلطة الفلسطينية". فقد أنشئت السلطة الفلسطينية بموجب "اتفاقات أوسلو" وكان من المفترض أن تكون مؤقتة لمدة 5 سنوات ولكنها الآن تبلغ من العمر 30 عامًا وقد جعلت "إسرائيل" ناجحة اقتصاديًا ودبلوماسيًا بينما دمرت مجتمعنا ودمرت المقاومة الشعبية بشكل منهجي. وهذا هو الاحتلال الاستعماري الأكثر ربحية في التاريخ. إن تقويض هذا النظام المزور أمر ضروري وكذلك الدفع نحو إنهاء الاستعمار والنضال ضد الفصل العنصري. وهذا أصعب بكثير على المستعمرين التعامل معه. راجع كتب إدوارد سعيد حول هذا الموضوع.

لاحظ أنني لم أضف نقطة خامسة حول الأمم المتحدة أو القوانين أو الاتفاقيات الدولية لأن تنفيذها يعتمد على آليات تستطيع الولايات المتحدة استخدام حق النقض عليها، مما يمنح إسرائيل الحصانة. إن الأمر لا يزال غامضاً بشأن ما إذا كانت مثل هذه الآليات أو حتى التصريحات الصادرة عن منظمات حقوق الإنسان لها فائدة تتجاوز قيمتها في العلاقات العامة. لذا ينبغي أن تكون النقاط الأربع المذكورة أعلاه كافية في تآزرها لضرب الركائز الثلاث المذكورة أعلاه والتي تدعم الاستعمار الصهيوني. هذا هو مسارنا الإنساني الذي يبتعد عن المسار الصهيوني الذي يؤدي إلى فناء العالم ونبوءة نهاية العالم Armageddon التي تحقق ذاتها. لا يزال بوسعنا إنقاذ البشرية ولكن النافذة تضيق لذا يتعين علينا أن نتحرك على وجه السرعة. ونقدر أفكاركم.


أتظن أنك عندمـــا أحـــرقتنــي ورقصت كالشيطان فوق رفاتي
وتركتنـــي للذاريــات تـذرنــي كحلاً لعين الشمس في الفلـوات
أتظـن أنك قـد طــمست هويتي ومحــــوت تاريخي ومعتقـــداتي
عبثا تحاول …. لا فنـــاء لثائر أنــــا كالقيامـــه ذات يـــــوم آت
أنا مثـل عيـسى عــائد وبقــــوة مــن كــل عاصـــفة ألـم شتـاتي
سأعــود أقدم عاشــــق متمــرد سأعـود أعظـم أعظم الثــــورات
سأعود بالتوراة والإنجيـل والــ قـــرآن والتسـبــيح والصـــلواتي
سأعـود بالأديـان ديــناً واحـــداً خــــــال مـــن الأحقـاد والنعرات
رجل من الأخدود ما من عودتي بـد … أنا كل الزمــــــان الآتــي
مهذل الصقور

The path forward

Over the past 45 years, I have been active on the streets and on the internet for our people struggle for return and self-determination in the face of a most brutal and merciless colonial regime. I read thousands of books and wrote a few myself. I read tens of thousands of research and analytical papers (and wrote hundreds myself). The problem of our country can actually be described very briefly. Its solution (remedies) can also be described briefly. Implementing the solution would be doable and is the only way to avoid a catastrophic world war.

So briefly, we have 15 million indigenous Palestinians, over 8 million of us are intentionally made refugees or displaced people (and that number increases daily). So far over 250,000 Palestinians were killed or perished prematurely thanks to genocidal policies since 1948. A million were injured and another million imprisoned since 1948. The perpetrator Jews fell under the spell of an idea called Zionism that tries to convince people that Jewishness is a nationality (Constantinian Judaism as called by Marc Ellis) and thus that Jews as a collective not only have a right to this ancient land but have an exclusive right to it. Gathering as many Jews as possible from around the world to take over indigenous land was done by force of arms and forces of lobbies around the world that go Western Governments to adopt this project of ethnic cleansing and genocide (and ecoside and scholasticide!).

The main problems faced by this colonial project are 1) that it arrived at colonialism a bit late after colonialism lost its appeal (the shiny city on a hill, promised land, inferior races and all that), 2) A stubborn resistance of the local people (Christian, Muslim, Bahai, Druz etc) who would not simply go away (see my book on this http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/), and 3) difficulty to control information in the 21st century (e.g. live feed of genocidal acts).

The main support for the Zionist project and why it persisted so long were several (not in any particular order): 1) very good hasbara /propaganda disseminated largely through well controlled western corporate media and Hollywood creating an illusion (pop culture) that Israel is a democracy, that it is redemptive and good for Jews, and that it is defending itself against barbarism, 2) A well-oiled Zionist network willing to do anything to advance the cause including bribery, blackmail, and arms twisting in other ways, 3) A policy of creation and support of Arab and Muslim autocratic “leaders” willing to support the project to keep their seats. These three pillars have received significant blows thanks to the obvious intentional and ongoing genocide and a global (including Arab and Muslim awakening). But the pillars for now seem to hold though shaky. My thought is that the pounding at those pillars must increase significantly to end this nightmare for humanity and to avoid a catastrophic world war (where ALL will be losers). What are the hammers pounding that need to be strengthened?

1) Resistance: naturally in colonial anti-colonial struggles, most of the resistance is unarmed and some of it armed. International law recognizes not only a right to resistance but obligation to resist. This includes the imperative of building institutions of sumud (resilience/resistance) on the ground like our own institution (palestinenature.org) and hundreds more. Over the past 150 years, it has been shown that killing more Palestinians creates more (and even smarter/more innovative) resistance (again see my book on this http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/).

2) Support by all people of conscience around the world. This includes things like Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanction (See bdsmovement.net), media work, civil disobedience and more.

3) Truth telling: Putting out the real narrative of what is happening and dispelling the myths and lies including about colonizers “right to defend themselves”, nature of racist apartheid regimes, and the myths of a “two-state solution”. For the latter, see my 2004 book http://qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan/

4) Dismantling the support network of colonialism. This includes exposing al individuals and entities that support Zionism including the “Palestinian Authority” (PA). The PA was created by the “Oslo accords” and supposed to be interim for 5 years but is now 30 year old and had made “Israel” economically and diplomatically successful while destroying our society methodically. This is now the most profitable colonial occupation in history. Undermining this rigged system is an imperative as is pushing for the alternative “decolonization” and anti-apartheid struggle. That is much harder for colonialist to cope with. See books by Edward Said on this.

Note I did not add a fifth point about the UN, International laws or conventions since their implementation depends on mechanisms where the US can and has used veto power on those thus giving Israel impunity. The jury is still out on whether such mechanisms or even statements by human rights organizations have utility beyond their public relations value. The four points above should suffice in synergy to hammer more at the three above listed pillars of Zionist colonial support. This is our human path which is away from the Zionist path which leads to world annihilation and self-fulfilling prophesy of Armageddon. We still can save humanity but the window is closing so we must act urgently. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Finally a poem with translation

أتظن أنك عندمـــا أحـــرقتنــي ورقصت كالشيطان فوق رفاتي
وتركتنـــي للذاريــات تـذرنــي كحلاً لعين الشمس في الفلـوات
أتظـن أنك قـد طــمست هويتي ومحــــوت تاريخي ومعتقـــداتي
عبثا تحاول …. لا فنـــاء لثائر أنــــا كالقيامـــه ذات يـــــوم آت
أنا مثـل عيـسى عــائد وبقــــوة مــن كــل عاصـــفة ألـم شتـاتي
سأعــود أقدم عاشــــق متمــرد سأعـود أعظـم أعظم الثــــورات
سأعود بالتوراة والإنجيـل والــ قـــرآن والتسـبــيح والصـــلواتي
سأعـود بالأديـان ديــناً واحـــداً خــــــال مـــن الأحقـاد والنعرات
رجل من الأخدود ما من عودتي بـد … أنا كل الزمــــــان الآتــي
مهذل الصقور

My rough translation (Poet Mohthel AlSqour)

Do you think that when you burned me And danced like devil over my remains
And left me for thrashers to thrash me Shades to the eyes of the sun in sockets
Do you think you have suppressed my identity And erased my beliefs and my history
In vain you try - no extinguishing a revolutionary I, like the resurrection, one day coming
I am like Jesus coming back strong and from each storm gathers mself
I will come back - oldest revolting lover and back as the gloriest of highest revolutions
I will be back with the Torah, the Injil* and the Quran and the tasbih** and the prayers
I will be back with all religions as one religion devoid of hatred and divisiveness
A man from the trench inevitable my return.. I am all the coming times …

*= new testament
**=glorification of god/supplication

Implosion and rebuilding

 Langston Hughes poem ("Lenox Avenue Mural" in the 1930s)

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

The “Israeli” Knesset voted to deny any possibility of a Palestinian state in Palestine. I read polls indicating most Israelis support the ongoing genocide of our people. I heard Donald Trump (next President of the “USA”) stoke colonial language and defend racist ancestors (who he called “our great ancestors”). The remaining indigenous people of that country, blacks, Hispanics, immigrants and people of conscience all felt the horror of colonial racism that Trump epitomizes. Genocide Joe Biden does not provide an alternative. The Green party does. But in any case, as the US Empire implodes, I am thinking of how such colonial powers (US and Israel) dehumanize their victims and get more cruel in their last days. The biggest current victims of the empire's dehumanization is of course us, the Palestinian people.  It is abundantly clear that oppressors spend an inordinate amount of time and resources to dehumanize their victims. But we humans spend an inordinate amount of time also trying to suppress our own humanity. To dehumanize someone is to deprive them of essential human qualities such as compassion, individuality, love, and social contact. Making a family line up in the sun for hours to cross a checkpoint is a form of dehumanizing. It is dehumanizing to deny food, water, and medical care, to destroy means of livelihood, to take someone's land, to torture prisoners, deprive them of food, and countless other brutal actions that constitute genocide. Ecoside and scholasticide are also part of this and it is happening.  Dehumanizing makes it easier for the colonizers to not feel compassion for their victims as they rob them of their lands and natural resources. In so doing the colonizers thus also dehumanize themselves because they have to desensitize themselves to human suffering. But the victims themselves can also internalize the dehumanization to think of themselves as somehow unworthy or that their life can only gain meaning if they emulate their oppressors and thus become oppressors themselves.  This spiral of dehumanizing can and must be challenged and the obvious way to do it is via our efforts to humanize ourselves and others: show compassion, mercy, love, and connectedness. The struggle is mostly inward and it is our own negativism that must be challenged every day, nay every hour. That is the humanizing struggle that is the hardest struggle of all.

To remind those who may have forgotten, below is the charter of the PLO which was never legally amended (perhaps it should be). Today 8 million of the 15 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people. Most of us are calling for a democratic election to the Palestine National Council per the charter after which some things can be reconsidered democratically by those representing us (Jews, Christians, Muslims). Some of the things we believe would then be brought up and voted upon include the issue of inclusion of all Jewish (now Israeli) residents of the country who reject Zionism/colonialism and the issue of increased emphasis on popular resistance (see my book http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/). Bringing the PNC back to life in a democratic way can ensure modernization, updating, and ultimately success of the mission and goals of the Palestine LIBERATION Organization instead of the current untenable situation hwre a Palestinian authority is disconnected from reality and is irrelevant except in serving the security needs of occupiers. The other option is to create a new PLO that addresses today's main challenge which is the US/Israel intensified efforts not only to liquidate the Palestinian struggle but to liquidate the people of Palestine (genocide) by a most fascist government. We are at a historic moment and the crisis provides an opportunity for renewal now with support of hundreds of millions of people around the world after the genocidal intent of imperial and Zionist forces became as clear as sunlight. Everyone now knows that no durable peace or progress in this area will happen without justice to the Palestinians and ending Zionist racism and creating real democracies. We must agree on tactics and strategy to do this. The alternative is a World War and we all die!

THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL CHARTER
Resolutions of the Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968

Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.
Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.
Article 5: The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian.
Article 6: The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.
Article 7: That there is a Palestinian community and that it has material, spiritual, and historical connection with Palestine are indisputable facts. It is a national duty to bring up individual Palestinians in an Arab revolutionary manner. All means of information and education must be adopted in order to acquaint the Palestinian with his country in the most profound manner, both spiritual and material, that is possible. He must be prepared for the armed struggle and ready to sacrifice his wealth and his life in order to win back his homeland and bring about its liberation.
Article 8: The phase in their history, through which the Palestinian people are now living, is that of national (watani) struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thus the conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are secondary, and should be ended for the sake of the basic conflict that exists between the forces of Zionism and of imperialism on the one hand, and the Palestinian Arab people on the other. On this basis the Palestinian masses, regardless of whether they are residing in the national homeland or in diaspora (mahajir) constitute - both their organizations and the individuals - one national front working for the retrieval of Palestine and its liberation through armed struggle.
Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it. They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Article 10: Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national (watani) struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory.
Article 11: The Palestinians will have three mottoes: national (wataniyya) unity, national (qawmiyya) mobilization, and liberation.
Article 12: The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order to contribute their share toward the attainment of that objective, however, they must, at the present stage of their struggle, safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity, and oppose any plan that may dissolve or impair it.
Article 13: Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary objectives, the attainment of either of which facilitates the attainment of the other. Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity; and work toward the realization of one objective proceeds side by side with work toward the realization of the other.
Article 14: The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab existence itself, depend upon the destiny of the Palestine cause. From this interdependence springs the Arab nation's pursuit of, and striving for, the liberation of Palestine. The people of Palestine play the role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred (qawmi) goal.
Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the
Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
Article 16: The liberation of Palestine, from a spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn will safeguard the country's religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion. Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all spiritual forces in the world for support.
Article 17: The liberation of Palestine, from a human point of view, will restore to the Palestinian individual his dignity, pride, and freedom. Accordingly the Palestinian Arab people look forward to the support of all those who believe in the dignity of man and his freedom in the world.
Article 18: The liberation of Palestine, from an international point of view, is a defensive action necessitated by the demands of self-defense. Accordingly the Palestinian people, desirous as they are of the friendship of all people, look to freedom-loving, and peace-loving states for support in order to restore their legitimate rights in Palestine, to re-establish peace and security in the country, and to enable its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom.
Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self determination.
Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.
Article 21: The Arab Palestinian people, expressing themselves by the armed Palestinian revolution, reject all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine and reject all proposals aiming at the liquidation of the Palestinian problem, or its internationalization.
Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations, in order that friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands safeguarded.
Article 24: The Palestinian people believe in the principles of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and in the right of all peoples to exercise them.
Article 25: For the realization of the goals of this Charter and its principles, the Palestine Liberation Organization will perform its role in the liberation of Palestine in accordance with the Constitution of this Organization.
Article 26: The Palestine Liberation Organization, representative of the Palestinian revolutionary forces, is responsible for the Palestinian Arab people's movement in its struggle - to retrieve its homeland, liberate and return to it and exercise the right to self-determination in it - in all military, political, and financial fields and also for whatever may be required by the Palestine case on the inter-Arab and international levels.
Article 27: The Palestine Liberation Organization shall cooperate with all Arab states, each according to its potentialities; and will adopt a neutral policy among them in the light of the requirements of the war of liberation; and on this basis it shall not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab state.
Article 28: The Palestinian Arab people assert the genuineness and independence of their national (wataniyya) revolution and reject all forms of intervention, trusteeship, and subordination.
Article 29: The Palestinian people possess the fundamental and genuine legal right to liberate and retrieve their homeland. The Palestinian people determine their attitude toward all states and forces on the basis of the stands they adopt vis-a-vis to the Palestinian revolution to fulfill the aims of the Palestinian people.
Article 30: Fighters and carriers of arms in the war of liberation are the nucleus of the popular army which will be the protective force for the gains of the Palestinian Arab people.
Article 31: The Organization shall have a flag, an oath of allegiance, and an anthem. All this shall be decided upon in accordance with a special regulation.
Article 32: Regulations, which shall be known as the Constitution of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, shall be annexed to this Charter. It will lay down the manner in which the Organization, and its organs and institutions, shall be constituted; the respective competence of each; and the requirements of its obligation under the Charter.
Article 33: This Charter shall not be amended save by [vote of] a majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the National Congress of the Palestine Liberation Organization [taken] at a special session convened for that purpose.