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