"The number of bombs Israel used against Palestinians is estimated to be 50 bombs or rockets to each Palestinian.

"The number of bombs Israel used against Palestinians is estimated to be 50 bombs or rockets to each Palestinian. The number of displaced Palestinians from their ancestral home in more than 415 villages and cities, due to the European Zionist invasion of Palestine, is about 5 million Palestinians. More importantly, without including the destruction of Palestinian villages, cities, homes and farms which can be measured, the psychological suffering and the social and cultural destruction including the destruction of the family bonds which Israel caused to Palestinians through three generations cannot be measured at all. This would explain why the Israeli brutality has managed to add to the amount of anger to an already existed store that was a barrel full of anger. The anger of Palestinians, the anger of Arabs and the anger of the world over the policy of Israel, which still believes that by murdering children it can achieve political solutions, is now a flood of pain and anger. " 

Salim Nazzal

Palestine Caught Between The Culture Of
Life And The Culture Of Death

By Salim Nazzal

Many lessons can be concluded from the Gaza war. The first is the Palestinian's great will to sacrifice to defend their home. Considering the location of the Gaza strip which is surrounded by Israel and the and the pro US Israel; Egypt, and the sea which is blocked by Israeli military boats, and the total unbalance in arms, one cannot conceal the feeling of being proud of the Palestinian resistance.

The second is the failure of Israel's excessive power to achieve anything apart from taking the life of around 450 Palestinian children under 10 years and adding more innocent Palestinians to the graveyards of Gaza following the Zionist saying, "the good Palestinian is the dead Palestinian!” So what would the Israeli leaders tell the three Palestinian children who were found hanging to their murdered mothers in the Gaza war? Would they tell them the groundless lie that they murdered their mothers as self defense!!!? And what does Israel think this generation of Palestinian would feel towards Israel? This type of questions Israeli leaders, drowned in the logic of power, avoid answering, because if they try to confront the questions, they would realize what future the region would have.

So if the Israeli point of the war is to increase the suffering of Palestinians in addition to what it has inflicted on them since 1948, there is no doubt that it has achieved it. But if Israel has thought that it could achieve peace, even from the Zionist point of view, the answer is a big No!

It is a big No because the Zionist mind failed to realize the new realities of the world. The age of the Zionist propaganda machine which presents Israel as, the poor little state! has gone forever. Today, thanks to the Palestinian persistence and determination, and to the friends of Palestine from all faiths and all political stripes, and thanks to the modern technology in information, the near and the far know the reality that Israel is a state run by the Hagana and mossad terror organizations and by a ruthless ideology with zero respect for human rights.

According to the human rights specialist Lyna al Tabal, there is not a single item in the Geneva Convention Israel did not violate. We can mention here the Israeli history, which has the highest record in the history of the UN, of defying the UN resolutions because the leaders of Israel think they are above the international law and they can kill and escape justice. This is a state that has more than 200 atomic weapons which means two atomic bombs for each Palestinian. A state that has wires and check points (a check point means a slow death and daily humiliation for Palestinians) 20 times more than the Nazi checks points during the Nazi occupation of Europe. The number of Palestinians who have been imprisoned since 1967 is 30 times more than the Europeans who went to prison during the Nazi occupation of Europe.

The number of bombs Israel used against Palestinians is estimated to be 50 bombs or rockets to each Palestinian. The number of displaced Palestinians from their ancestral home in more than 415 villages and cities, due to the European Zionist invasion of Palestine, is about 5 million Palestinians. More importantly, without including the destruction of Palestinian villages, cities, homes and farms which can be measured, the psychological suffering and the social and cultural destruction including the destruction of the family bonds which Israel caused to Palestinians through three generations cannot be measured at all. This would explain why the Israeli brutality has managed to add to the amount of anger to an already existed store that was a barrel full of anger. The anger of Palestinians, the anger of Arabs and the anger of the world over the policy of Israel, which still believes that by murdering children it can achieve political solutions, is now a flood of pain and anger.

The Gaza war has revealed without any doubt that the enemies of the Zionist racist ideology are not only Palestinian or Arabs or Muslims but rather the justice and peace lovers all over the globe. There were people of all ethnic and religious background who demonstrated to show their condemnation of the state of Israel. There were Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, communists, and non religious people who all joined in demonstrations against the suffering and the massacre of Palestinians. Luckily, despite the sad atmosphere we have seen the emergence of an alliance of cultures which stood united against Zionism probably for the first time in the history of the conflict.

Therefore the Palestinian resistance is a reaction to occupation. The occupation comes first; the resistance comes as a natural reaction.

Palestinians have every right to resist the occupation following article 1 of the additional protocol of the Geneva conventions 1977 which states clearly that:

(Armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination).

The question is if all that Israel did in occupation, displacement and torture does not deserve resistance, what resistance is about, and how do you then explain all the history books which teach about the resistance of peoples against foreign invaders. Why do all history books glorify the resistance fighters who sacrificed their lives for their nations, while it seems Palestinians are exempted from this right. What is the resistance in the history of a people about then, if not about fighting the occupation? Why should the Palestinian resistance be the exception of these resistances, when the UN gave the occupied nations the right to resist?

Why do all nations make museum for their freedom fighters as I saw at a museum of resistance in a European country where the guide told us proudly how the resistance, during the Nazi occupation, invented various ways of communication and obtained arms for resistance. Is it not that very same thing which Palestinians are doing now? Is there any difference between fighting the Nazi (superior race!) occupation in Europe and (the chosen people!) occupation in Palestine? If the European resistance was legal and source of pride, how can Europe explain its role in sending boats to prevent smuggling weapons to the resistance when it has no power to oblige Israel to abide by the UN resolutions and international laws. Palestinian resistance uses homemade rockets, made in blacksmith shops, which have killed 13 settlers during 8 years, according to Israeli human right organization Btselem. These rockets are rather symbolic in value; it sends a message to Israel and the world that the Israeli occupation is not the Palestinian destiny.

Europe's position can be more in harmony with itself if they say to Palestinians, stop the resistance, we will impose sanctions on Israel and force it to abide by the UN resolutions. But when the EU upgrades the relationship with Israel and does nothing to stop Israel from occupying and torturing Palestinian, what right do they have to call for stopping smuggling arms to Gaza. Unfortunately, the European position toward Palestine has been a double moral position throughout recent history. In 1801, Napoleon killed, in cold blood, 3 000 Ottoman prisoner-soldiers, mostly Palestinians in Gaza, under the worst of excuses that he has no food for them.. This is the double standard in its clearest form yet they talk in France about brotherhood,

Equality and justice, while in Palestine there murdered unarmed prisoners. The same position as in 1948, when the European powers celebrated the human right declaration, while, at same time, arming Jewish terror organization in Palestine to displace Palestinians. Therefore Palestinians demand that Europe stick to its own principles towards Palestine and divorce forever the double standard policy towards Palestine.

European politicians must reflect the attitudes of most Europeans who saw the Israelis state endanger the international peace. It is time that the EU put the Hagana organization (which is called the Israeli army) on the list of terror organization and European courts must issue warrants to arrest any Israeli war criminal who comes to Europe.

What we urgently need is to open all crossing to Gaza because it is a big shame that Europe is engaged in stopping small arms to the resistance in Gaza while turning a blind eye to Gaza which Zionists have made a concentration camp. It is big shame for Europe, the US, and humanity, that no one is willing to press Israel to let Gaza live a natural life. It is a big shame that we must demand from Europe a very basic thing which should have been a matter of course. In fact if Europe wants to be more truthful it must send anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets to the Palestinian resistance to help them to resist better.

Weakening the fist of Zionism is in the interest of all Europe, which the Israeli atomic bombs can reach it in few minutes, and in the interest of the USA which is more or less occupied by the Zionist lobby, which has disturbed its relationships with many countries around the world.

The Palestinian dream is to live free in the Palestinian ancestral home. Palestinians wants to develop their culture away from the Zionist culture of war and hate. This is the essential difference between the Palestinian culture based on farming and singing their traditional songs in the times of harvest, and the Zionist culture of murder and destruction. This is the point that a Palestinian from Gaza told a human right organization that (Israel does not understand that the Apache helicopters and Markova tanks don't give them power. Power comes only from the soul).Well I doubt that Zionist war criminals would understand what this Palestinian was saying.

Miriam Baouardy, the Palestinian saint who died in 1878 and was beatified at the Vatican in 1983, has perhaps drawn the vision of Palestinians. Miriam's heart was opened to love despite all the wounds she had been through. Reverend Amedee Brunot, SCJ, the author of the book, Miriam the Little Arab, wrote what a greater message of hope could there be today in the troubled Near East than to tell the Palestinians: here is a young girl of your race, your language and of one of your most honored rites?

This is the state of the grandchildren of Miriam Baroudy whose name has become a synonym for pain and suffering but also for heroism. While native Palestinians resist Zionist hate culture they extend hands to the non Zionist Jewish immigrants in Palestine for a peaceful future for both. Palestinians prefer to compete with the Jewish community in Palestine in football grounds and in musical halls and not in wars. This view is related to the Palestinian vision which views as Palestine more than a piece of land, but rather as a unique place where God is glorified through synagogues, churches and mosques. Yet this vision contradicts greatly with the Zionist racist culture which converted Palestine into a field of experimenting with arms instead of peace and coexistence. In light of this we see in the conflict in Gaza now and in the conflict in Palestine during the past 61 years, a conflict between the culture of racism and the culture of coexistence.

The writer is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian on the Middle East, He has written extensively on social and political issues in the region. He can be contacted at: 

snazzal@ymail.com

Based on a lecture in Oslo .January 2009

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!