Palestine lives
Jul 20, 2023
We are all one and liberation is our destiny.
Many friends and compatriots are asking, where are you? Why the silence, when Jenin, your birthplace is burning? Why haven’t you commented on the worst deadly assault by the Israeli Occupation forces in the last 20 years?
What about the Palestinian Authority’s Security Forces’ stance during the assault?
What about the reaction of the people of Jenin to the fleeting visit of Mr Mahmoud Abbas, AKA, Abu Mazen, and his cronies when the dust finally settled?
And, of course, what did I think about the status of the continuing, destructive division between Hamas, Gaza and The West Bank, Fateh?
The simple fact is what could a man like me, a survivor of the Nakba, who, through the decades, has seen a ruthless Israeli Juggernaut hurtling on, while the PA’s Security Forces, 80,000 of them, sat on the sidelines? Not only to watch, but arrest young Palestinian fighters on their way to help their besieged brothers in the camp.
I was struck dumb. I could barely speak, let alone write. What else is there for me to say, I asked myself?
Haven’t I said it all, seen it all, despaired over it all, over and over and over again?
I know that those, not only in the Jenin Refugee Camp, but throughout the whole of Palestine, my compatriots, are facing these thoughts on the ground. They wake up to the physical presence of humiliation, death and disaster each and every day. And I could think of no more to say.
Looking back on it, I suppose I could blame health issues. A virus that has hurtled through the family, hitting each of us, one by one, didn’t help. But now? What can I say?
During my illness I trawled between TV stations and group pages from Jenin and personal accounts of Palestinian activists. What I saw heard and read fills me with dread. I couldn’t even bring myself to comment. Nobody, but nobody is raising a hand to say; ‘wait a minute, we got it wrong. This is not about partisan loyalty. This should be about patriotism, saving our people under occupation, getting rid of the occupation and stopping the cancerous advance of settlers and settlements.’
It is not about why the people who run the Palestinian Authority, FATEH are not doing anything, because they are benefitting personally from their positions of no power. Or because the people of HAMAS who run Gaza are comfortable with the millions they receive from Qatar and other donors, it’s about Palestine. It’s about the fate of our struggle. It’s about the destiny of our people.
The cry should not be ‘I am from Fateh’, or ‘I am with Hamas’, I am with ‘Islamic Jihad’ etc. etc.
The cry should only be, ‘I am a Palestinian’. I am a Palestinian who will do and give all to liberate our land and to free our people. Not an Arab, not a Muslim, not a Christian, not anything at all. I am a Palestinian and Palestine is my only cause and liberation is my only aim’.
As to where we are going now, unless every Palestinian everywhere in the world, swears by what I have just written, and sheds the partisan shackles and forgoes any benefit that the ‘Status Quo’ is bringing to him or her, we are lost.
Israel is hell-bent on wiping us out, our history, our culture, our very existence is to be destroyed. Gone from the world consciousness. The international mass media is singing from the same hymn sheet. So are the creators and enablers of Israel.
The cry should be ‘We are all one and liberation is our destiny.’
It is the only way.
Jafar Ramini
Jafar M Ramini is a Palestinian writer and political analyst. He was born in Jenin in 1943 and was five years old when he and his family had to flee the terror of the Haganah Militia. He lived in London for 53 years before coming to Perth two years ago. Justice for the people of Palestine is a life-long commitment.
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