Do we still believe in David and Goliath?

At a recent conference in Beirut, international NGOs convened to discuss the “Global Campaign to Return to Palestine”. More than 100 delegates represented organisations based in 33 countries, including Palestine, Lebanon, Britain, South Africa and the US.

As Israel’s lawless, apartheid nature is revealed to the world, civil society is waking up and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice. Activists include academics, journalists, union leaders and ordinary people; they can see through the Zionist-Israeli propaganda and its colonialist agenda. If any proof of this was needed, said my colleague from the Media Review Network, Dr Firoz Osman, just look at the 200,000 demonstrators from all walks of life who filled the streets of Cape Town earlier this year. Such massive pro-Palestine demonstrations were held all over South Africa.

Dr Osman was one of a number of speakers at the conference who bemoaned the fact that Palestinians in the diaspora and refugee camps across the Middle East are living under deplorable conditions as a result of the creation of the settler colonial apartheid state called Israel. They called for unity and solidarity around the world for the Palestinian cause.

Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem are facing the same sort of challenges as those in Gaza and the West Bank. There are 11 checkpoints around the city; health and municipal services favour Jewish settlers; taxes and traffic fines are imposed deliberately on Palestinians; drug dealers from the immigrant settler communities are paid by the Zionist authorities to destroy the lives of Palestinian youths; the destruction and demolition of Palestinian homes is a daily occurrence. This is all part of the Zionist agenda of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the indigenous people. The Judaisation of Jerusalem and the rest of occupied Palestine goes ahead unabated.

The West Bank is controlled 100 per cent by the Israeli occupation authorities. The Oslo Accords and the security cooperation between the security forces of the Palestinian Authority and Israel are a stumbling block on the road to peace. Speakers at the Beirut conference said that change must happen otherwise the assurances given by various “leaders” will ring as hollow as their words after successive Israeli massacres of civilians in Gaza. Mahmood Abbas, who was recently feted in South Africa, was referred to as “toothless”. The sooner that he and his cronies realise that salaries and fancy cars will not buy freedom for the Palestinians the better they will all be.

Archbishop Attalah Hanna addressed the conference via a satellite link from Jerusalem. He called for unity among the Palestinian leadership. Noting that the conspiracy against Syria was serving the interests of Zionism the Christian leader called for Arabs to unite in defending Palestine. His linkage of Syria and Palestine was particularly interesting because it shed light where media and propaganda shed darkness.

Other speakers included the former elected Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, (also via satellite, from Gaza) and the Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, Shaikh Naeem Qassem. Both praised the resistance and the resilience of Palestinian civilians during the recent massacre in the Gaza Strip.

Although too many analysts and journalists seem to be wary of writing about the misdemeanours of the colonialist state of Israel, those attending the conference had no such fear; nor did they doubt the morality and truth of what the speakers were reporting. As the Middle East burns and legions of Western politicians and soldiers fret about threats to their national “interests”, Israel is allowed to continue with its colonial and racist crimes. The blood of the Palestinians drips from Western hands as they collect the dollars and run. The global struggle for justice exposes Western hypocrisy, which insists on “democracy” for Syria and Iraq while it backs Israeli colonialism in Palestine; laws are changed to ease international travel for war criminals, who are enriched in the process.

On the final day of the conference the participants visited a museum in Southern Lebanon, where they were reminded of Israel’s occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2006. It was then that the region’s only nuclear power, backed by the US and Europe, was finally pushed out of Lebanon. Israel suffered its greatest defeat at the hands of a well- disciplined group of resistance fighters. The planning, resilience and strategy of Hezbollah, the militia which inflicted this humiliation, is still admired with awe by analysts. The resistance fighter behind the museum, Imad Moghniya, was assassinated by agents believed to belong to Israel’s Mossad and the CIA, in 2008 in Damascus. This was indeed a classic “David and Goliath” scenario.

Do we believe that another David and Goliath result can occur in Palestine? Indian author Arundhati Roy has written: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Palestine is not only breathing, it is moving towards freedom.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.