Egyptians have Palestinian blood in their veins

Over the last two days, a video of students and graduates of an Egyptian college of pharmacy, during a trip in Dahab, has spread on social media. The students are dancing and chanting “My blood is Palestinian” after they were provoked by the presence of Israelis on board the boat they were on. It was a spontaneous expression of the Egyptian popular rejection of normalisation with the Israelis, which prompted the Israelis to leave the boat.

There is no need for much research to confirm that the mixing of Egyptian and Palestinian blood is not a metaphor, but rather a fact throughout ancient and modern history, as a result of military campaigns from Egypt to the Levant, joint campaigns in the face of foreign campaigns, emigration due to injustice, persecution and evasion from paying exorbitant taxes, or with the aim of settling for political and military purposes, such as Ibrahim Pasha’s transfer in the nineteenth century of 140,000 Egyptians to settle in the Levant. There was a widespread escape to Palestine from forced labour digging the Suez Canal since 1860,which is why there are villages in Palestine whose residents are of Egyptian origin, such as Kafr Misr, a large part of the residents of Jisr Al-Zarqa on the coast south of Haifa, and many families, especially in the Triangle area and the Gaza Strip, such as the Masarwa, Al-Masry, Al-Baz, Fouda, Al-Rais, Bayoumi, Al-Qarnawi, Al-Basiouni, Al-Nono, Al-Bibi, Ashour, Farroukh, Al-Jayyar, Abu Khadra, Abu Rahma, Al-Astal, Belbeisi, Fayoumi, Al-Beltagy families and many others, in addition to the Negev tribes extending between Egypt, Palestine and east Jordan.

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This means that the blood of the two peoples is actually mixed, not figuratively. As for the reasons that prevent normalisation between the Egyptian people and the Israeli people, it is the growing sense of injustice that the Palestinians are subjected to, or the return of awareness, as well as the rejection of immoral neutrality between the criminal and the victim, and between the occupier and the reality under occupation, which is condemned by international laws. The Egyptian people store painful memories that are still experienced by generations that have not yet departed, memories of Israeli attacks against Egypt and its people. From time to time, terrible facts about the brutality and barbarism exercised by Israel against Egyptian prisoners, soldiers and civilians, during its aggressive wars, where the goal was to kill merely for the sake of killing and in sadistic ways, far from any human feelings, come to light, with confessions from Israeli officers and soldiers. The vast majority of the Israeli public adopts extreme right-wing ideologies; they despise Arabs and view them with arrogance and racism. This arrogance is evident through Israel’s attacks on the holiest cities for Muslims after Makkah and Medina, the changing of its features through population expulsion, demolition, and bulldozing of cemeteries, among other actions. The Egyptian unions stand as an impenetrable barrier to popular normalisation with the occupation state. Egyptian intellectuals, artists, sports fans and lawyers take a firm stance on this issue. The overwhelming majority of them see Israel as a rogue, aggressor state and they realise that the peace agreements between Egypt, Jordan and the PLO and the rush towards normalisation do not lead to peace, but to more barbarism and aggression, and the further uprooting of the Palestinian people from their land. It also leads to the attacks on other Arab countries and peoples, and Israel’s support for the tyrants ruling them.

The tremendous development in the means of communication, with audio and video, has played a very important role in exposing the criminal practices of the occupation, as it is no longer easy to hide what is happening on the ground, and it clearly shows the reality of the occupation and its criminal aims. It exposed the lies and absurdity of the presenters, who were insulting the Palestinians and inciting against them, and accusing them of selling their country. The Palestinians are being expelled from their land and homes, their agricultural crops are stolen or destroyed and they themselves are in danger of death at the hands of the occupiers, all of which is being broadcast live.

The position of the Palestinian people is resistance and whoever holds on to their rights must find solidarity and attentive ears from the people of their nation and the free people of the world. The Arab nations have come to know that the people of Palestine are not only defending themselves but are defending the sanctities of the nation. The general American and Western bias in favour of the occupying state at the expense of the Palestinian people are based on premises and calculations hostile to the entire nation, and not only to the Palestinians. The Egyptian people feel that they are the older brother of the Palestinians, and it is their duty to bear the moral and historical responsibility towards them in all forms and fields. There will be no normalisation between the Arab peoples and the occupation, which attacks, to a humiliating and provocative degree, anyone who carries in their body Arab or human blood.

What the people of Egypt are expressing applies to the rest of the Arab peoples, who bear the same feelings of love and appreciation for the resistant and steadfast people of Palestine in their homeland, and the same feelings of hatred and anger towards the criminal occupiers and their accomplices.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 10 November 2021

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