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Words of solidarity with the Palestinians and acts of alliance with Israel

November 30, 2021 at 8:55 pm

Israeli forces look on as Palestinian and foreign volunteers and activists pick olives next to the Israeli outpost of Evitar in solidarity with Palestinians on October 10, 2021 [JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images]

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which falls at the end of November of each year, differs in its current circumstances and facts from the past decades, since its was approved by the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1977, in accordance with resolution 32/40 B. It is the same day that coincides with the issuance of the General Assembly resolution to partition Palestine in 1947, which was known as Resolution 181.

In the tangible manifestations of solidarity with Palestine, which vary from time to time, the strong spirit that rejects the occupation appears by expressing solidarity with the victims of the Zionist project in different ways. Solidarity is present in international arenas, squares, and forums, and the flag of Palestine is raised as a reminder of the victims and solidarity with them after every round of attack on the ground.

Last May, during the recent attacks on the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, Gaza, and the occupied Palestinian territories, the level of international and popular solidarity with Palestine rose and, with it, the level of Israeli attacks on organisations, bodies, and movements supporting the Palestinian rights from the Zionist lobby, and from the occupation government that enacts laws criminalising these movements, and voices exposing their actions and racism under the pretext of “anti-Semitism”.

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Despite the importance of the symbolic day of solidarity with the Palestinian people, hope remains confined and deferred until the next day or next year in solidarity with the cause of liberation from occupation and confronting Israel’s aggression and colonial projects. In recent years, the Palestinian and Arab political investment in the Palestinian cause has declined in international and Arab forums, and this was mainly reflected in the solidarity activities with the Palestinian people in the face of the escalating pace of settlement expansion and the intensification of the siege and Judaisation efforts. There was a noticeable change in Arab positions on the Palestinian issue, shifting towards blaming the Palestinian victims, labelling them as terrorists, denying their rights, and, instead, adopting Talmudic and Zionist myths, and glorifying these myths in Arab cities with official Israeli presence in the cities. The Arabs openly allied with the Zionist coloniser, opened their borders and airspace to it, and closed them to Palestinian refugees, expelling them from their countries. They also provided an Arab environment that supports Zionist myths, from the Maghreb to the East. All of this can be described as one of the major defeats of the Palestine issue by Arab politics.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People contradicts its Arabic rhetoric, given its opposite actions in solidarity with a settler-colonial movement. It is no longer an embarrassing or disturbing matter for a representative of the colonial establishment to brag about the achievements of his movement in Arab capitals and to achieve security, economic and political gains at the expense of the Palestinian victims, with official Arab participation that continuously claimed to victims that they were standing by them with slogans that later events and positions revealed the true positions behind them.

Everything associated with solidarity and support is spoken by Palestine’s allies in Arab forums about peace and the rights of Palestinians, but it ultimately became clear that they support the occupying enemy directly or indirectly and allied with them in order to preserve their regimes and their survival was linked to the survival of the Zionist project.

The Arab tyrannical regimes restored the bond between themselves in the stage of counter-revolutions, with a devastating attack on the demands related to freedom, dignity, and citizenship, and demonising any real solidarity with the Palestinian people. This occurred in coincidence with the alliance with the Zionist project after the fall and defeat of the “resistance” regimes in the blood bath of the victims of the Arab revolutions. This also means discarding the slogan of solidarity with the victims and giving the occupier ways to develop its colonial tools.

When the Arab World sells the Holy City - Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

When the Arab World sells the Holy City – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]

True solidarity with the Palestinian people lies in sharing the aspirations of liberation that their Arab brother seeks from the oppression, repression, and enslavement of the Arab tyrant. These are the meanings that the free people of the world in solidarity with Palestine on the five continents realised are needed to get rid of the terrorism of the last colonial project on the face of the earth. The victims of Arab tyranny and dictatorship also realise that their priority of defeating the tyrant means real solidarity to support and protect Palestine, but the tyrants losing the liberation cause in Palestine, and their benefits in the exchange of protection with the Zionist project, only increase the burdens of the victims, not defeats them.

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It is true that confronting the terrorism of the Zionist project falls on the shoulders of owners of the land, as it is said, and it is diminishing the Palestinian struggle, and associating the methods of the Arab revolution against tyrants with terrorism, is extremely dangerous. The criterion for any solidarity with the Palestinian cause is cohesion and solidarity with all issues of Arab liberation, and that was one of the losses of the Palestinian and Arab national liberation movement at the time of the Arab Spring. It is not possible to separate or divide democracy or freedom and citizenship when it comes to a people under occupation and another suffering under the oppression and destruction of a tyrant and the executioner of the country and the people.

Practicing the minimum level of solidarity with Palestine, without exercising the maximum level of solidarity with the victims in Arab squares, cells, cemeteries, and borders means the meanings of solidarity lose their content and action. It pushes the Arab actions towards alliance with the enemy through normalisation between the tyrant and the Zionist coloniser grow every day. Meanwhile,  words and slogans of solidarity with Palestine, even if it is magnified by the ability of the missiles of the imaginary ally of Palestine to “wipe Israel out in seconds” or to boast of having the ruthless force of true solidarity with Palestine on the ground, dwindle and disappear. Therefore, leaving the words for Palestine and the actions to Israel and its allies has deeper effects on the victims.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Arabi21 on 30 November 2021

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