Sometimes Alqam (wormwood) is sweeter than honey

In the darkness that the nation is living through, and in the nightmare of normalisation, a light emanates from within the darkness, from Palestine, as usual and, specifically, from Jerusalem and the West Bank. It was Khairi Alqam who carried the torch this time, the young Jerusalemite who is barely 21 years old, and the young 13-year old Muhammad Aliwat from Silwan in Jerusalem.

Alqam managed to avenge the victims of the Jenin massacre committed by the Israeli enemy, in which 9 innocent Palestinians were killed. Before the blood of the Jenin victims dried, just two days later, he carried out his attack, killing 8 settlers and injuring others. Masses from the wounded Jenin camp celebrating and proudly chanting, “the decision was made from Jenin, a bullet for a bullet and fire for fire”. It was the strongest message to the Zionist enemy, sending the message of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the one who starts is more at fault. They are clearly stating that the Jenin massacre will not pass without accountability.

The Israeli enemy did not have time to recover from Alqam’s attack in the Occupied West Jerusalem before being hit with another attack, just a few hours later. This time it was from the suburban town of Silwan in Occupied East Jerusalem, carried out by a young boy, who is barely 13 years old, Muhammad Aliwat. He shot at the settlers who usurped his land, and injured two with serious wounds, one of whom is an officer in the Israeli Army who was on vacation, according to the Israeli police. He faced the Israeli Forces with rare courage, who pounced on him. He, along with Alqam and other young people resisting the Zionist Occupation, taught a lesson to the normalisers and submissive traitors in dignity, pride and defence of one’s homeland until their last drop of blood. These children and youth are the hope of the nation and they are the ones who will liberate Palestine from the desecration of the Zionist Occupation.

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Alqam summed up his view of qualitative operations in Resistance of the Occupation on his social media, writing “the right sniper at the right place is better than a thousand soldiers on the battlefield”. These were not just words, but actions he took on the ground, at the right time, and he wrote it with his blood on the page of his soul that ascended to heaven to meet his Creator as a martyr. He has followed the procession of heroic Palestinian martyrs who struggled and fought against a usurper occupation, which stole their land before the eyes of the world and enslaved them in it. They have given their lives for the liberation of their homeland, Palestine, since the 1948 war. The procession of martyrs in Occupied Palestine has not stopped for even a day; instead, their numbers grow every day, writing a great history of struggle that is unmatched in the world. They are fighting for a just cause, but the world is one-eyed and only sees with one eye, the hateful Zionist eye that supports the murderous criminal and turns a blind eye to the oppressed victim. We live in a world without conscience, a world of double standards.

It is shameful, and disgraceful that some Arab countries condemn the Jerusalem operation, calling it a terrorist operation and calling Alqam a terrorist. Meanwhile, they bite their tongues and say nothing about the Jenin massacre and many other massacres committed by Israel against the Palestinians every day.

Neither Alqam nor Aliwat, of course, belonged to any Palestinian Resistance faction, like the legendary hero, Uday Al-Tamimi, who was able, despite his young age, to outfox the entire security force of a state that claims to be a superpower and that its army is invincible, and managed to pass through a checkpoint in the city of Shuafat, north of Jerusalem, by-passing the Israeli soldiers guarding it, last year. He shot them and killed a soldier, as well as seriously wounding others and he did not surrender, instead continued to dodge their bullets until he fired the last bullet in his gun and took his last breath, dying a martyr. This is in addition to the five fedayeen who, also, in the same year, carried out commando operations in major cities inside of Israel, in the capital Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Al-Khadera and Bnei Brak. These four attacks resulted in the death of 14 Israelis and the wounding of at least 20 others. Alqam and these five fedayeen succeeded in infiltrating the Israeli security system and carried out their attacks, because they were not planned by a Palestinian organisation or Resistance group. Instead, they were individual initiatives, reminiscent of the first Palestinian Intifada, as they all hit targets in the Palestinian Territories occupied in 1948, which Israel considered to be within its safe borders.

Neither Alqam nor Aliwat, nor these young men had lived in historical Palestine and played in it before the 1948 war, nor do they have beautiful memories of it in their hearts. Instead, they wore their tragedy on their chests. They did not live through the ill-fated Oslo Accords, but rather they are plants who grew from this pure land, the soil of which testified it is Arab and that Palestinian blood flows in his veins. After occupying Palestine, the early Zionists were deluded into thinking that matters were going well for them and that they would be happy in the land that they stole. They thought that their cancerous entity that was planted in a land that was foreign to them, while they were shunned by the surrounding nations, would last forever. Golda Meir expressed this with her infamous saying “the old will die and the young will forget.” However, the old kept the keys of their stolen homes and handed them down to the young, who guarded them and did not and will not forget. They will continue to pass down these keys, generation after generation, until Palestine is liberated from the river to the sea.

These young heroic Palestinians reinstated the just Palestinian cause as a cause of national liberation and not a bargaining chip or a cause of political accommodation that gets lost in the corridors of endless negotiations.

All of this confirms that the Palestinian heart is still alive, beating with freedom, and that it loves life with dignity and price. It did not age like its leaders did, who surrendered to the Zionist enemy, viewing it as a status quo that must be dealt with, along with security coordination and cooperation to rein in the Resistance. Instead, it is a new generation determined to fight for the liberation of Palestine, and it will take a different path that may be compensation for the historical factions of the struggle, such as the Fatah Movement, which betrayed its history and deviated from its path of struggle, under the pretext of the alleged peace and the misguided lie of Oslo Accords. Meanwhile, the PFLP and DFLP, along with other factions, faded in relevance with the signing of political and security agreements, i.e., the agreements of surrender to the Israeli enemy.

Third and fourth-generation young Palestinians will continue the march of their forefathers and prepare for a third Intifada to come, God willing, that will include all the lands of Palestine from the river to the sea. Rejoice, O Zionists, the signs of this Intifada have begun to loom on the horizon, and you will be the first to see it with your eyes and shiver in fear of it. Your mighty military forces that you are deploying across the West Bank cannot protect you from it, as admitted by your military leadership itself, which announced that 55 per cent of the Israeli ground forces are currently deployed across the West Bank cities to face the Palestinian youth in anticipation of a new Intifada. Your agents in Ramallah will not protect you from them, either, including your sacred security coordination authority, led by your agent Mahmoud Abbas, because it is a spontaneous youth uprising without a clear leader that can succumb to the pressures of the military and financial brokers, both inside and outside of Occupied Palestine. They complement the “missile” Resistance in Gaza and embody the honourable national unity that is based on the legacy of Resistance, not the legacy of Oslo, cursed by its puppet men in Ramallah, who are a major disgrace to the history of the persevering Palestinian people.

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