Steadfastness, the Highest Stage of Palestinian National Struggle

Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman

In 1916, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known as Lenin, wrote his book, ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’ while World War I was raging. In his book, he predicted the geopolitical end result of the war and how the victors would colonize the countries of “the third world” and divide the spoils. It is what we witness today, but in a new form to fit the stage reached in the Palestinian struggle by stating that ‘the Palestinian steadfastness is the highest stage of struggle’, but how and why? It is well known in a historical sense and in view of the new facts created on the Palestinian ground by the Zionist strategy that the highest aim of Zionism, shared by the various Zionist parties, is to preserve the state of Israel as a national homeland well secured for the exclusivity of ‘the Jewish people’ in ‘the Land of Israel’, meaning the totality of the Land of Historical Palestine.

Historically, the Zionist strategy has been designed to achieve two goals: ‘More Land’ and ‘Less Arabs’! Such a colonial strategy being translated in the Palestinian occupied territories of 1967 is the very same that was executed in Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. It is a Zionist/ colonial occupying policy that establishes numerous colonies/ ‘settlements’ exclusively set for Jews to lay a siege on the Palestinians, eventually drive them out and eradicate all traces of any Arab Palestinian presence, as the case was in Palestinian villages in the territories of 1948. The entire Zionist strategy of creating ‘a Jewish Homeland’ in historical Palestine depends on the absolute absence of any Palestinian presence that might ‘pollute’ the ‘purity of the Jewish state’. To attain such a ‘purity’, policies of ‘ethnic cleansing’ must be implemented exactly as when  the Palestinian people were displaced twice from their homes and villages and were consecutively transferred first to the West Bank and other Arab countries in 1948 and, once more, to Jordan in 1967.

The blunt transfer of Palestinians in 1948 and 1967 are taking a new form that appears less harsh, but nevertheless, would yield the same results. New Israeli racist laws have been formulated to force Palestinians to leave Palestine in order to fulfill the ‘more land’ goal of the Zionist strategy to attain totality of historical Palestine and the ‘less Arabs’ goal, to achieve the sought for ‘purity’ of ‘the Jewish state’ with zero Arab Palestinian presence in the land. It is to be remembered that in 1948, the Zionist strategy was executed violently forcing Palestinians to leave their villages most of which were obliterated from existence for ‘security reasons’ to be replaced with a fabricated Jewish identity and presence. Yet, Israel is extremely worried because despite its ethnic cleansing operations since 1948, the number of Palestinians all over the world would in 2050 (if not before) reach around 12 million, compared to eleven and a half million Jews. The number of Palestinians in historical Palestine in 2022 (or before) will equal the number of Jews which makes it urgent for the Zionist strategy to accelerate the rate of ‘transfer’ of Palestinians, otherwise, the Zionist dream would turn into a nightmare.

The Palestinians have no choice now, but to unite to maintain their steadfastness in the face of the bulldozing Zionist strategy which is hell-bent on reducing their presence (preferably) to zero in historical Palestine. All official Israeli talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinians is to win time to complete the ‘transfer’ of the Palestinians with the least resistance coming from them and from the international community. Peace in the Middle East has turned to really mean ‘piece by piece’ of territories that are being annexed in the occupied Palestinian lands without an end in sight. But while various Palestinian resistance organizations are split, busy to carve their spheres of influence in the midst of the darkness of the Zionist colonial occupation, a Palestinian light of hope emerged in 2005 in the form of a grassroots campaign, grouping civil Palestinian organizations in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel. With the support of conscientious people all over the world, its non-violent campaigns are now covering the globe stripping Israel of its legitimacy by exposing it as “a rogue state” outside international law and a major violator of human rights and principles in our world. Yet, the Palestinians can only strengthen and proceed with their steadfastness as one people resisting the Zionist occupation that only seeks their demise, in one way or another, by maintaining their unity centered upon their Palestinian civil national identity. The peaceful resistance carried out around the world by BDS brought in civil groups from various countries to join the Palestinian civil disobedience against the colonial Zionist occupation which has created an apartheid system much worse than the one that existed in South Africa. The civil national Palestinian identity is certain to connect Palestinians with other civil societies around the world. Indeed, what we need now is to see more support for BDS that attracts people from different parts of the world, backing its activities, including Israelis and Jews outside Israel. As the famous writer, Ernest Hemingway once wrote: “A broken man will never be defeated if he maintains his steadfastness and in the end, he would be victorious”. Indeed, the secret word is Palestinian ‘steadfastness’.