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Palestinians Need Support to Remain Steadfast
By Khalid Amayreh
in Occupied
Palestine
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, August 29, 2015
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Nothing could help the Palestinian cause more than enabling ordinary
Palestinians to put up a resilient steadfastness in the face of a sinister
Zionist strategy aimed at uprooting the national existence of the
Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland. Yes,
steadfastness is the name of the game in Palestine, especially in light of
the virtual liquidation by Israel of any remaining realistic prospects for
the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Steadfastness is
therefore the crux of the matter in Occupied Palestine because without it,
Israel would be able in a matter of few years or decades to drive many or
most Palestinians into a permanent exile. Needless to say, the
Jewish state has failed to achieve this criminal goal not because it
refrained from employing the most nefarious means imaginable to "get the
job done," but rather because Palestinians consistently showed an
extraordinary level of endurance and steadfastness in the face of
Zionist-Jewish oppression, which in many cases transcended reality.
Hence, the same level of steadfastness and resilience that enabled the
Palestinian people to survive all these years, despite the enormity of
Zionist repression, must be maintained and consolidated rather constantly.
Easier said than done But withstanding Israeli oppression and
maintaining the required level of steadfastness have certain requirements
which must be met and maintained. Otherwise steadfastness, and
therefore national survival, would remain confined to the theoretical or
even rhetorical sphere. Yes, the unwavering will to remain
steadfast in the face of Israeli brutality is an almost built-in character
among most Palestinians. Indeed, many would say Palestinians are innately
steadfast and inherently resilient, irrespective of Israeli brutality and
terror. None the less, even this legendary "innate steadfastness"
cannot always be taken for granted. That is why effective measures ought
to be taken to maintain, enhance, and even maximize the Palestinian
ability to remain steadfast as well as shield this steadfastness from
unrelenting Israeli measures intended to extinguish every Palestinian
light and kill every glimmer of hope amongst a people that has survived in
spite of history. What are the Palestinians' needs? We
Palestinians don't expect miracles from the Arabs. We don't expect them to
liberate Palestine from the River to the Sea. We don't even expect them to
liberate al-Quds Ash-sharif and al-Masjidul Aqsa from the clutches of
Zionism. However, there are certain tasks the Arabs could easily
do to enable our people to survive and be steadfast as we have done since
the Nakba 67 years ago. Rich Arab states, such as the Gulf States
and Saudi Arabia, can and should allow more Palestinians to seek
employment opportunities in their respective countries. The Palestinians
are skilled, educated and can be trusted to perform their duties without
endangering the internal security of these states. Palestinians
are Sunni Muslims and wouldn't be duped or used by sectarian regional
powers to undermine the security of the Gulf States. On the
contrary, Palestinians could be utilized to safeguard the security of the
Gulf and Saudi Arabia and they would happily agree to contribute to the
consolidation of that security. At the end of the day, the
Palestinian national cause would eventually benefit from the stability and
security of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. And certainly the
opposite is also true. Besides helping Palestinian find employment
opportunities, either inside Palestine or in the region, oil-rich Arab
states should help subsidize college education in the occupied
territories. We all know, for example, that college tuitions constitute a
huge financial burden for many Palestinian families which are often forced
to exhaust their savings and assets to send their children to college.
Indeed, there are many painful stories about Palestinian college-age
students who have been forced to work at Jewish settlements because their
poor families couldn't afford to send them to college. We must not
hide this embarrassing fact from our rich Arab and Muslim brothers because
in the final analysis, the consequences of poverty often override national
commitment. Moreover, helping poor college students in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip get undergraduate education doesn't mean a huge
financial burden for oil-rich Arab states. In fact, a modest sum
of 20-30 million US dollars per year would resolve the entire problem of
college education in occupied Palestine. More to the point, it would allow
the young Palestinian generations to remain in their ancestral homeland,
thus scoring a definitive historical victory over Zionism. I
realize that there are voices unenthusiastic about invoking anything
Palestinian these days. But such voices are likely to be plagued
with ignorance, maliciousness, ill will or moral and religious bankruptcy.
I say this because the Palestinian issue remains and will always
remain the core national and Islamic problem for Arabs and Muslims
everywhere. It is the mother of all problems, par excellence. In
fact, the Palestinian issue is too paramount to be marginalized, or left
to "others" who would exploit it for their own sectarian ends. In
the final analysis, Arab states (and peoples) would succeed in everything
else if they succeeded in carrying out their duties and commitments toward
the Palestinian cause but would fail in everything else if they failed in
shouldering their duties toward the Palestinian cause. Indeed,
sixty-seven years of official Arab failure should be more than enough to
indict the Arab regimes.
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