The Alternative Information Center

A Palestinian child being brought to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The child was wounded during Israeli military operations in Gaza, 4 January 2009.

The European leaders and their supporting propaganda arms do not miss any occasion, whether important or trivial, to arrogantly demonstrate for us (and the EU-citizenry themselves) their hobby of acting as educator to us, the backwards, underdeveloped nations, and instruct us in the principles of democracy and morality. This tendency pushed us to a stage in which we, the nations who are still living the culture of apes, condemn ourselves as we failed to develop our behavior and awareness to the (expected) level of our master’s desires.

Suddenly, as we watched the flowing blood in Gaza, we awoke from the illusion to discover that we are nothing; we are just numbers in the calculations of those killed and wounded, numbers that have nothing to do with the principles of democracy and human rights.  It is enough that Barak, Olmert, or even Livni declare that we are terrorists in order to utterly mute the European moral teachers.

Suddenly, we discover that democracy has additional connotations in no apparent contradiction to the Israeli occupation. Suddenly we discover that resisting the occupation, whether by leftists or those on the Right, is a type of terrorism for which its practitioners deserve annihilation by F-16s, Apache helicopters and a variety of other destructive machinery. Suddenly we discovered that the women, men, children, and youth in Gaza are marked for death because they resist the Israeli democratic, moral, civilized, and human occupation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the Presidential palace in Cairo. Egypt actively supported Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip.

What is going on in the West Bank in relation to the Israeli attack on Gaza? Why is the reaction not so strong?

The reaction in the West Bank is strongly affected by the internal Palestinian split: the power in the West Bank is presently held by Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. Soon after the 2006 election in which Hamas won, the antagonism between the former Fatah-led PA and the new Hamas government became manifest. This opposition can be read as the difference between two strategic choices: the one represented by the Fatah leadership and supported by many Arab regimes loyal to the USA power, which sees the peace negotiations and the involvement of international institutions as the only way to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The other strategy is the resistance movement, currently led by Hamas with the participation of the leftist groups (PFLP, DFLP), the Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades, the Islamic Jihad and so on. When Israel attacked Gaza 20 days ago, the political position of the PA in the West Bank was clear: “we are not part of the attack.” Therefore, they are using all their power to keep the West Bank as calm as possible, employing the Palestinian policemen in order to prevent any clashes between the Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli soldiers. As a result of this policy, the reactions in the West Bank are not effective enough.

As Livni herself announced several times, the attack on Gaza, which is a massacre, a genocide, is not being done in order to topple Hamas or to stop the firing of the rockets: they are attacking Gaza to destroy any group or any Palestinian movement that sees resistance as the main way to face the Israeli occupation. Only by getting rid of the Palestinian resistance movement will Israel will be able to impose its conditions on the table. The Fatah leadership in the West Bank should take concrete actions against the occupation and should not provide any political cover for the Israeli aggression on Gaza. On the contrary, the PA is acting as a mediator, like Egypt and the other Arab regimes, instead of putting pressure on Israel while the resistance fights to prevent Israel from achieving a real success. Keeping the West Bank calm is of great help to Israel, the same for the Arab regimes that do not take strong positions against the attack. This gives Israel more time to turn the situation in Gaza.to its favor, first militarily and then politically. 

Palestinan women at an anti-Bush protest in Ramallah refuse orders from the Palestinian security forces to leave the protest area.

The 1948 great Palestinian catastrophe (Nakba) and the catastrophes that followed, represent dramatic disconnects between the Palestinian political, social, and cultural structures. However, due to the specificities of the Palestinian social structure and history, the impact has been greatest on the social and psychological situation of Palestinian women. Palestinian women found themselves, both individually and collectively, victims of a disfiguring oppression on various levels, without possessing the appropriate opportunities to adapt. Women suddenly found themselves in the heart of exile, marginalization, and the systematic destruction to which Palestinians in general were subject. From that moment onwards, it has been the struggle of Palestinian women to develop personal, familial, gendered and national strategies to overcome this tragedy and move beyond. 

Surveying Palestinian history since the Nakba up to the present will illustrate how women are an essential part of this history, either directly or indirectly; women are there with their presence, suffering, and their non-stop resistance. 

Last week at the United Nations sponsored NGO Network for a Palestinian-Israeli Peace, the key word was definitely “unity.” That call for unity is coming from the very core of Palestinian society and its national institutions, as an answer to the US-Israeli attempts to provoke splits and divisions. Keeping unity is not only a demand to be addressed to the national leadership and the various political parties, but also a call to preserve the political platform around which a broad Palestinian consensus has been defined throughout the years.